August is a month that frequently goes south on me– there’s been too much ice cream, too many sunburns, too much hilarity and all of a sudden I find myself sin dipped in misery. Meanwhile, the summer’s running out and I confess some years I’m glad it’s over.

Before we get into that, I did attempt to sew away my sorrows, so there’s lots of progress to show. I spent an entire day on Carefree Highways– it may not look like it, but I did!

For part of that time, I had to make an additional 20 flying geese because apparently, I can’t count.

These are for the edges– I’m departing a bit from the instructions, but just because I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH FABRIC to make them the way I showed. I have never had a project where I was so short of fabric, the collection is about five years old, and the new matching collection isn’t out for months. I really didn’t want to use this blue with the words on it, but I had to. I’m thinking of renaming the quilt “Old Glory,” instead of “Carefree Highways,” partly as a joke on myself. It’s turning into a big, serious piece now– should it be named after a song a Canadian guy wrote? Tell me what you think in the comments, please.

If you look carefully, I even had to piece together fabric for the last goose! This is the only situation where I would press a seam open– if you ever must sew a fabric back together, because you mis-cut or ran out of length, the seam will be almost invisible. The professionals do it all the time, I assure you– hee-hee!

Another chunk of time was spent on re-stitching the missing states, something I’ve known I had to do for the past four or five years, but that only took me a couple of hours to close out.

We’re starting to see what this quilt looks like now– I’m thrilled. I need to really step on it, though. The plan is to have it on the longarm by September 1st and have the borders ready for embroidery quilting by October 1st for the November 1st deadline. Can you believe that– for a show that is in April! I’m making up goofy rules for myself this week– like I have to stitch one row together and attach it every day this month. It’s totally realistic– I timed myself and it’s about an hour and a half process for one. Do you ever quantify your quilting like this? I guess I’m a math lover, so it really helps.

The Up on the Rooftop FREE Week Four came out last Tuesday from Fat Quarter Shop. As we all guessed, a sleigh! A sleigh with a lot of pieces! I don’t have enough red to make my sleigh out of one fabric, so I’m getting creative again and adding a door. The sleigh runner also needs to be smoothed out, for my tastes.

This is as far as I got on it– the star block is pretty- it’s six-inch finished, if you need a star block for anything. I am hoping to get the whole inside of the quilt done by next week’s post.

I’m making a couple of extra holly berry strips for the top and bottom to make it less squarish.

Finally, I am really trying to use up the rest of this fat quarter set in the box and may do piano keys or something on the border. I have an overabundance of Christmas fat quarter sets on my shelves, and I’m happy to use one up. Let’s all hope I don’t replace it with a new one!

The Pioneer Woman quilt– no progress. If you recall, my goofy rule was that I could start new things as long as I kept making progress, but look, I can’t be everywhere. Maybe I can just get another block done this week. Unlike Yoda, there is a TRY in my corner of the galaxy.

I’d also like to finish Brio– all I need are borders on my table runner and eight placemat set– by the end of the month. Did you see it there, in my box photo, looking lonely in the corner?

The Holly Horse stocking got some work on the reins, a couple of tassels, and some more backstitching this week. It strikes me that my hand is not reaching for this thing as often as it needs to, and I was hoping to be further along by the end of the summer. The new goofy rule is– minimum of two strands in the morning and two at night. I’ve also done a bit of math in my head on potential finishing dates, and it’s not good, so I’ll spare you! The Summer Sampler will not be getting rotated in on the weekends, for the near future.

And now for the bad news, which I am almost ashamed to tell you. Yes– with all the grief in the world, I choose to pour my tears out on chickens. There’s no need to berate me. I’ve already beaten myself up a million times.

I have mentioned in the past– we free range our birds and have done so successfully for the past year and half. You see what’s coming, don’t you? Look away, if you must. Scroll somewhere else. Picture is from a happier time.

Sometime last Sunday, a fox came on the property while we were out. Veteran Mainers have told me this is the time of year the foxes teach their kits to hunt. We lost Rosie, our beautiful Rhodie Red and Jack– the little black baby we thought might be a rooster. The same veteran Mainers tell us we were lucky not to lose the whole flock, so vicious is a fox attack. Buttercup came back to the coop much later, acting traumatized, but it wasn’t until the next day we realized she was hiding a big bite mark on her back. Unlike some people I know, chickens will never give you the least clue they are hurting!

We have been able to nurse Buttercup back with the help of antibiotics, but she’s in for a long haul. The whole incident has depressed me– I’ve been through the five stages of grief about six times. Never again will I see Rosie’s black tail floating among the grasses, and we’ll never know if little Jack was a rooster, or hear his crow at 4:30am on a winter morning. After indulging in negative thoughts of this type, I then beat myself up, again– after all, it’s just a chicken, right?

So that’s how my August is going– fortunately for all my Augusts, my birthday eventually arrives, so they always end happily. Even more, these came in a box during the height of the drama!

Did you know you can mail order chickens? I had somewhat forgotten we put in a request for these months ago, and they are as cute as ever. I might name the little reddish one Rosie, after my girl. Buttercup can hear their little peeps from her box in the “henspital” and I know it’s helping her recover. I guess their untimely arrival is God’s way of saying life always starts afresh.

Now let’s all get out there and try again!

xox
Carol