Ending the Summer

I feel like time has slipped by the past two weeks or so!

The kiddos came back from vacation with their dad, and last week school started for Dashiell. He's back at Kindergarten, with the same teacher and the same aide helping him, so many things will be familiar for him.

This week, Matilda had orientation for her 3's preschool class, which starts tomorrow. She's so excited. She's wanted to go to school since she was old enough to express a desire to, and since Dash has been going (he's been in various Special Needs school programs since he turned 3 and left Early Intervention for CPSE/CSE).

Summer is almost gone, and it makes me a bit sad. I'm happy for the days with more moderate weather though... what we have right now is perfect! Warm, sunny, days with nice temperatures, low(er) humidity, and cool evenings. I'd like months more of this please!

The past weekend we took the kids to the Renaissance Faire, dressed in last year's Halloween costumes (Renaissance princess and a knight). Matilda really enjoyed all the dressing up. Dashiell's a little difficult to manage at events like this, but I think he enjoyed himself too.

All of this means that I haven't sat at the sewing machine all week, besides to fix some elastic on Miss M's undies, and a ripped seam on her costume.

My Flipside [Rachel Griffith pattern] quilt has been giving me some problems, which hasn't helped. All blocks were partially sewn on my old machine and partially on the new one, so the seams for the older machine stitched parts aren't as accurate, and so the blocks aren't accurate as the pattern calls for. This is an issue because the sashing uses a little block of color on the intersection between blocks, and I'm having problems matching the seams up. The discrepancies are REALLY bothersome and noticeable, otherwise I would have just gone ahead with it. I haven't entirely decided whether I'm going to try again to make things match up, or just do away with the little colored intersection squares, and just make it white sashing all the way. I think the latter may save my peace of mind.

Last week I received some Terrain charm packs in the mail. I was lucky enough to win a giveaway on Melanie's blog My Fifteen Minute Break {thanks Melanie!}. I really want to make Whirligig pinwheels with them. I do have a Lil' Twister ruler, but while fun, that doesn't leave me with square blocks. I'm considering making one of the pinwheel quarters a different fabric, rather than pinwheels all from the same print, but I'll have to play with that and see.