Saturday Date

This morning we left the house around 8 to go to The Great Oregon Steam Up. Every year Ernie leaves there thinking he needs another tractor. Every year I tell him to come home and shine his. We walked around, looked at all the tractors -- yes, each and everyone. (Not really but it seemed like it!)
I spotted this gal sewing up a storm on a hand crank machine.. She was fun to talk to. She had helped demo last year and then started searching for her own hand crank. She found one she could afford and is happy as can be.


This old machine was hooked up to a small steam engine but the guy wasn't around to demo it.

We watched as the guy started this old beast and took it for a spin.
The vendor area continues to amaze me. I can't believe the stuff these guys haul in to sale. I know some of this stuff I've seen for the last 6 years. I did find a cool old square jar that I bought for $2. I also found a 2 gallon jar with the butter churn. She wanted $130! I would have considered it if she had cleaned the inch of dirt off of it.

Thanks to Crystal, we didn't have to hurry home to take care of the dogs and chickens. We stopped at a produce market and bought a bunch of stuff, including some cherries that I will soon can. Then we went to my dad's for a nice long visit and toured a couple of his barns, my dad has a lot of good stuff.

It was a nice way to spend the day. Thanks Ernie, let's do it again next year.

Fun and Finished!

I am so happy to have this crumb quilt finished! I'm happy it didn't turn into a UFO, I'm happy to have fewer crumbs, I'm happy to say I can now do free motion baptist fans (one of my goals for this year)!!! I had so much fun. No stress at all (after a while). I used a very bright lemon yellow thread and the batting was pieced from several other quilts. Totally stash. And Done!

2 finishes in one week. Something has taken over my brain! I guess I better go in and get another quilt ready before the mood leaves me!

Queen of Procrastination

I am the Queen of Procrastination! Why is it so easy to put things off? I dislike that trait of mine and from the look on Louie's face, he's a bit upset too. Not because I'm a slacker but because he was sleeping and I threw the quilt over the top of him to get a finished photo. (He's still stinkin' cute!)

Later (yes, later!) I will put this in for a quick wash and dry and send it off to it's new home with Dear Son Doug. But first, it's Wednesday, time to spend time with my Binding Friends.

Motivated!

After yesterday's post, I was all excited to get my remaining blocks made. I sat down in the afternoon and sewed up block 22. Now I will patiently wait for blocks 23 and 24, but while I wait........I'll sew.

This morning I decided to get the rest of my blocks ready to sew. I got out my book and picked 6 more blocks to make for this quilt. I printed off the papers and got all of the blocks cut into kits. My fabric bag is getting pretty slim and I'm curious what EQ7 will give me for stash busting yardage. I just picked 30 different star blocks, colored the sashing and backgrounds black and left the color sections alone. Now I need to add up the numbers.

Until then, I need to put the potato salad together for dinner.........

Design Wall Monday

These are my blocks of the month (minus one) from the small Yahoo group-BOM Quilt Addicts. It is a fairly new small quiet group that started last August. We do 2 blocks a month, this year's theme is stars. One is traditional pieced, one is paper pieced. With just one month to go, I wanted to prove to myself I could finish this quilt. Next year's project is still being planned but I can't wait to find out what it is.

My friend Sonya is one of the founding members. We sew together on Wednesdays at our Binding Friends group. She has been working on her blocks, so after last week, I knew I need to work on mine. Nothing like a little peer pressure. When I got my project bag out, I discovered I was 7 blocks behind. Embarrassed, I put all the blocks up on the wall and got busy. The top 2 rows, left 3 blocks in each row are the ones I did this week. I also fixed the block with the blue corners so now it has black corners.

After doing the top row blocks on Wednesday and Thursday, I spent Friday sewing room time cutting the others blocks into kits. Taylor was here and helped choose colors for the blocks. The little pink star inside the blue star are totally her color choices.

Saturday evening and Sunday I hid in my room and sewed. I hope today I can say I am all caught up with this BOM. Last night, I played with EQ7 and did a layout of 24 12" blocks. I thought I wanted to do 30 blocks and now I'm sure I do. So here's plan.

• Finish block 22
• Make blocks 23 and 24 when they are posted
• Make 6 more star blocks
  
• Make sashing
  

This quilt is going to be (sing it in your best high pitched singing voice) FAB U LOUS!

Grab yourself a snack and something to drink, head over to Judy L's and see what others in Blogland have on their design walls.

