Some Progress and Some Sweet Deliveries

Today turned out to be a great day.  First, there was no rain although it was chilly with 35 mph winds all day.  A little easier to take when the sun is shining though!

Happy to report I've made some progress on my June OMG, as all nine embroidered blocks are now quilted.  "All" that remains now are quilting the cornerstones, the two borders, and adding the binding.  Doable I think by the end of the month.  Here's a sneak peek of progress to date.

Basically just outlining and then echoing the embroidered elements and then loosely filling in the white areas with meandering loops and leaves, etc.  Quilting these blocks was very slow as some areas of embroidery used large stitches that the open-toe fmq foot managed to snag when I wasn't paying attention.  So very happy to call these done.

The Fedex truck brought a couple of dandy surprises this afternoon.  I was a winner of last month's One Monthly Goal link up hosted by Patty at Elm Street Quilts, and this was my prize - a barn quilt by putaquiltonit.com.  Wowsers, is this ever nice!  I've wanted to make a barn block for our barn for years, but never got around to it.  This is perfect, waterproof and fade resistant, not to mention beautiful!

Kristi Coupe, the owner and designer of these barn quilt blocks, gave me a choice from their current inventory, and I chose this one as the colors would look great on either the barn or the garage or house.  For the moment it is decorating a corner of the dining room while we decide which building to install it. The barn blocks come extremely well protected with corner guards and packed in a heavy duty box with a couple layers of bubble wrap, as well as a packet of installation hardware.

Oh yes, I mentioned a couple surprises.  The second was won a while back on Wendy's (Wendy's Quilts and More) Peacock Party:  a collection of Aurifil 12 weight threads called Passionflower by designer Jo Avery.  I see a future whimsical bright quilt for my granddaughter with big stitch hand quilting with these lovely threads.

A big thank you to the prize donors and to Patty and Wendy who host the One Monthly Goal and Peacock parties respectively.

Last but certainly not least, our first surprise of the week arrived on Sunday afternoon, and seems to have adopted our back porch as his new home.

This little no-name arrived totally emaciated, but seems otherwise in good condition, likely a "country road drop-off."  He seems quite young, but is going to be a very large boy when he's full grown.  He's very tall and long right now, but light as a feather.  Not much more to him than skin, fur and bones, though we're working at remedying that!   He seems very gentle and good natured, desperate for affection, obviously not a feral cat.  We're still trying to decide on a name, Oscar is in contention but I'm open to suggestions.  If he sticks around for another week or so, we'll get him to the vet for shots and a general checkup, then the other necessities.  He already has a kitty bed with a quilt on the covered porch, though he has also commandeered one of the cushy chairs out there.  He's also quite the "talker."

That about wraps up my week.  Linking with Wendy's Peacock Party.
Til next time, happy stitching!