of cabbages and things

I'm joining Leila again today for her weekly {pretty, happy, funny, real} get together.

My Italian sunflowers are beginning to bloom -

pretty

I'm pretty happy with my jars of greenery, and I've since found another jar to put on the top shelf.

I'm not sure if so much of it is overkill, but it's a summery look and a change from the blue glasses. 

At the library, I've been in charge of a (fun, I hope!) summer reading game for adults and it's getting near the end, and prize time. It's a night theme, and I thought to make an easy wholecloth quilt similar to this one, but bigger - I'm calling it a porch blanket. I'd originally looked for fabric with stars on it, or some other night thing, but there was nothing. So then I thought I'd get something with dreamy colors in it. 

It's an easy thing to make - no binding; just the two fabrics sandwiched with the batting, and stitched all around, leaving a space to turn it all inside out, which is what I was doing above - whipstitching it together.

Then, you sort of machine-tie it, by which I mean doing little "spots" of tight machine stitching here and there as the batting requires. It's Joelle Hoverson's idea in a book called Last Minute Patchwork and Quilting Gifts. 

The fabric I chose is a soft gray with white dots on one side, and the other is -

well, it's got big, ornamental cabbages all over it in dreamy shades of mauve and periwinkle, cool greens with some soft terracotta and a gray background.  You can't see it very well here, can you? I still need to machine tie it.  But I keep looking at it and wondering,  

what is the recipient really going to think of a quilt with cabbages all over it?

 Let's just hope.

(Would Leila have made such a thing?)