Stash Report 7.25.10

I'm happy to report the 9 Patch and Flowers top is done, binding is made, note pinned on, it's ready to quilt. In the stash report, I only included the yard I used for the little inner border and binding. I figure as old as these blocks are, I never really included them in my stash anyhow so I'm not counting them.

I spent the rest of my sewing time trying to catch up on the 7 blocks I was behind on a BOM. I have 3 done and 4 all cut and ready to sew this week. I want to be caught up before the last 2 blocks are posted nest week!

This week's report:
Used this Week: 1 yards
Used Year to Date: 164 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 133 yards
Net Used for 2010: 31

Go to Judy L's and see how she's doing-amazing!-and how others are doing with their stashes.

Block 11

Block 11 is finished for the Moose On the Porch jelly roll quilt along. Instructions were posted Monday and I forgot until I read Diane's blog and she posted hers. Thanks for the nudge.

These blocks really don't take that long to construct unless you are having one of those kinds of days like I had this morning. Almost every seam had to be unsewn and sewn again. Even the picture looks like I should redone it. But I didn't and the block is now put away with the other 10 patiently waiting for block 12.

Now what trouble can I get in to???

Kitchen Gadget Love

If you know me at all, you know I love my Big Red Mixer. One day while reading Chickens In The Road/Farm Bell Recipes, there was this blog post - The Strainer of he Gods. Loving my attachments as much as I love my mixer, I knew one day soon I would need to own the Kitchen Aid strainer/juicer. It attaches to the grinder which I already own and use.

Taylor, my sidekick and I went to the produce market yesterday and bought a flat of raspberries. The strainer/juicer arrived yesterday also. Co-innky-dinky? I don't think so.

We made juice, 2 1/2 quarts of pure red goodness-there are a few seeds but I think that may have been from be being a rookie. Soon we will make raspberry jelly/jam (whatever!) and some raspberry syrup for this cheesecake or ice cream or pancakes...


The raspberry pulp was spread out on a fruit leather sheet for the food dryer. I had apples to dry so this morning I loaded up 5 trays of apple slices, 1 tray of apple peelings and 1 tray of mango slices. If I'm going to plug it in, I like it to be full.

The raspberry pulp and the apple peelings will be made into powder for tea flavorings. Here is a great video on making your own teas. Dehydrate2Store is an excellent website loaded with information on food drying.

Design Wall Monday

I think I am finally on the home stretch with this quilt. This is the third and final time it will be my Design Wall Monday post. The next time you see it and I don't know when, it will be finished.

I already plan to do some echo quilting in the flower blocks and the 9 patches will get a squiggly X through them. I will write myself a note and pin it to the quilt so I don't forget my plan at quilting time. Do you write yourself notes???

The Pat Sloan BOM has progressed no further. I did buy some more orange thread so that excuse is no longer valid. Today's excuse is going to be cherries. I have to can cherries.

See what others are doing by checking at Judy L's Patchwork Times.

Stash Report 7.18.10

I made it my mission this week to get caught up with a couple projects and move them to the to be quilted pile.
First on the list was the hexagon top. It's on the wall sideways so if you look on the left side which is the bottom of the quilt, you will see where I added more triangles to change what will be trimmed off to make the bottom (and top) edge straight.

Friday night about 9, I took the Pinwheels on Parade blocks out of the box, cut the black sashing pieces and started sewing. By 10:30 I couldn't see to sew on the black anymore so I went to bed. A couple hours more on Saturday afternoon and now I have a finished very bright and black pinwheel top. The binding pieces are cut and ready to sew today so this project can be put on the mountain of to be quilted tops.

What's up next? I have no idea but I do have a few things to pick from.

This weeks report includes the fabric for Pinwheels on Parade.

This week's report:
Used this Week: 6 yards
Used Year to Date: 163 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 133 yards
Net Used for 2010: 30

Go to Judy L's and check her new blog design, stash report and the reports of others.

Clothesline Love

We moved to our happy little farm 35 years ago. (Wow, the time really has flown by.) One of the first things Hubby did for me that summer was to build this clothesline. At the time, there were 2 little ones, one wearing diapers. I loved drying everything outside. It's what we did at home, I carried on the tradition. As a teenager, I pretended not to want to do that chore but I loved the thinking time and the alone time. I loved watching the clothes, sheets and towels blow in the wind. I loved the smell of them! I still do.

