Doesn't this look like a good way to spend an afternoon? Don't I wish! Actually, Morgan will no longer go down for a "real" nap, so these little mini-naps are good enough. Especially when mom would like to get in a little quilting time! I got to work on the water lily for my pond quilt while all was pretty quiet in the house. Outside was a different story -- Katelyn and two of her friends and Brooke were all outside not being quiet. But, hey -- what do I care -- as long as they're outside! All week the girls have been making up dances to Jonas Brothers songs and then performing them for their (imaginary) adoring fans. Whatever keeps them busy! And I'm thankful that Katelyn and her friends actually include Brooke in their dances. (She's really a pretty good dancer!) They could just tell her to leave them alone like I used to do to my little sister!

So I think I counted 18 pieces in the water lily. I ironed the teeny little freezer paper templates onto a piece of yellow hand-dye, turned some edges, and then painted on the details of each piece. Well, I left them on my table overnight to dry so I could assemble them the next day. Katelyn came down in the morning and asked me why there were chips on the table. (In her defense, she wasn't really awake yet.) I was in the process of telling her that they weren't chips -- they were applique pieces -- and well, Morgan heard "chips" and ran over to grab one! But it's OK -- I caught her before she shoved it in her mouth!

My next step was to glue all the pieces together. I layed out my pattern and stuck them all together with a glue stick. A few zig-zags in between all the pieces and the lily was complete! Picking out all the freezer paper pieces was a bit tedious though. I had to really dig for some of them! I had tweezers and scissors and hemostats all on hand to yank those little suckers out and I'm sure there are still some bits left. Oh well!

Here is a the "in progress" photo. Roll over to see the complete lily.

So next I needed some rocks to go behind the pond. I decided I would try to make my own "rock" fabric. So I went back to review the Denise Labadie episode and Brooke and I went to work. Yes, I said Brooke. I painted some fabric, sprinkled it with some salt, and let it dry.

Then I handed the brushes over to Brooke. She worked very hard on her fabric and it did look pretty "rocky" when she was done!

I did, however, decide that I needed some more rock fabrics, so I hit the quilt shop and stocked up. I went outside and took a picture of my flagstone around my pond, resized it on the computer, and printed it out. Then I traced around the shapes and numbered them. Next, I traced all the shapes in reverse onto freezer paper and made yet another "puzzle" out of them. (Roll over the image of the rocks to see the plan.)

I just made a whole row of the rocks -- straight across like in the picture -- not even thinking that about a quarter of them would be covered by the hosta. Darn it! I could've saved myself a bunch of work, but I didn't think of it in time. Well, at least I'll be able to move the things just how I want them in the end -- like a collage. Yeah, that's why I did it!

I layered everything together just to see how it was coming along, and snapped a picture. I'm liking it! Mind you I cropped this photo because first of all I wanted to get an idea of how it would look after it's trimmed and second of all because I got my yucky toes in the original shot! Ewww!

But the pond quilt has been put on the back burner while I finish my BOM. This one looks so much easier than July's! And me -- Little Miss Machine Work -- may actually do the knots for the baby's breath by hand!

It's supposed to be a hot one tomorrow so the kids and I are heading over to my mom's house to go swimming with my sister and her girls. I live only three miles from my mom so there's no need for us to get a pool when Grandma is so nearby! We also went swimming the other day -- well some of us -- Morgan decided she didn't want to go in the water and sat on the lounge chair and told us she was going to sleep. What a goofball! Brooke still gets a little nervous about swimming by herself -- even with water wings -- so she pretty much floated. And Katelyn should have gills -- I have to pry her from the pool! This is a picture of the girls from the other day. And the roll-over shot is my mom who thought it would be funny to try on the kids' tube and got stuck! Shhhhh. She's gonna kill me if she finds out I posted this!

Thank you all so much for all your sweet comments each week. I really enjoy them and I really love hearing what you all are up to. Do we have fun here or what?!

Have a great week everyone!