And the new sit/stand desk is set up and in service!  Here's my old setup - a standard Costco table with my Cutie frame and Allegro machine.

And my helper while I was putting the desk together.  

The new desk!

I managed to put it all together by myself - up to the final step.  I had to go get dinner started, planning on finishing it after dinner, and AJ wandered through and offered to finish it....all that was left was to mount the motor and plug all the electronic in.  AJ suggested double-sided sticky tape to mount the motor instead of drilling holes for the screws, so he was done in a couple of minutes.

I'm using the desk for cutting fabric as well as quilting, so will keep the Cutie frame and sewing machine off the desktop until needed.  I love the height adjustment!  It's so much less painful to cut my fabric when I can move the table top higher!  I didn't have a lot of time to sew after I got the table set up, so am really looking forward to using it more!

I have just one word....No!!!

 

Yesterday, my last day of vacation, (weekends don't count!) Cindy M and I went to IKEA....We had a great day shopping, and came home with much more than what was on our original shopping list.  My list included a sit/stand desk for my sewing room, and I got IKEA's Rodulf desk - I love it!  It's still in the cartons in the garage, putting it together is on my to-do list this afternoon.   I also picked up a present for the cats.  I think it's a hit!

 

And one more kayaking trip for my vacation. Cindy M and I went out yesterday and it was beautiful - the water was flat, and the temp was about 90 at noon (on the lake - a bit warmer in town.)

 

Just when I thought I'd get one more cucumber off the poor plant, one of the dog beat me to it.  I found this in the lawn.....  The heat/lack of water pretty much decimated the Japanese cucumber plant, so I will only have lemon cucumbers to harvest, if they don't get too hot too.

 

I'm on vacation this week, and AJ took Monday off too, so we hit Whiskeytown Lake in the kayaks - my first time out this summer.  It was beautiful - sunny and cool, with just a touch of wind.  We paddled from Whiskey Creek marina out under the 299 Hwy bridge and back - a nice long paddle.  I regretted that a bit yesterday, as I was painting - my arms and shoulders were a bit tired, even more so after painting 4 doors....but I got one small paining project done (finally....)

 

I got all the star blocks done yesterday!  The piecing is done, now I just need to put it all together...

Here's the draft of the quilt - there will be a couple more borders on it, but you can see the beginning of the end from here.

 

And progress on the star quilt....

 

This is what 108 degrees will do to your garden....the poor cucumbers are toast!  The peppers don't look much better, but they will live. I'm not too sure about the cucumbers.

This is the next day, and it's possible the plants will make it....

 

Another new quilt, and it's another "mystery" quilt.  This is a "Summer Block Party" quilt, with different quilt designers designing each block.  The original fabrics used were in shades of red, white, and blue, but I decided to try it in shades of yellow and green.  That sounded great, until I started getting the block patterns.  Really leaning into red, white and blue....I'm adjusting the patterns to use the yellow and green - my "Melon Slices" are cantaloupes instead of watermelon, and I replaced the flag on the Lighthouse block with plain fabric.  We'll see how it goes.....  

Suggested fabrics/colors:

The first three blocks

Here's my Cantaloupe instead of melon slices.  I like how they turned out - better than the pink and red in the original, personally.

 

What I did on my summer vacation....or at least on Juneteenth, since it was a day off from work.  AJ and I cleaned out the garage enough to get the Volvo in it!  It won't stay there, there's still a lot of work to do, but it was a red letter day for us!!

 

We are over-run with little frogs this year - lots of rain this spring. This little guy is protecting my garden.  

 

And I'll be lucky if I can find all the quilt pieces - Jessie decided to keep the warm for me....I just know it's going to be like a jigsaw puzzle - one piece missing when you're through.