Preparing for the big "W"

I have gotten some sewing done since I last posted but I have also been busy finishing up the firewood for Winter.

Had to saw up the long pieces to the right then split and stack.

 All finished, the pile that is not stacked is already in my basement, the stacked wood will be the last to come inside as it is the most seasoned.

 Spent one of the warm days last week in my sewing room since it was too hot to work outside!

 

These are the first five blocks of the Marcus Brothers Sew Along.

 

 Tonight my husband and I decided to make the first fire in our new wood stove, I really didn't want to wait until it was really needed, I prefer to be prepared when possible! 

 

Still have the other half of my wood to bring inside, cut and split some kindling and help my mom split the rest of her wood hoping to have that done by next week!  Leaves and a few other must do things on the list before I will be ready for colder weather, but the most important thing on the list is to take time and enjoy my favorite season of the year!! 

Special Tresure

Yesterday I went to a BBQ at my neighbors house, her husband recently passed away and she has been sorting through stuff..........she had a few things that she thought I would be able to use at my house.  A roll of screen, a grow light that will work for my seedlings and then she walked around the corner carrying a black box...........as soon as I saw it I knew exactly what it was and felt so honored to receive this beautiful treasure.................

 

She doesn't sew and as she handed it me she said that her husband knew he had it and had said that he wanted me to have it!  I am looking forward to oiling her and threading her and then giving her a try!

New Furniture

My local quilt shoppe Kathie's is doing some renovations and was selling a few pieces of furniture, I decided to purchase one of the counters to serve as my cutting station.  It took a few hours of moving things around in my 9 x 10 sewing room but I think I like the way it looks.  After I spend a few days sewing I will probably tweek it a little bit but for the most part everything is cozy feeling. 

Not sure if I am going to keep the rocking chair, depends how many times I stub my toe.  I like having a place to sit and stitch when I don't want to watch the same tv show hubby is watching.

 

The shelves on the backside of the cutting station are perfect for my project totes, they are now very visible and easy to reach.........wonder if they will get finished sooner, LOL!

 

 

Terry here is a photo I told you I would post of my stash closet..........

 ........and more spilling out onto a cute little hutch I found at a yard sale a few years ago.  Room for more on these shelves, LOL!

Hope you enjoyed my tour.  





Shopping from the Stash

Recently one of my fellow blog friends Grace posted photos of two blocks she had just completed.....they were made with Civil War fabrics, I have lots of that in my stash so I decided to find out more about the pattern.  She directed me to the Marcus Fabrics website and I was able to see the fabric requirements and went shopping in my stash!   I did well I only had to purchase the two light fabrics, the blue and one of the reds! 

 

Last night I cut the fabric for the first two blocks and was able to construct the first one........

 

Rainy here in Maine so I will be working on the next block and hope to post again soon.



Mini Quilt Retreat................

Last Fall one of my quilting/beekeeping friends moved MA, in April we planned on her coming up for a few days to spend time catching up and quilting.  This past Wednesday through Friday she was up and we spend 2 1/2 days in my sewing room - our own "mini-retreat"!

It was a great opportunity for me to get a few things caught up and to work on some projects that haven't been out of their totes in quite some time!!

The first 1 1/2 days was spent catching up on my Block of the Week project - "Mastering Miniatures" designed by Sarah Maxwell & Dolores Smith using Judie Rothermel fabrics - Yummy!  I was able to do the 7 weeks I was behind and do the current one, even made a mistake and corrected it.......next Saturday I will pick up the new one and I WILL get it finished in 7 days!!!

Here are the two I have a photo of, they are the two that required corrections (photo before correction)........can you spot the mistakes?

Next I finished up one of the Civil War Journals quilts, I had all the blocks done I just needed to sew the blocks and rows together then add the borders.  This was the Year 3 of five Block of the Month projects that was put out by the same ladies I mentioned above, they designed 5 Civil War block of the month quilts to commemorate the 150 anniversary of the CW.  Let me see if I can make that easier to understand........each year since 2010 they have had a new block of the month quilt, after doing the first one I just HAD to do all of them.  The last two I have not even opened the packages, well maybe just a little to fondle the fabric, LOL!

 

The third year of these CW BOMs they gave us the option to make 4 smaller quilts, after completing the above flimsy I now only have one more to work woohoo!  One of them is completely finished the second one is a flimsy like the one above!

 

The next project I choose to work on is a block from the first year, Civil War Tribute, I have more than half of that one finished but month 9 has a "Y" seam and two "set in" triangles.......these were a little above my skill level back in 2010 so I got frustrated and never completed that month or the rest of it!  Month 9 was one 18" block and the same one in 12", I finished the 18" one and will have the 12" one finished later today!  This year I made the decision to finished up more of my UFOs and try REALLY hard to keep the new projects to a minimum, that is difficult!

 

Here's the 18" block.......................

One of the projects my friend Debra worked on was finishing up this quilt that will someday be a raffle quilt for the local beekeeping organization!

Hope you are having a wonderful July so far!



Feeling lighter.................

Feeling lighter now that I have reclaimed part of the basement and two bedrooms, I purged them of junk, painted the corner wall and floor and finally stained the window trim!

This is the basement space before cleaning and painting.

After painting and purging the junk......the back corner is ready for me to bring in the wood in a few months.

