July Friday Night Sew In & A Summer Midnight Rain

Summer is so busy, but I did find time to do the Friday Night Sew In.  Below are my results. 

I am completely finished with 9 out of 24 blocks on my Courthouses steps lap quilt.  My other blocks are getting very close to done to.  My goal is to have this top together and ready to be machine quilted by September. 

On an extremely hot summer evening there's nothing like a nice shower to help the crops grow.  Below is a night time picture our rain.

Like many other farm families, we spend time out on the porch in the evenings.  I like the special times with family and friends watching it rain.

Thank you Nathan and Jeanna for coming for a wonderful visit!!!

Happy Quilting,

Kay Lynne

Real Heroes and Summer Flowers

My husband's fire pager went off a few days ago while he was at work on a very hot afternoon.  I half listened until I heard the location of where the fire was at and realized that the fire was just down the road from our home.  I'm never happy about fires, but this was only a wheat stubble fire and it wasn't going to harm anyone's buildings.  I'm sure that the heat and smoke didn't help the corn field that is north of this burning field.

Anyone who is willing to put on fire gear on a 90 degree plus day and willing to work out in the hot sun to put out a fire is a special person in my book.  I'm proud of my husband for wanting to be a volunteer fireman and giving back to the community.  There have been joyful experiences and heartbreaking ones, but being there for someone in need is what life is all about!  Firemen--they are true unrecognized heroes!

Even though my house is being resided, I do have a few pretty flowers that have escaped being trampled on!  The broken mug above was given to me by my sister.  Why would she give me a broken mug?  She knows that I like pottery and the cute little gingerbread man would look great in my flower bed.   

My sister has some of the neatest flowerbeds with so many surprises.  Check out some of her older posts and you will see that she even has a sewing machine in her flowerbed on her May 28th post!  You can find her at http://quiltcrazygaljennalouise.blogspot.com/
What an honorable way to retire a sewing machine that otherwise would be in the landfill!

Don't forget the Friday Night Sew-In is this week!

Happy Quilting

Kay Lynne

Quilt Ruler Connector Product Review, & Bees in the Wrong Place

At the NQA Quilt Show in I found another product that I think is worth buying.  It is called the "Quilt Ruler Connector".

This handy little tool connects your quilting rulers with little suction cups as pictured below.

You can connect any ruler side-by-side, end-to-end, and corner square as pictured above.  It's one of those tools that are just handy.  For more information go to http://guidelines4quilting.com/

Please let your local quilt shop know about this handy little tool.  I also want to make a comment on rulers.  As you can see in the picture, I use different brand rulers.  Please make sure that the measurements on all your rulers are the same.  I have found by experience that even rulers can be inaccurate.  It's easy to just simply match the markings up just to make sure before you cut your fabric.

There always seems to be something exciting happening around the farm.  We have been remodeling our home and we had some uninvited guests.

Yesterday afternoon I was surprised by bees in my sewing room.  I quickly vacuumed them up in the shop vac and went outside to investigate and they were burrowing into the house.  

Apparently most of the swarmed didn't like their new home and hopefully found a wonderful spot in the woods somewhere.  Now there's only a few left and a sigh of relief from me and my husband.  We like bees and all the wonderful fruits and vegetables that they pollinate for us, but we don't need to live in the same house!!!

Happy Quilting

Kay Lynne

Invisi-Grip Product Review & Wheat Harvest,

Since there is not much sewing going on in my sewing room, I decided to do a quilting product review.  The new product I like is Invisi-Grip.

Invisi-Grip is an invisible and removable film that will stick to your ruler.  I am presently working on a pineapple quilt where there are many strips that have to be cut with the rotary cutter.  When I taught quilting, most beginner quilters always had a problem with their ruler slipping.  Invisi-Grip puts a stop to that problem.  There is also a side benefit-- it protects the markings on the back of your ruler.  I have been known to wear off the markings on rulers in the past.

 

On a Five Star system I give Invisi-grip five stars.  I bought this product from Leah Day on her online store.  You can find her under 365 Free Motion Designs on my blog list.  If your local quilting shop doesn't carry this item, please tell them about it.  Its money well spent.

We are harvesting wheat today!  Hopefully, there will be no surprises like we had last year.  Our combine had caught fire!  We were well blessed with very minimal damage, great firemen, and a wonderful farming neighbor.  Tim combined the rest of the wheat since our combine needed some new parts and the wheat couldn't wait.  We also had other neighboring farmers offer to help.  It's great to live in a neighborhood that is there when you need them.  I've found that the greatest thing you can do is to serve others.  I never thought that one day we would be on the receiving end!  I hope that this wheat season is a safe one for all farmers.

Hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July!

Happy Quilting

Kay Lynne