September already?

What a summer of change in our house. When we dropped our daughter Jen off at school last Saturday we became empty nesters. It seems so strange for the house to be so quiet. I'm sure I'll get used to it but it's really a change. Last night Jim and I went down to Waterfest in Oshkosh to see the Doobie Brothers. It was a perfect evening weather-wise so it was nice just to sit and listen to the opening bands. It's great to see lots of people about our age singing and dancing to the music. The Doobie Brothers played a lot of their old hits and four new songs. What a fun night! Today I worked on piecing a quilt made from the Fandango line by Moda. It's a four-patch variation with sashing between the blocks. It always bothers me when the sashing doesn't line up straight along the length of the quilt. It's a little tricky to get it straight without cornerstones. Here's the easiest way I know to get it straight.
These seams should align like this:                                                            not like this:

Can you see how the seam on the right is off just a little bit? So what I do is line up a long straight pin with the seam like this:

Now, it's easy when you sew the seam to place the seam right over the pin. I stitch within a stitch or two of the pin before removing it. Make sure you don't sew over the pin.  Here's what that looks like:  See how that seam lays right on top of the pin?  It works every time!

I'm hoping to finish quilting the Scrap-Basket Surprise tonight. I've had it on the frame all week and still haven't finished it even though the quilting on it isn't that difficult. Of course, there's football tonight, both Badgers and Packers so it may not get finished!