Daily Archives: June 2, 2013

Busy Day

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I wanted a day in my quilting studio, and finally carved out time today.  I have been running several projects concurrently, and needed to work on all of them.  I haven’t quite finished anything, but I’m a lot closer now.

1. I chose the fabric that I want to applique over two patches on one of my quilts that have disintegrated.  This tessellated maple leaf design  has a large variety of fabrics in fall colors and one of the fabrics I used has shredded apart.  Current practice is to applique over what’s left of the fabric, so that the original fabric could be seen in the distant future, should anyone care to look.  I cut out the pieces for the two blocks and I’ll hand applique them either tomorrow night, or at quilting bee on Friday.

2.  I looked through the box of extra blocks and extra pieces from Scraps on a Mission to see what we could finish up and found two sets of blocks that could be used if we added a little to them.  I went through my personal stash and founds browns and golds and cut them into four inch squares.  Four of these are sewn together to make a block.  I might also choose some fabrics to alternate with the pieced blocks.  I also made two blocks in blues to extend what we have for another quilt.  You know…”Use it up, wear it out…”

3.  I have a block I am doing that is a pieced Maple Leaf surrounded on two sides with strips, like a Log Cabin.  I need to make 56 blocks for the top I want to do, and I’ve completed 32 of them.  I set out ten of the leaves and chose the strips for each of the blocks.  I’ve gotten good at cranking out six to twelve of these blocks at a time, so I’m set to sew the next time I have the chance.

Project 2 Resized

4.  I trimmed the points off a quilt that I am making for a women’s shelter.  I want to put a strip on the top and bottom the shift it from square to rectangle, and then I can layer and pin it, to be quilted.

Color Strip Quilt Resized

My picture is dark, but the quilt is very bright and vibrant.   It was a rainy day when I took the picture.

5.  I chose a border for a lap quilt for Scraps on a Mission, and sewed it to the quilt.  I cut the backing, and sewed it together, so that it’s ready to be layered, pinned and quilted.This is a picture of it pre-border:

YBR Resized

6.  And, I worked on the quilting for this 60″ x 75″  quilt.  When I started this afternoon I had five of 20 blocks left to quilt.  Now there are just two and a half to finish, and I can do that tomorrow morning.  I’m quilting in the ditch, so you won’t be able to see any of the quilting on these blocks, but there’s a lot of it!

Missing U Resized

The only things I didn’t get to work on are two bunny quilts I’m making for the babies of two of my grand nieces.  I still have a few days for one of them to hatch, and two months for the other.  I’ll have to put some of this work aside and get them done, though!

There’s one more twin-sized quilt for the women’s shelter that I need to finish, but I’ll wait to post  about it when the quilting is finished  My days are full, and the gardens are lush, and I really need to be working outside, but I do love quilting!

June Is Busting Out All Over

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I’ll have to post pictures of the gardens at the front of the house.  Between the greens from the daffodils, the early iris in bloom and the volunteer Oxeye daisies, AND the RAIN… everything is looking lush.

I made a second trip to my favorite nursery, and bought the rest of the herbs, three hostas to complete the planting in the renovated (smaller) bed under the pear tree on the front lawn, purple fountain grass for both the sidewalk garden and the east driveway garden, and plants to tie the sidewalk garden and the window well planter together.

Purple, and fuschia petunias, a purple verbena (not the Homestead purple that I love…it was not part of their offering this year), white alyssum, and white snapdragons will be tucked in around the greens from the spring plants and I have a purple sweet potato vine for the well planter.

I bought less this year, but Dear Husband reminded me that I shouldn’t buy more than I am able to get into the ground.  It’s been my mission the past few years not to buy plants and then waste them by not being able to get all my planting done.

I know that it’s June 1…or actually, it’s June 2 now, but I have seed to plant.  I’m running about two weeks late thanks to all the rain we’ve had.  I’ve planted some cosmos and cleome, but I’d like to plant more.  The same is true for dill, but dill really needs to be sown in succession if you want it to be available all summer long.  I have a short tower that I want to put out next to the windows in the garage wall, with Black-eyed Susan vine seeds.  That worked well last year.  And, I’d like to try morning glories on the arch in the east driveway bed.  I’ve had less success with them (not enough watering, I suspect).

Today I planted three more sweet basil plants, bringing the total to 7, two curly parsleys, two flat leaf parsleys, two rosemarys and a geranium, before the rain started.  I should have been out earlier, and kept finding other things to do (NOT QUILTING!).

I moved the geraniums from the office to the protected side of the front entry way.  They get sun for a few hours, and are protected from the heavy rain.  I think I’ll move them to their final home at the end of the week, if they are still doing well outside.  THey will either sit up on the ledge around the well at the dining room window, or on the walk, just below that ledge.  It’s hot and sunny there.  I’ll have to remember to water daily.

Same old, same old.  I could probably have posted one of the spring entries from last year, or the year before that, or the one before that, and it would have said just about the same thing.  I love my herb garden, and I’m looking forward to doing some renovation in the front gardens.  Send me some help! *G*