Summer Progress

I showed you a sneak peek of Jessica’s quilt in my last post.  I really love how this turned out, and am really happy to share the final quilt!  I used Anne Bright’s pantograph, Variety, in a dark cherry brown thread.  Jessica wanted that “poofy” look, so we used a high loft polyester batting.

Because the top is busy, it’s hard to see until you get up close.

The pattern is much easier to see on the back of the quilt.  When Jessica picked up the quilt, she was about ready to have a baby girl.  I wish their family all the best, and I can’t wait to see the new little one.

I took these photos of my garden this evening.  I don’t know why I’m surprised that the zucchini is ready for picking “already”…it’s been 2 months since I planted it!

Still, I think these are the largest zucchini plants I’ve ever seen!  And I grew them!  I know I tried something different than previous years, but I can’t remember what the variety is.

Here is my first harvest:

…and here are my first “billy clubs”!

I’ve done two more quilts since Jessica’s, but will have to wait to post those pictures until this weekend.  I’ve been way too busy lately, and I’m missing out on my sleep!  That is just bad news all the way around!

I have an excuse….

I knew time was flying by and that I had been neglecting my blog; it’s been an entire month since I last posted…and it’s been because I just have been so busy that I haven’t had time to write it all down!

I finally finished my 10 Minute Block quilt…the one I call my “practice” quilt because I practiced 6 different quilting techniques on each of the blocks.  I really love how the colors worked so well together, especially since all but the border and backing fabric were from my stash.  I convinced a friend of mine to make more of these blocks, to practice the technique, and I will practice quilting on that one, too.  She’s skittish about making the decision about the borders, so I’ll have to add those when I get it back from her.

This quilt was a challenge for me to quilt, because I practiced all free motion or used rulers I’d purchased but haven’t used.  I really want to get out of the rut of thinking I can only do pantographs;  I really like the consistency of a panto, it’s just that I want to develop more confidence in my custom quilting, and the only way to do that is to practice!

I’m working on making enough, and varied, projects that I can have a table at one of the local Saturday markets.  I picked up a roll of strips I’d started stringing together last year when I’d put together several to make  a lasagna quilt.  Being in a hurry, and relying on my newly formed habit of using straight of grain borders, I thought *maybe* I could get away with just sewing the borders on as I went, then cutting them off at the bottom.  Nope.  See these wavy things??  I recently saw something describing them as “friendly”!…and they sure are!  So, no quick and easy quilt to make available here.

In fact, this is so obvious that I decided I really need to write a tutorial to post for future reference, when someone asks “why shouldn’t I just sew on the border and cut it off at the end?”  Needless to say, it’s still on the design wall!

I even got my garden in two weeks ago!  It was a beautiful day and I took a chance in planting my tomatoes, zucchini and cantaloupe, but they are all doing well.  I added a couple of extra feet on either end of the garden and I still have room to plant at least 2 more mounds of….something!  I haven’t quite decided what it should be yet…maybe cucumbers?…but I need to get it finished before it’s too late!

Earlier in the year I thought I was going to teach a class in the upcoming Boise Basin Quilt Show in June.  I started putting together a project for the class, but we won’t have access to actual sewing machines, and I’m not a hand sewist, so the project stalled.  Well, in an attempt to actually clean up the pile of blocks from my cutting counter and the longarm table, I finally started putting some of the blocks together, and collected the rest of my experiments into a bag for later use.  I found a really great border and I can’t wait to get that on (properly this time) so I can get a photo posted.  It’s really quite feminine and very easy!

I finished working on this customer quilt this weekend.  It’s got a purple flannel back and I used a variegated purple and teal thread on it, which really perked it up.  The panto really was able to pull in some of the fullness and it came out beautiful!

I started another customer quilt on Sunday, which is going quite well, and I’m almost finished with it.  I’m loving how the Anne Bright design is coming out and  I can’t wait for my customer to see this one!  Two more in the queue, so there hasn’t been any time to work on my personal projects or Bronco Quilts, of which I have several ideas!

All that, and I still want to sit down at the spinning wheel again and try drafting fibers again, now that I borrowed a couple of books from the library and got some great ideas.

I need more hours in the day!

Wedding Quilt – complete!

The binding is done and the quilt is ready to be shipped out!  I think the red binding adds a nice touch.

The back is a red flannel; it was supposed to be maroon, but it’s more like a candy apple red.  If you stare at it too long and then look away, everything looks like it’s in shades of green!

Thursday is the first quilt guild meeting of the season, show it off there, then it will go into the mail.

So, with all this focus on the wedding quilt, I haven’t completed my SwirlAbout quilt.  That’s the one I posted about on July 12th, and I was all excited about the new border fabric I bought for it.  I still am, it’s just that  I was getting some really bad waves and wrinkles in the black inner border, so I thought I’d save myself a bunch of grief and take it off and see what I could do to fix it; it certainly wasn’t going to get any better by adding another border!

The problem now is that I had intended to get that quilt entered into the Portland quilt show, but I think I missed the entry deadline already, so even if I busted my rump to get it done, it’s probably too late.  I’ll have to check, but I have a lot on my plate coming up.

So far I’ve finished 2 of the helmet liners, but they are still taking donations until September 1st.

It’s also canning season, and my DH and I made plum jam tonight; it’s the first time we’ve done any canning together!  It turned out really good, too, and we have enough plums to make another batch tomorrow night.  This weekend I’ll need to work on making some pickle relish and maybe getting some pickles canned, too.

School starts on August 23rd, and even though I’m only taking one class, Innovations is coming up and I have another trip in the works. 

Then there are the everyday, and not so everyday, chores that I have put off which are demanding my urgent attention.

I think I need to clone me!

Garden 2009 - the Next Steps

So this is the area I started on last weekend, pulling weeds with the dandelion digger. My chiropractor rolled his eyes at me when I said "Well, it HAD to be done!"

My husband rototilled for me this weekend, and even took out another couple of feet of grass so I can expand. Next year, another couple of feet!

Hubby also rototilled one of the sprinker heads! Oops! Not a problem, that just encouraged me to implement a soaker hose option for the area that I've been talking about for 3 years. Can't believe I didn't do it sooner, as the head was only about $6 and 50' of soaker hose was another $6.50.

Check out our new compost bin, too! We sort of made it up as we went, didn't follow any instructions, but made it out of a black garbage can, cut a hole in the bottom and put a side opening on it, with a handle. I can't wait to get some black gold out of it!


I took out the corner rose bush and transplanted it to another area in the front yard. It was almost on top of the underground sprinkler head, so it was rather ineffective anyway, and I was always worried about mildew, even though it got plenty of sun. That's probably what saved it!

So, yesterday I was a bit sore overall, raking and pulling weeds was very good for me, but I kept it to a minimum and my hands didn't get overworked.

So, I sewed!