Positivity Quilt Top and Summer Highlights

I missed the link-up for the Positivity QAL finishes, but rather than listing my excuses, none of which are good, let's focus on the positive.  I have a top done!

This is pretty much the sum total of the summer sewing around here, so woo-hoo! :)

I thought I might have a fully finished quilt to show you, but no dice.  I did piece a backing and Franken-sewed a batting together for it this past weekend, but then realized this baby is kind of big to baste in the usual spot on my kitchen floor.  I think it's doable, but I'm going to have to make a plan, move some things, mop, etc., so it's going to have to wait a little bit longer.

Tomorrow I'm checking into a nice hotel in preparation for a colonoscopy the following day.  Flushing a couple hundred bucks down the toilet for the privilege, but at least I won't have to drive an hour to the hospital in morning traffic the day of the procedure, which seemed a bit too risky, if you know what I mean.  The procedure is a routine thing (mostly), since it's been over 10 years since the last one.  Suffice it to say, I'll be glad when it's, uh, behind me.

The summer has really flown by, but I've enjoyed it.  Reading, walking, putzing, biking, spending time with friends, crafting, etc.  

A friend and I got together a couple weeks ago to make cork fabric wreaths.  We missed the class at Sallie Tomato last fall due to unforeseen circumstances, so we held our own on one "craft-ernoon" and put them together.  They turned out very cute!

On a little day trip this summer, hubby and I stopped at an antique shop where I admired this vintage quilt.  

The price was reasonable, but I didn't take it home, just took pictures.  Love all the sweet fabrics and hand quilting.

Another recent highlight was spending a day with my great-niece and my sister (her grandmother).  We took a long walk, toward the end of which I offered a little horsey-back ride.  

Eight years old is a magical age of enthusiasm, spark, humor, and curiosity—and it's contagious in the best way!

~Paulette

Junk Journal July - Days 21 to 31

This is a summary of the final 10 days of Junk Journal July hosted by @megjournals.  If you missed the two previous posts about this junk journaling challenge and are curious, you can catch up here and here.

During this last stretch, I skipped around, and some days I skipped completely but then caught up by combining a couple of prompts in one layout.  For simplicity's sake, though, I'm going to arrange this summary in chronological order.

Day 21 - FOCUS was the prompt.  I used bits of what I hesitate to call junk mail, as it was very useful and inspirational.  I was worried my Venn diagram would be lost on the page, so the big circle was an afterthought, but it does pull the whole thing into better focus, I think.  This one was fun!

Day 22 - BLENDED. I used a blend of fabric and paper in this one, and there is a nice blend of bathing suit imagery across several decades of the 20th century. I found these images in an old photo album from the 1910s.  I love the handwritten captions on them!  Can you imagine swimming in that garb now?  The photos were small black and white ones, but on the morning I made this page, I had the idea to upload and run them through the colorize process on MyHeritage.com. Turned out pretty interesting, and it's one of my favorite pages!

Day 23 - MAXIMALISM. If you say "go big or go home," most of the time I'll happily do the latter. Anyway, I tried, lol.  This one's got gold mylar, junk mail, dried flower book images, butterfly transfers, and a really old picture of my hometown's main bridge from 100+ years ago.

Days 24-26 - PAINT SPLATTERS, PEACEFUL, and MEMENTO.  I didn't plan it this way, but it happened that this page ticked the boxes for three days' worth of prompts.  Black and red tempera paint splatters and doodles made the background interesting.  Then I collaged on some graphics from a magazine recipe page from the 1990s over some fabric squares.  Cooking and baking (and fabric) are very peaceful things for me, my happy place.  

The memento is my mom's recipe card for one of her favorite old-time cookies.  I made the pocket for it from the cellophane wrapper from a package of stickers.

Day 27 - STRIPPED BACK. This was a nice change from the maximalism page. The circled words are my attempt to create a poem from this random vintage book page.  It reads:

Early

she had decided

(you hafta go for more)

to walk

with considerable wind,

curious.

Days 28-29 - STENCILING and GEOMETRIC.  I made an easy scissor-cut stencil of diamond and heart shapes and stenciled that onto a brown paper bag. My geometric interpretation was pretty broad, but you can identify circles, squares, rectangles, etc. I used a vintage pattern again, the inside of a junk mail return envelope, a Mary Engelbreit greeting card a friend sent me recently, and I folded some of the pattern tissue into a gathered skirt and gave it a "Sew Easy" waistband. A fussy-cut fabric flower adds the final embellishment.  Another one of my favorite pages!

Day 30 - FAVORITE QUOTE.  I don't know why, but I went into this day thinking the prompt was favorite poem (not quote) which was a tossup between Mary Oliver's Wild Geese and Wendell Berry's The Peace of Wild Things.  Oops, my mistake.  I pasted those onto a page anyway but did little else to really embellish the page (no picture).  I did, however, have a couple of quotes already pulled for the final page, so I went ahead and worked on that.

Day 31 - FAREWELL.  My farewell quotes were applied to either side of a tag covered with pattern tissue paper and a little golden butterfly.  A throwback to Day 1's theme of beginning, these quotes were about ending, and that felt like a good way to tie things together to wrap up Junk Journal July.

On the back of the page, which originally came from an old cookbook, I pasted a cookie recipe in my mom's handwriting, which she had jotted on the back of a deposit slip.  She must have needed a quick piece of paper to copy a recipe someone was sharing, and that made me smile.  I don't remember her making these cookies, so I tested out the recipe myself.  The cookies were just okay, but I had to substitute ingredients to make them gluten- and dairy-free, so that may have been where they fell short.  Anyway, a good place to scrapbook the recipe, and maybe I'll try it again sometime.

Whew!  That was a good creative challenge.  I am happy for it to conclude, at least the daily obligation of it, and move on to sewing-related things again.  Glad I spent some time in the junk journal world, though.  It was a nice vacation!

~Paulette