TWO of my own finished and the Garden Terrorist

 I set a few challenges for myself every year, in a feeble attempt to accomplish something.  Otherwise, Facebook, you know?  This year's UFO portion was to finish any three UFOs, and I completed that at the end of May.  I already showed you the Vintage Tulips a couple months ago - that was #1.

#2 completion is the sampler quilt that the Binbrook guild ran as a block of the month from 2017 through 2018.  I managed to finish it in only three years!  Woo hoo!

The objective was to make each block twice, but reverse the colours on the second one.  So, take your lights and swap for darks.  It was a fun exercise and I was very happy with the end result.

Here's a lovely shot of the back.

And a closeup of the quilting in the blocks.

My third finish is the X's and O's that I've been dragging around with me to endless retreats for several years.

The front is quite busy but the plain squares show the quilting motif very nicely.

This is a better photo of the pretty, delicate border design.

I'm more than half way through hand stitching the binding, so I'm calling this one finished.

The remaining items on my Challenge list include several projects that I want to get started on, as well as making sure I get at least five donation quilts ready before the end of the year.  Last year I took quite a stack to Martha House and I'll probably take this year's there too.

THE GARDEN TERRORIST

I always know that summer has truly arrived when as dusk descends I notice the white noise of frogs and toads singing in the background.  My friend's husband Larry - we call him Mr. Science & Nature - explained to me the difference between frogs and toads.  Frogs are water creatures, whereas toads live on land.  In pre-covid times when I had the luxury of going OUT somewhere in the evening, it was always fun to come home in the dark and notice the little toads hopping out of my way as I'd come up the walkway, from the driveway to the front door.  Then approaching the porch and before I opened the front door, I would check the upper corner where the walls and the roofline meet to see if our resident bat was lurking up there.  (I learned that little habit the HARD way.  Use your imagination!)

My little TERRORIST friend lives on the back patio.  This year I was ready for him so I paid very careful attention when I was mucking about in the flowerbed.  I saw him before he hopped away, and avoided having to explain to DH that "no, it's ok, I'm fine, nothing to see here".

Then not a half hour later, the little bugger.... !!!!  Scared the POOP out of me.