Christmas in July in the Big Apple

Hello, hello! Since the flurry of finishes in my last post, I haven't had too much to blog about. We moved the boat all the way from Palm Beach to New York City in one long hop. The seas were very calm and I was able to sew a little bit each day. I also straightened things up in the studio and did some ironing with all the extra power the boat engine puts out while we're moving.

We arrived in New York in time for Independence Day, some nice fireworks, and the announcement of red as the RSC color of the month. Since then, I've been puttering away in the studio, doing little projects. I worked on my red blocks, made a couple secret project blocks, a whole bunch of miscellaneous crumb blocks, and some red, white and blue star blocks for Kat's latest Covered in Love drive. It's all felt rather patriotic.

We also had a major medical crisis with this little nubbin. After months of being away from any kind of veterinary care, she wisely waited until she was in The City That Never Sleeps to get sick. After two nights in an emergency animal hospital, she's recovering slowly from triaditis. Poor Angel, they shaved her belly for an ultrasound and she gets nasty medicines twice a day. But she hasn't used up all nine lives yet!

We are finally in a place where I can receive mail, so I had all our accumulated packages sent at once. I won a gift certificate to Stitch Stash Diva from Sandra's Playtime Plus QAL and bought these nice basics. At the top of the stack are two yards of black with subtle metallic polka dots, very fancy! Thank you so much to SSD and MMM for my PrizePrizePrize!

I also finally got to see my prize for participating in the Hands2Help charity challenge. This is a bundle of 30 super cute fat quarters from Moda. The fabric line is Hometown Christmas. Thank you so much, Sarah and Moda! All of Sarah's sponsors were so generous this year.

Karen of KaHolly sent me some orphan blocks, left behind after one of her friends passed away. They are about a half dozen machine appliqued flowers with beading details. Most of the charities I support ask that our quilts have no beads, buttons or other loose embellishments. So I'll remove the beads on these, clean them up a bit with some thread painting, and find a new home for them. They may end up with Quilts Beyond Borders. Thanks, Karen!

In addition to my freebies, two big boxes of fabric that I bought on eBay also arrived. This batch is all fun food themed pieces, including fruits, tea cups and silverware. Another box contained over 20 yards of bright blenders. After almost five months without fabric shopping, it was great to recharge the ol' stash. And it might be the season to celebrate the 4th of July, but it sure feels like Christmas here when all the boxes arrive!

Speaking of Christmas, Sarah is running her annual 12 Days of Christmas in July blog hop and quilt along. The quilt she designed for the QAL really spoke to me, so I decided to join in. She shows it in several colorways, including classic green and red, patriotic RWB, and frosty winter blues. My pile of red scraps were already sitting out for RSC, so I decided to do an all scrappy version.

The pattern uses the Tri-Recs rulers that I already own. Here are the side triangles cut for the scrappy neutral background.

I decided to make my third color turquoise/teal/aqua. I don't really need another Christmas quilt, and while I really like the patriotic/QOV look of red, white, and blue, something about aqua and red together is just so bright and fresh. This was last month's color for RSC, so all my scraps were already neatly pressed and organized. After a few happy hours of trimming, I'm all ready for the next steps of the QAL.