The first week of July

There's not much sewing going on around here... it is just too hot and humid!  M-san was planning to come over to iron some of my fabric for me (she seems to like organizing my stash) but I vetoed that idea as the upstairs sewing room is just sweltering and it would be insane to stand over an ironing board!!!  Instead, I showed her how to make a Toothbrush Mat with some of my strings.

We have needed a new mat in our entryway (we need new mats by the bed too) but nothing took my fancy.  I remembered Leiya trying to make a Toothbrush mat many years ago but I don't think she ever finished that project.  After checking out tutorials on Youtube, I thought about cutting up fabric to start my own mat and then realized I had overflowing bins of strings and odd width strips.  As an EXPERIMENT, let's see what I can do with various widths of strips and instead of a toothbrush needle, just a plain large safety pin.  It worked and while I finished up a floor mat, M-san made a small hot pad for the table.

I found that knit fabric worked just as well (maybe better) than regular cotton fabric and so I cut up a yard of knit fabric (the dark blue) that someone had given me and that I haven't been able to find a use for until now.  Tetsu gave his opinion on the size we needed and this is the result.  John thinks the new mat is wonderful.

My friend and cat mentor, Mrs. N, took me out to a birthday lunch at a great little cafe in my town.  

I have been there before and it is special because of the Decolatte that the owner makes.

I'm rather surprised that my country town has this nice trendy cafe and I love all the Decolatte creations that I have watched the owner make.

We have a bounty of blueberries this year!!  Two years ago we had them by the buckets but last year almost none...  This year again, seems to be the year for blueberries!  Unfortunately, we've let the bushes grow too tall and Tetsu has to use a ladder to pick them.

Tetsu also spends a lot of time outdoors using the weed-whacker.  I really fear that he'll get heat stroke so I'm constantly nagging him to come indoors or I make a lot of disgruntled sounds when he goes outside at all.  It seems that I'm either complaining about the cold in winter or the heat in summer... but I think the heat is worse.

As for painting, I got out my markers again for this painting...

And this one was done with a cut-up gift card of all things!

Julieta got dressed up for a pirate's event in Long Beach.  Isn't her costume great!

Leiya's family went traveling last week...

... but they were back home in time for the Fourth of July! 

I hope you all had a great time celebrating the Fourth!