Over the years, my precious clothesline has gotten a couple coats of white paint and several new lines. This year, she needed a new look......yellow! I wanted her dressed up in yellow to compliment her pretty blue plastic coated wire (which by the way is the only thing to use on a clothesline in my humble opinion!).

While in the farm store the other day, I asked hubby how many cans of spray paint he thought I would need to paint the clothesline (I bought 2 but only used 1.) and which color, John Deere green and yellow or Old Caterpillar yellow. He just looked at me, he operates Caterpillar equipment everyday and we own an old Caterpillar bulldozer and loader. I think she looks beautiful.

Too bad all the laundry was done yesterday!

No Cherries Today

Last night hubby told me there were cherries at the fruit stand close to where he works. He loves to have canned cherries in his lunch. So that was my plan for today--get some cherries and get them canned.

I did some garden work this morning, cleaned up and headed down to Woodland. I don't go there often, there isn't much there for me. I went to Safeway to get the sale stuff I wanted and then headed over to the fruit stand.

They had cherries. Itty bitty little plastic boxes of cherries! They were cheaper at Safeway!!! So I left them there, pouted as I drove toward home.

Then I saw a yard sale sign! With my luck at yard sales, I stopped anyway. (If there's a bad sale, I can find it.) Would ya look at this, 3 shirts for $2, the poor ole guy couldn't believe I was going to cut them up into quilting pieces cuz those are some nice shirts. :) He was so cute. Then he wanted to know what I was going to do with the wire do-hickey. I told him I was going to put my eggs in it. He laughed.......silly man, I didn't have a cool looking basket for my eggs, now I do. I'm going to drill holes in the small dish and put this Stepable in it.

I wish I had my camera with me. I love old barns and their barn was a beauty. Painted barn red and full of giant round bales of hay. I told him I thought his barn was beautiful and I think it made his day. Now I'm on a mission to find some cherries!

45 Minute Focus

I had to water the garden this morning. I let the sprinkler run for 90 minutes. If I don't set my handy dandy little timer, I forget to turn it off. I clip it to my shirt or put it in my pocket so I will hear it. Then I did a few house chores and when I looked at the timer, I still had 45 minutes before going back outside. I headed to the sewing room.

I put 2 more rows of hexagons together. I pinned them, sewed them, pressed them. Then I had 7 minutes left so I pinned 2 more rows before the timer went off.


I also worked on the 4 blocks of my current leader/ender project that were laid out on my little design frame that stays close to the machine.

I went out and turned off the sprinkler, loaded the washer, then wrote this post. I think if I can keep up with my focus projects, I may be caught up before too long. Ding, ding, the timer went off, computer time is up! I'll set the timer for 45 minutes of more sewing time while the washer is working it's magic.

Design Wall Monday

Would you look at that wall! Not only did I not sew any hexagons this week, I am not caught up with Pat Sloan's Meadow Breeze BOM. I am on part 4, with 5 being posted. I'm hoping to be caught up this week because part 6 will be posted next week.

Why am I stalling on those darn hexagons! Maybe I should get my FOCUS sign back out. I really have no good excuses, I haven't had anything to can-I put the raspberries in the freezer instead of making jam, I haven't spent a bunch of time in the garden. I don't really know what I did, but the hexes have not moved! Therefore, my quest continues to get caught up in July.

Go on over to Judy L's, she doesn't have a design wall photo this week because she has been working her tail off in her kitchen but you can see what others have on their design wall.

Stash Report 7.11.10

I'm using July as my Get Caught Up Month. I have BOMs and Quilt Alongs that need to be brought up to date or finished. First up is the hexagon project from last Monday's design wall. I'm far enough along on it now to report the fabric used. A few seams here, a few there should have the top finished soon.

I sure hope no one posts another project any time soon that I have to participate in! I jump in with both feet, then.........you know what happens! Oh admit it, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

This week's report:
Used this Week: 5 yards
Used Year to Date: 157 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 133 yards
Net Used for 2010: 24

Go over to Patchwork Times, visit with Judy L and then visit other stash busters.

Garden Fun Update

I was reading Stephanie's blog-Scraps and see she has an update on her tipsy tower. Since I basically copied her tipsy tower, I thought I would show an update of mine too. I moved mine after telling hubby I needed his help to pound the rebar into the ground more. He told me if I pounded it in anymore, I would be going right into the sewer line. Whoopsie...... So I moved it to the front of the deck and pounded the rebar in the ground too far to put the fifth pot on.
This is a pot full of wave petunias that Taylor planted last week. They are doing great in their new home.
I love looking out the window and seeing all the colorful pots. They make me happy.
The wheelbarrow is looking full and fantastic. I think today would be a good day to give it a drink of Miracle Grow and see if that stuff really works. (I know it does!)

