I hope everyone had a good 4th of July. We had the whole family plus my niece and her family, here for swimming, fun and food. Lots of food! The next day Rick and I had to work, but the boys went tubing down our favorite creek. It's so nice that, even though they are grown, they still like to hang out together.

Justin and his fiance, Lizzie staying cool in the pool.

Tad loves the water and enjoyed being in the floaty thing we got him.

He's almost walking!

Since it has been so hot this week, I haven't been doing anything in the yard except watering and picking vegetables. This evening we harvested a bunch of green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, and some red raspberries. That's really all I need for a good dinner!

I set aside a good part of the weekend to do some stitching. (I can't do paper crafting right now because my upstairs craft room is too hot.) I brought my sewing machine, etc. down to the family room and made up a couple of things.

Have you seen this book? I bought it at JoAnn's and it's full of the cutest little projects. I've been seeing amazing Japanese quilt magazines online, but I've hesitated to buy any. They're pricey with the postage, and (surprise) I don't read Japanese. But this book gives me a sample of what I might get with one of them.

This is my first project from the book. The construction directions were a little different from what I'm used to and I ended up making a few changes. Even though I would make a few more changes next time, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. 

The other project I made was this little drawstring bag from a tutorial on http://www.aquiltinglife.com/. It was fun choosing fabrics from my stash. I really enjoyed making it and I'm sure I'll make more. It would be perfect as a gift bag filled with.. well, just about anything!

Well, that's it for tonight. A little more quilting, some reading and then off to bed. Have a great week!