a little more stitching... and some cake

I worked in just a little stitching time this weekend...
it was french knot time:

It's the next letter in my work on the Gardener's Alphabet 
(a pattern by Crabapple Hill).
This one has lots (and lots and lots) of french knots, 
but I like the almost finished look.

And, the 'tropical mango' box cake mix was pretty good.

Maybe a little better the second day, 
as the mango flavor was a little stronger.
I did make my own icing, and added some lemon juice - 
my grand-mommas always added lemon juice to icing for fruity cakes, so I do also.
I'm not really an icing fan, and scrape it off the cake before I eat it,
but it keeps the cake moist until then.
I normally bake from scratch, 
but this mix cake was good and moist.

So, my review :) 
of Pillsbury's Seasonal Tropical Mango cake 
is two forks up!

Summer busyness already,

and it's not even officially Summer! 

Not just the busyness is here already, but
the four H's are here, too...
Hot,
Hazy,
Humid,
Having Summer-time fun.
The humidity, for me, makes it a little hard to breathe, so that means that little is happening outdoors around here, so it's a good excuse to have some indoor fun!

I found a yummy sounding cake mix...
I've heard that there were limited edition, seasonal, flavored cake or cookie mixes, but I've never seen them in the grocery before.  
Until last night!

Since I love mango-flavored anything,
this one will be made for Sunday family dinner.
(: Oops, didn't realize that my salad dressing photo-bombed until I inserted the pic! :)

More fun:  I meandered on one quilt for a friend - 
the pretty purple one on the left is done:

and in the right background, 
a little girly quilt I'm making that is awaiting borders and then off to the long-arm (this is the third [I believe] of five baby quilts that I need for this Summer of coming babies). 

Also fun in the past week:

I finally got these stars & nine-patches pieced 
for a wedding quilt gift,
and am now auditioning borders (2); backing is off to the right.
I've been working on this one for a while.  
More correctly:  I've not been working on this for a while,
as I cut all the pieces and sewed about half of the star blocks 
last November and then put it away.
When I got all it all back out recently, 
I didn't have enough of the light, solid corner squares 
cut for the star blocks...
but I did have extra dark squares.
(insert 'things that make you go hummmm?' here)
Reviewing what I'd sewn with the pattern instructions, 
I'd mistakenly put in light fabrics on both opposite corners of every star block I'd made.
So I had a little time spent doing some un-sewing, re-sewing, and re-pressing.
But it's finally coming together, and I'll be able to gift it, only a few years after the wedding.   Better late than never, right??  :)

Hope you are having a wonderful start to almost Summer, too!