Mystery Quilt

I have been keeping a huge secret and it was killing me!!! I had the honor of being a pattern tester for Judy L's June Mystery. I've had my blocks put together for a couple weeks but only put on the borders last night~why do I stall at the borders! I knew today was the reveal so I spent my sewing time yesterday finishing my top.

I cannot wait to quilt it! But I need to get some backing. I want to use my favorite light blue flannel so will wait until I am in town. No sense making a special trip for it, I have other things that need quilted first. But it is first on my errand list!!!

In A Few Minutes

I LOVE this block! Moose on the Porch Quilts posted the newest block yesterday so I sat down and sewed it up this morning. Behind it are the hexagon blocks and they are not moving until it's time to sew them into rows! So the dark corner squares are a bit lost in the photo.

I'd really like to use up the strips that are left in the 2 bags to finish this quilt. Maybe a simple narrow sashing--I have a bag stuffed full of 1 1/2" strips and piano key border and my favorite scrappy binding. I'll have to do some serious math to get this one figured out. I wonder if EQ7 can figure it out for me. I think not, I have to do it my way--trial and error. Pull the strips out of the bag, sew them together and cut them apart.........

Design Wall Monday

This is what my design wall kind of looks like right now. I don't remember if I moved any more hexagons around after taking this photo. Arranging these so it was pleasing to me was hard work. I even used my phone a friend lifeline.

These are my hexagons that I did with Jaybird Quilts hexagon-quilt-along. I started the first week in May, didn't keep up very well but I'm on a roll now. The first 2 sections are sewn together. I'm not sure what is happening around here today but hubby isn't working so who knows what adventure we will have.

Grab yourself something good to drink and maybe a snack. Head over to Judy L's to check her wall and the great walls of others.

Stash Report 7.4.10

Happy Independence Day! I hope you are spending it the way you want to.

Not much sewing went on this week. I finished my mini and made more hexagons. You will see my project in my Design Wall Monday post. I love the mini quilts but the fabric usage doesn't add up very fast. Of course nothing adds up too fast when you don't put in much sewing time.

I am hoping the second half of the year sees the net number continue to increase as my UFO number continues to decrease.

This week's report:
Used this Week: 1 yards
Used Year to Date: 152 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 133 yards
Net Used for 2010: 19

Visit Judy L, see her amazing numbers and then visit with other stash reporters.

Garden Fun-Day 3 and A Mini Quilt

Day 3 has us a bit slow. I think we are both a little wore out. After time in the sewing room, I spent time in the vegetable garden and Taylor vegged in front of the computer for a while. Then it was time for some serious digging in the dirt and a new flower pot. The wave petunias were the same price as the others so we now have a bowl of super pink waves for the deck.

While Taylor slept this morning, I worked on my mini. After she got up, I told her to tell me when it was 9:00 and I would quit sewing. But at 9, I only needed a few more minutes to finish this up. I hung it up on my photo wall and I like it there. It needs company though so I will be making another real soon.

I didn't notice how off the top right and bottom left HSTs are--wow! How'd I miss those? Too late now, I'm just going to call it personality!

Garden Fun-Day 2

Taylor and I decided to get more flowers for Day 1's flower bed. So we jumped in the car and headed up to the local nursery. As we were driving in, I saw the sign....June 30th, last day, closing for the season. :~( We grabbed our big wagon and went into the flower shop. There were lots and lots of petunias and we had lots of space for them so we started to fill up our wagon. We found a few other things too. :~)

As we walked around, Taylor kept spotting different containers used for flower pots. Then she spotted the old wheelbarrow full of petunias....we have an old wheelbarrow--the plan was hatched!
We loaded up the car, came home, put on our new fancy garden gloves and got busy. Can you see the flat tire? Do you have any idea how hard it is to drag a wheelbarrow half full of compost dirt with a flat tire?? Trust me, it's hard! So Tay started to lay out the flowers, I grabbed the wagon and a couple buckets to get more dirt.

We planted and filled in until we thought it was perfect. See the big rock in the sunlight? It has a drill hole in it--hubby finds them at work and brings them home for me! Lucky me!!! I have lots of them around but this one is the only one with a flower planted in it! Please let me remember to water it.......

I think she did a fabulous job with her project. What do you think???