This is reclaimed bedroom #1, it is to the right of the space above.....my quilting room!
 

Reclaimed room #2 also in the basement but it is on the backside of the house and has a full window......it is the guest room.  I am looking forward to using this as a space to showcase a few finished quilts, right now it still has a few of my son's things hanging on the wall.

Off to "reclaim" the garden back from the weeds!

Mystery Quilt

Just picked up my mystery quilt from the quilters, made up the binding earlier this year.....now I just need to put it on and then I will have another finish for this year! 

The fabric is Sentiments by 3 Sisters for Moda, I really love the backing it is from the same line and is made up of addressed envelopes.  Hoping to have a few more quilting related post in the upcoming days........

Purging, Painting, Staining

We have had some hot muggy weather recently, so I took advantage and went into my basement and started painting the corner I have been wanting to get finished!  The past few months I have purged the stuff that we no longer use, I am tired of moving things to get to the things I need then moving them again when it is time for the winter wood to come inside, you get the picture.  Now I will NOT be putting anything in that corner in the summer, then come late summer I won't be wasting time moving "stuff".  It is such a freeing experience to declutter, still much to do but certainly a big jump in the right direction.  I have gotten rid of the big stuff (in the basement), now I need to get sorting some of the little things, that will be tedious so I will do one tote at a time! 

Here are some photos of the project...............................

Before the primer



After the walls were primed, I have since painted the walls and the floor in that corner.

 

I have also stained and polyed the window trim, we got new windows about 4 years ago and I never go to the trim.......I will enjoy going downstairs now........even to do laundry!  I will take more photos soon and post more updates........then hopefully I will get to posting some quilting, after all this blog is called Mountain Quilter!

Next big projects will be the garage and the attic, my husband and I started the garage a few years back, I posted about it then, well we need to get back to it!  The attic will be slow going, I plan to take a few things down, go through them so I don't get overwhelmed and end up not finishing it! 

A Few of My Favorite Things

Here in Maine today it is a beautiful sunny day with a breeze and temperatures are in the low 70's...... in my book a "perfect day". 

Earlier today I went into my hives, every week or two in the Spring, Summer & Fall it is important to check the hives.  Each time I go into my hives I am checking for different things, today I was checking to make sure one hive didn't need a honey super, the other two I was checking for laying pattern and also checking for signs of swarming on all three......I was not happy to find that one of my newer hives had a queen cell, I removed it in hopes of preventing a possible swarm.  After coming inside I realized I should have stepped back and thought about the other possible things I could have done with the queen cell......I could have started a "nuc" which is a small hive that is great to have in the event that you lose a queen late in the season among other things. 

Can you find the queen in the following photos, she is the one with the green dot on her thorax........

Here is the queen cell..............

I also saw these beauties in the strawberry patch...............

Off to spend some time with my quilting friends.



Never too early.................

I spent several days this week helping to split some of my mom's wood for the upcoming winter.  My parents always got tree length wood and my siblings and I work together to get it cut, split, stacked and brought in for the winter.  We are finishing up the last of the tree length wood that was ordered before my dad passed away last year, now mom will be ordering cut and split wood so all we will need to do is stack it outside and help her bring it in for the winter.

When I arrived on Monday the pile looked like this...........

 

At the end of the first day.......... 

 

The pile left over from the first day was finished yesterday.   My sister came and stacked the split wood, we just have to get the "boys" to cut the tree length stuff in the background of the above photo before we can split them! 

 

This summer on Thursdays I am participating in a beekeeping internship that is offered by a local apiary.  It was a great chance to learn first hand the many avenues of keeping bees, also a chance to discuss beekeeping with fellow Beeks!  Maybe I will see if it's okay to take photos next week and share a few with you.  Of course when I came home I had a few chores to get done in my apiary, I plan to open the hives tomorrow, will try to get a photo or two if the girls let me!

 

 



Family Treasure

Earlier this Spring after reading a friends blog about her treadle sewing machine I thought it might be fun to find one of my own.  After looking on Craigslist, I remembered that my great grandmother used to have one and then I wondered where it might be, after speaking with a few family members I was able to locate it...........................

She now resides at my house, I have cleaned her up a little, named her "Mary" and got her up and running again!

When I first opened up the cabinet I saw this "red" felt piece pinned around the body of the machine, my grandmother used it as a pin cushion.

 

I wasn't sure what to name her, my great grandmother's name was Mary, so I thought that would be nice, but when I found this in one of the drawers I knew that Mary was the right name..............

My great grandmother on her wedding day...........

 

 Her 99th birthday, she lived to be 102 years old and was able to live in her own home with her son until she was 100.

 

I am planning on finding a quilt that I will make exclusively on "Mary", it will probably be a winter project since this time of year is mostly spent with outside work!



 



It's Been A Long Time.......................

Hoping to get back into the swing of blogging again, I really enjoyed it when I was posting regularly. I love the people I meet, hoping to get some of my "old" regulars to come back.  I will be working on finding the right balance between words and photos so I don't get overwhelmed with blog posts so bear with me as I figure it out. 

The "apiary" as is currently looks................

A "squishy" that arrived in the mail from a fellow quilter friend that I met here in blog land.  Thank you so much Grace, you know my taste in fabric so well!

 

Hope you enjoyed this little tease, more to come soon.