Three Stars for Collector

After my whining about ironing and cutting in the heat yesterday, I remembered that I have a couple of projects that are already cut. Here are the first three Sawtooth Stars for my Collector Quilt:

I am always telling myself that I hate fussy-cutting, but I realized yesterday that can't be true, because I keep doing it!

There are a lot of scant seams in these blocks, because I didn't cut the backgrounds in the wisest way. I will have to trim out some of the dark colours in the seam allowances where they show through. Live and learn!

Butterfly Catchers

Every spring I used to worry that I was suddenly losing my eyesight, but now I know that it is just my allergies, and if I wait it out it will get better again! Today I was finally able to see well enough to put the finishing touches on the next section of my Août sampler:

These two are spending their August vacation catching butterflies!

While all my even weave projects have been on the shelf, I've been making good progress on the Lima Beans, which are stitched on 18 ct aida. I'm in the home stretch now, so I hope to show you that soon. The next section of the Summer Sampler is almost ready too.

Riviera Star, unfortunately, has ground to a halt. I still have to cut the fabric for the next section. That's always a hurdle, isn't it? The sewing is the fun part. But the weather forecast is for a hot and humid week, so I don't think I'll be ironing and cutting any time soon. More hand sewing to come!

In the meantime, here's Août so far:

Two More Sweet Hearts

Yesterday Sharon over at Lilabelle Lane posted her work so far on Best Friends Forever, a new Rosalie Quinlan stitchery and quilting pattern. I immediately loved it! I think this pattern is in my future.

But, it inspired me to get out the redwork project I do have, Sweet Hearts. Two more blocks are now finished:

That makes three of the nine done. As a tv-watching project, redwork makes a nice change from Texas Star, so maybe there will be one or two more soon. We'll see!