OMG for July Done

Yikes, I almost forgot to post my OMG finish for July. I actually finished this quilt, In Honor Of, my seventh Quilt of Valor, a week or so ago; but I was ramping up for Maine Quilts, so no time to write a blog post.

To see what others have finished for the month of July, click here. 

This quilt by Diane Tomlinson appeared in Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting magazine, Jan/Feb 13. The original quilt was made with Stonehenge fabrics, and I liked it so much that I bought enough to make two quilts--one to donate and one to keep.The Maine state coordinator for QOVF had a booth at Maine Quilts, so my quilt is already gone.

This one was quilted with a pantograph called Patriot, which is my standby for the quilts of valor. I haven't had much luck finding pantographs to use for these quilts that work for me, but I did come across a new one the other day with stars and crescents that I liked. Soon as I remember where I bookmarked it, I'll buy it!

I finished another top the other day, a very simple pattern called BQ2 from Maple Island Quilts. Now it's in the RTQ queue, behind the last Yankee Puzzle. Just one more.

Today I am working on these blocks from Missouri Star Quilt Co's tutorial called Two Step. I love their tutes and their BLOCK books. One of these days, I'd like to make their line up of "disappearing" quilts. Their newest one is a disappearing crazy eight block, I think, and it looks very interesting.

My summer cactus is finally blooming again. And in the summer! The flowers look almost like a double blossom, very different from the Christmas cactus--which never blooms at Christmas.

The bugs up at the lake have been horrible this summer. They adore me, so yesterday I made a 3-pound batch of Summer Soap scented with Juniper Sage fragrance oil. It's a plain white bar so nothing to see really. One field researcher swears it's the best thing to repel mosquitoes and other bugs. There should still be plenty of bugs around by the end of August when it's cured, so we'll see how well it works then.