Last days of summer

We can notice, that summer is nearing the end. Evenings are cooler and at times a jacket comes in handy. Saturday I picked some flowers and leaves around the house. Jenny gave me a handy tool for using with flower arrangements, that I had not used yet.
It did work very well. It fits in the large vase and holds the flowers and leaves straight.
Around it,but inside the vase, I put some hosta leaves to conceal it.
The begonias are at their best, but they are better left outside.
Back to quilting. Whatever I had in mind for the front of the farm did not work. Instead I appliqued one piece along the front, what seems to work much better. I cut the pieces for the border and pinned them on the board. And there it will sit for a few weeks, while I will be looking at it. I wonder if I should quilt the sky, before I will sew the foliage of the trees down. It would make it much easier.


I think I have to machine quilt it, because in places there are a lot of layers of fabric.
And it will need some more hand embroidery.
While I'm taking a break from this one, I picked up the quilt with the orchids. The 2 orchids at the bottom were finished a while ago and by that time I had run out of steam. This time I managed to come up with suitable orchids for the top. This one is a pansy orchid and as the name implies, it looks a lot like a pansy. The leaves and stems are sashiko, done with 2 different kinds of variegated thread. It looks nice, but the extra thickness made it hard to pull the needle through the fabric. I hope to get this side done this week. Than it is one to the last side, all ready to go.

My goal is to get both tops ready for quilting by the end of the month. We have our guild quilt show (Waterloo County Quilters Guild) on the last week-end in September and after that's all behind me, I want to start on the "postcard" quilt for the MCC sale. I'm just hoping for a few more cards to return!