Inspiration

Last week I stopped by my local quilt shop and bought a copy of Elizabeth Hartman's new book Modern Patchwork: 12 Quilts to Take You Beyond the Basics. There are some books that you buy because they're nice to look at, and there are others that you purchase because you know you're going to use them. I'm happy to say that this title is one of the latter. Elizabeth's designs are so clever and inviting. I love the way she always gives alternate ideas at the end of each pattern, just as she did in her first book, showing the reader other directions in which they can take the project. Seeing her Xylophone quilt gave me the idea for a table runner I've been planning to make for my brother-in-law and his wife.

This looks a bit like tricky paper piecing, but the method behind it is shockingly simple. I was able to put together most of this runner and two square place mats in one afternoon. After getting some input from my sister-in-law on the colors that would best suit their home, I decided to use several designs from Joel Dewberry's Modern Meadow collection, a print from Lotta Jansdotter's Echo line, and a natural colored linen blend for the fabric. I'll have pictures of the place mats posted after I finish sewing on the binding.

Our backyard lawn was ripped out a while back, badly in need of repair. My husband, a wonderful amateur gardener, continued to maintain his tropical fruit trees and our vegetable garden (which takes up at least a third of the space behind our house), but the rest of our yard was simply hard packed dirt for several months. Last weekend we finally had a beautiful new lawn installed along with a sandy play area for the kids and a little gravel path around the outside of the yard. I sewed up some new shade cloth panels for our patio trellis, and my husband got the barbecue going tonight so that we could have our first patio dinner of the summer. There was a lovely breeze as the sun started sinking in the west, setting off the construction paper pinwheels that my husband made with the girls this afternoon. It was absolute heaven to sit together around the table after enjoying a good meal, laughing and chatting while the girls played on their clubhouse and my mother's little dachshund Hildy danced around our feet.

It's going to be a great summer.

Linking up with Tuesdays at the (Summer) Table & Fabric Tuesday.