Garden Update

 So the flower boxes around the porches are doing great this year. We looked a bit bare last year as no one was selling impatiens, but as you can see we are back to the red this year. As one of the front trees was chopped down this spring the ones on the front the porch are getting a bit more sun, but so far they don't seem to mind.

The second photo is of one of the tomato plants out in the garden. Since June was so cool and cloudy they didn't make much progress. But starting this week we are having a run of hot (for us - in the 80s) and sunny weather this week so they are starting to take off.

Also at the moment three of the five roses I planted this spring have buds on them.

The only thing that appears to be having trouble are my sunflowers. something is chomping them off about mid-stem. I have a dozen planted and now I am down to about eight.

They sunflowers may also be in jeopardy due to our now fairly frequent deer visitor. While it is not unusual to see a deer in the evenings, this one has been hanging out most of the day. I took this picture around noon yesterday. 

Two Quilt Finishes!

I haven't done much on my own quilting projects this past year. But thanks to a spring quilting retreat I did make significant progress and this spring I did get a couple of quilts done.
This first one is is official called "The Ugly Brown Quilt." I want to state that I don't actually think it is ugly. I found the "Skylark" pattern in the 2013-2014 International Quilt Festival magazine and when I was deciding what fabrics to use I decided to use a large pile of brown fat quarters. I have no idea how I ended up with so many brown fabrics. I only remember buying a couple of them. And as I tend to use bright colors, the odds of using up the browns was slim. The quilt turned out so well Damon asked to have it. So you know it looks cool, this is the first quilt he has asked for. 
The other quilt was inspired by a quilt and a fabric bundle at my friend Carole's shop Fibre Junction. She also used nine-patches, but I also included center squares in the alternate blocks. The colored squares and the back of the quilt are homespuns.