redneck pool

Friday night our air conditioner broke.  Frank thinks he can fix it, but the part had to be ordered and won't be here until tomorrow.  So, we've been really hot the last several days.  Sunday, I was getting a little worried about our miniature dachsund.  He was panting and breathing heavy most of the time.  I was telling Frank I wished we still had a wading pool.  However, it being Sunday, and the fact that we're going to have to spend so much on the air conditioner, I didn't want to go buy one.  So, Frank was standing in the shed looking around and comes out with a tarp and proceeds to build a "pool" in the bottom section of our playfort.  It's surrounded by 2x4's and we have thought before of turning it into a sandbox.  It created a wading pool about 3 inches deep, which the dogs, along with us have been enjoying.

The kids relaxing in the pool. 

And no, they don't have beers, it's IBC root beer.

kids quilt camp

This week Shianne went to a kids quilt camp at one of the local quilt shops.  She kind of debated for awhile whether or not she wanted to take it, and the first day when I dropped her off I could tell she was a little nervous and scared.  But, she had a great time and has talked about it almost constantly this week.  She did such an awesome job and has a completely finished quilt.  The pieces were already cut for them out of lots of random fabrics, so that is one part they didn't learn to do (though she will if she goes to the next level camp next summer).  The first two days they worked on sewing the blocks together into rows.  Wednesday they sewed the rows together to complete the top and chose what fabric they wanted for the back.  Shianne chose a black and white print, understanding that a neutral color was a great choice for a quilt with so many colors.  Wednesday evening, the instructors basted together all the students' quilt tops, batting, and backing.  Thursday the kids did the quilting (the stitching that holds all the layers together) using the sewing machine.  Then today, they sewed the binding, which finishes the edges.  Shianne got done so early today, that she used a bunch of scraps that were left over to design and make a miniature quilt for our puppy.  She got the top to it completely done and we have basted the layers together so she can finish it tomorrow.  I am so proud of her.
One really cool thing about Shianne's quilt is the back.  It's black with white circles.  Once the whole thing was together, she was holding it up and noticed that the colors from the front shine through the white circles and make them look like glow bracelets.  It's really neat.

Williams quilt.  We have a fleece blanket that his breeders gave us that he'd had since he was born.  We decided to turn it into the back of the quilt.