Some of This and That

Great Granny Along blocks are coming from my sewing room, disorganized as my sewing space is. 

Ten blocks are done, and here you see them on my new design wall. I don't know how a quilter can function without a design wall. I stewed over several ways to put this up, particularly because I can't yet bring myself to pound the first nail into the walls of this brand new house!

The fabric is 108-inch wide white flannel purchased from Fabric.com. Three sides are double-folded hems, with a 2-inch sleeve at the top. The "bar" inside is two yard sticks duct-taped together! I went with a lightweight rod because the entire thing is hanging by magnets.

Three pieces of 3M wall-mount adhesive strips are along the ceiling. Glued to each strip is a heavy-duty, round magnet. Glued to the long yard sticks, in three matching positions, are another three magnets. (If you do this, be sure you have the magnets glued on with the poles the proper direction!) Even through the fabric sleeve, the magnets are strong enough to hold together. 

Playing with the BSR on my new Bernina Aurora 440, I'm figuring out how to FMQ without using a foot control - just by moving the fabric. There's quite a different feel to this quilting than when I'm controlling the stitch length. I sure like the texture of this design.

Quilting is with YLI white polished polyester thread that I won. It's pretty, but slippery. I'm taking plenty of securing stitches so stitches don't come undone. By the way, if you see bits of orange in the quilting, that's the color of the Frixion pen used to draw straight lines.

Since I'm attending Happy Stitchers every Wednesday afternoon, I've managed to finish a couple more embroidered blocks in the Snowmen A to Zzz project.

Only two blocks remain to be finished! Letters "T, U, V" together in one block; and "Z."

On the home front, it's taking a long time to feel like The Villages is home because it still feels like we're on vacation! I love going everywhere on the golf cart. The scenery and landscaping is beautiful and the weather is great. (It's not even as hot here as it's been in Iowa!) Whether I'm going to a Saturday sewing group or line dancing lesson; making a quick run to the grocery or stopping at Walgreen for odds and ends; or going to Sumter Landing Market Square for live music and dancing, I can go in the golf cart! It's just plain fun!

From a golf cart road, this is a south view of The Villages where so much new construction is happening. The growth is pretty hard to believe. If you look closely, you can see the streets, street lamps, and even street signs for another new neighborhood. 

Golf courses are always a priority and this one is nearing completion. Behind the trees is either a new country club or a recreation center. I love pedaling my bicycle around the new neighborhoods because the streets are quiet. It's heartening to see an area that's thriving, and where the economy is booming.

In Tuesday's newspaper, The Villages sales offices published this information.

Those numbers mean that in The Villages sales offices alone, they've sold an average of 345 homes a month! Pretty incredible numbers I'd say, given housing sales in the rest of the country.

In small increments our house is looking more like home. I've finished painting for now. I'm lovin' all the fresh white furniture, but now I need some bright color. The rocker will get a cushion, and the lamp will get a new shade.

Two palm frond lamps were an online order (Wayfair.com) and I'm pleased with how perfectly they suit the furniture!

However, the rugs ordered online did not work out perfectly. In fact they were awful. We ordered two different sizes of the same rug design (see previous post) and this is what the small one looked like when it arrived. Comparing my picture with the web picture, there isn't a bit of the red in the web picture. And the binding was burgundy! At our own shipping expense, we've returned this rug and cancelled the order for the larger one. Ugh. It's back to rug shopping again, but this time not online.

Sharing some news... "Snowflake Medallion," the quilt many of you have seen dozens of times already, has been juried into the AQS (American Quilter's Society) show that will be in Des Moines, Iowa, October 3-6. I'm pretty darned happy about that. Before Snowflake heads to Des Moines, it will be shipped to Colorado to be photographed by "Quilter's Newsletter" magazine for a future issue! Oh, and "Life is a Celebration: Nature" will be photographed there too. Gotta love those Aussie designers - Emma Jansen and Kellie Wulfsohn - for making my quilting look good.

This morning I'm going to a class about palm trees at The Villages Lifelong Learning College. I think you all know how much I love palm trees. Oh, and my attempt to sprout a palm tree from a seed? Well, that failed. Rotted, actually.

Today we're also making a point of eating at Chick-fil-A. It's Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, to show support for the company's biblical values. If you're in the US, I hope you're eating there too! Linda