Nosy neighbors

 I was so looking forward to the holiday weekend!  two days off in a row!!  And the weather was beautiful, and for the first time in at least 5 years, we got our garden planted on time!  I found a guy on Craigslist to come rototill and I can't say enough about him.  He was friendly and respectful and showed up when he said he was going to, his price was more than fair, and he did a great job. He does all sorts of other yard and garden stuff too, I highly recommend him to anybody in the RI area. Thomas Reilly, 401-749-5296.  And he's a military man, so that seemed appropriate too!
So here's the view from my garden bench!  The garden is about twice this length.  Tomatoes and peppers and beans, oh my.  And my nosy neighbors.  Some people say cows don't have much personality, but these two couldn't be more different; the one on the left enjoys being sprayed in the face with the hose--in fact she'll come closer and open her mouth for a drink--the other one doesn't like it at all.  On the other hand, the one on the right will let you pet him on the nose, the other one won't come close enough to be touched.  But they BOTH come running when they see someone in the garden, they're always looking for a handout. 



Yeah, so we got our garden planted, and Preston welded his trailer.  He offered to let me do it, but I have to admit I'm leery of the welder.  I'd probably zap myself and that would be the end of me.  But he requested that I model the helmet, very sexy.

And my muses won't shut up; the more stuff I make, the more loudly they clamor.  The other quilt top is sewn together, but I was compelled to begin this one.  This, too, was triggered by something else.  I made a little purple gingham dress, which sold in my shop before I could even get it finished.  Inspired by that and by the fact that gingham makes me happy anyway, I cut out four more dresses in the shades you see here.  And of course, there were scraps so you know what transpired.  I should have tried to hunt down a couple more colors, but I'm still on a mission to see how much stuff I can make out of materials I already have, so that's what I did.  As I said before, I'm not really a quilter.  I have a Judy Martin book with lots of great quilt block designs, and I've used them on small one-block projects, but to make a whole quilt--even a baby quilt--with anything more complicated than squares takes too long because they really should be hand-quilted instead of tied, and I get bored.