President's Challenge & Family Challenges

In any spare moments, I have been working away on my President's Mystery Quilt Challenge. You can click here to read about this challenge. I have all of the 56 blocks sewn together into rows and have been sewing the rows together. On the right are two rows finished, which involves matching 20 seams accurately. It has been tricky and I have been debating what variances I can live with. For example...here is one such decision on the left. The seam is not quite matching...it is out about 1/16th". That bugs me because by the end of the row, everything is way out. And to add insult to injury, in sewing the last two rows together, I put the wrong edges together and have to unsew that entire seam, which had matched up really well!! Borders are optional, so now I am trying to decide about how to stitch together the scraps to make a border, plus a binding and backing.

In other creative pursuits this weekend, we have been preparing for my son's grade 6 graduation, which requires him to have a nice haircut and clean presentable clothing... I gave up on any kind of formal outfit/suit long ago! We have been "in negotiations" for days and have accomplished the haircut, which I love and he can live with, and a tentative plan for clothing...the rules are no skateboard shorts, nothing with holes, rips or grass stains, and no slogan tshirts (like "Football is everything" or "Live free or die").

Also this weekend my daughter had a pool party invitation and she wanted to make a fruit tray. I said "why can't you take some chips/junk food like all the other kids are"?? But she insisted that she wanted to make something, so we went shopping on friday after she finished writing her exams. Then we spent most of saturday morning washing, cutting and arranging the fruit. And here is the fruit tray which evolved into a tray plus a carved watermelon bowl. She was delighted and we had lots of fun together.