ALYOF June Goal Complete

With the total lack of time I've had in June to do anything Quilty, I am amazed that I completed my goal for A Lovely Year of Finishes.  I'm still not sure if this qualifies as a 'finish' except I did 'finish' this goal, which was to get the fabric cut out for my niece's wedding quilt.

There it is: a stack of pieces. I actually was able to get all the half squares sewn in half and cut. Now I need to iron them out and trim.  The wedding is the third week in August, so I have some time, but I am going to try to get it finished by the end of July.

And in the spirit of summer, I'll share just a couple of vacation pictures with you.  We traveled to Oregon to help our son celebrate his graduation from college - YES!  Then we took a grand tour down the coast all the way to northern California to see the Redwoods, then back up to Medford to see an old friend, and then over to Bend so I could do a convention for my Day Job. Just got home last night. This was the first time in more than 30 years that we have taken two weeks away from work at the same time. HOW FUN IT WAS!!! Awesome good fun.  I think retirement might be A-Okay.

Here I am in front of the Needles of Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach, Oregon. I love the ocean!

Hiked along the Deschutes River near Bend, Oregon. Wished we had our fishing rods with us - beautiful stream.

Back to my desk work and then tomorrow is a Quilting Day - hurray!

Always quilt with a smile,
Barb

Linking up to ALYOF

My Goal for June

I'm not sure if this will qualify for the Lovely Year of Finishes, but I have it down for my 2014 Finish Along Goal and so I'd really like to get it done. At least, get this step done.

These are my gatherings.  I've been getting fabrics together over the past year, found a backing fabric (the one with lasso ropes) and then I had to come up with a pattern. I know - kinda backwards thinking:  get fabric first, then find the pattern. Well, I guess that's how my feeble brain works because I do that all the time!

So as I was shifting through all my patterns, I decided upon this Dizzying Diamonds. And then I looked at it closer, and it's a pattern designed by our dearly beloved blogging friend, and co-host of this ALYOF, Melissa of Bittersweet Designs. So this will be a fun project!

The quilt is for my niece's wedding in August. She's a true cowgirl, and her fiance's a tried and true cowboy, so they should like it. See? It's high time I get 'er done.  But I have almost no opportunity to work on anything quilty in June, so my goal is to get all the pieces cut out. That's it. Get that step done, and then when I have 10 minutes here or there, I can sit down and start piecing it together. Good plan!

The remaining photos in this post are just random photos of flowers in my garden. The entire garden is doing so much better this year than last - bigger blossoms, lasting longer. Or so it seems. We had some hard frosts last year which I think put a damper on a lot of flowers. Crossing fingers that won't happen this June.

I'm not too prejudice - I let dandelions bloom once in awhile!

Here's hoping everyone enjoys their weekend. It's an excellent one for me - I've finished Seminar Week From H??? traveling the far corners of our state, and now our daughter has come for an impromptu visit from Seattle.  So I've got some quality time to go spend with her before she flies back tomorrow.

Barb