July Still Feels A Little Patriotic...and Hot!

First of all!  Shame On Me!  We went to the hills yesterday.  I had two perfectly good cameras and my phone with me!  I did not take one single solitary picture...not even one at the spot we found where the view was amazing and the softly wafting breeze through the trees was such a welcome respite from the heat we'd been in, that it tempted us not to want to leave that spot.  Not one photo!  Not of the quilt shop where we stopped so I could grab additional yardage from the rapidly decreasing bolt of perfect blue batik.  Not one of the chunky little spotted fawn standing in someone's driveway, the smoke rising from the wildfire several miles to our east, nor of the dozens of kayakers & rafters, or the beautiful clear glassy water running under the old rickety patchwork bridge that we crossed our fingers and drove over.  Not even one of the blob that my husband identified as bear poop!  Shameful I am!

I assembled my last two Country Homecoming house blocks earlier this month and as you can see, I decided to add just a little patriotic salute in the last one!  I couldn't resist marking the date and stage of construction on the calendar with a little touch of the red, white & blue!  I'm also liking my purple and red plaid door quite a bit!  And how about the blue/grey saltbox houses reappearing on another set of chimneys?!

 I gathered the blocks up this morning, stole the thumbtack style magnets off my refrigerator and took the whole caboodle out and "tacked" them onto the siding on the north side of the house where the light is better for photos.  I always imagine the people driving up and down the street are wondering what the crazy lady is doing with quilt blocks on the side of her house as they go by when I do this!  But hey, these strong little magnets hang tight to the side of the house and the light is so much better than what I can achieve inside on the design wall.

So there you have it!  The crazy lady's fantasy neighborhood in no particular order.  This is definitely not the final layout!  I now have two months, (only two months) to assemble these with sashing and then the wonderful vine, leaves and stars border which is what drew me to want to make this quilt.

I'm looking forward to seeing the neighborhoods constructed by my fellow builders "down the road" at Kim's Big Quilting Adventure! (click!)

I'm keepin' cool today, with a ton of stitching that needs to be done by next weekend!  It's creeping up on Quilt Show time!  More on that in a couple of weeks!

~Nancie Anne