Weekend organizing and fun!

Easily the weekend's highlight was attending a Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert!  It was a special treat, attending with daughters Emily and Hannah.   The entire program was fabulous, and the guest artist Lisa Batiashvili and guest conductor, James Gaffigan, were excellent!  My favorites were the Bacchanale from Samson and Delilah by Saint-Saens, and Night on Bald Mountain by Mussorgsky. 

Scott helped me out by installing my new pegboard (from IKEA) in my sewing studio. Work in progress in the background, more on that later.

It looks great!  

Before the CSO concert, we went out for dinner at Gia Mia.  Everything was delicious!  We had zucchini fries, meatballs with polenta, gnocchi, and pizza.  

Girls night!  We decided we definitely need to do this more often, next time with Genevieve too. 

Saturday I got to do a little fabric shopping/therapy and get a few boxes checked on my Shop Hop passport.  Most of the fabrics are Moda, except for the blue and green prints which are Northcott.  The two gray prints are for the backs of baby quilts, the dog prints are for dog bandanas, and the others are just for my stash.

Our lab, Dora, just LOVES being outside in the summertime.  That is her happy place, for sure!

We love being outside too, and have been eating most meals outside this summer.  I just noticed that you can see both dogs in this photo - Buddy is under the table.  This delicious dinner was mostly from IKEA, Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes.  Yum!

 

Pillows, pork chops, and purple pansies

I did lots of quilty sewing in May, but the only finishes were pillows.  I made myself the couch pillow below. 

Pillow made entirely from scraps in my stash.  This pattern is from the book Cultural Fusion Quilts by Sujata Shah.  I love how this pillow turned out.  It really updates my older gold couch.

This is how I usually finish my pillows.  I make the back in two pieces that overlap, and the opening is closed with a piece of velcro.  It's a simple technique, and makes it easy to remove the pillow cover for cleaning.

My husband is an excellent cook.  Our dinners are usually simple, but delicious.  This was pork chops with apples (from Betty Crocker), steamed broccoli, and lovely beverages (I had gin and tonic). I was gifted the awesome glass by my awesome sister-in-law, Jean H. 

We live walking distance to town, so sometimes we get carryout for dinner.  We had Steak Chimichanga and Nachos. 

More pillows made this month for my daughter, Hannah.  She asked me to use solid fabrics with pops of color.  I searched Pinterest for pillow ideas as this is not my usual style.  I made these pillows all from my stash. 

The gardens have been coming on strong this month.  Here, the Siberian iris show many buds, getting ready to bloom.

Great view with purple pansies in one pot; impatiens, geranium, lobelia, and vinca vine in the large planter; and huge hosta and tall alium in the background.  It was a great month for the alium, I saw them all over town. 
Stay safe everyone, and hug your loved ones.  It was a tough week.