Catching Up

This weekend a friend came for a visit we spent the weekend in my sewing room "catching up" on our lives and sewing.  It was just the boost I needed to dig out some of the projects that were ohhhhh so close to being complete.

I got the backing for the flannel shirt quilt finished, it is now ready for quilting, I just need to work on a pieced binding.  I finished piecing the backing of another quilt that has been a UFO for several years, will make the binding for that one this week. 

I also dug out the Marcus Sew Along, I had stopped working on it because I was not happy with the second light fabric that I chose, it was a mystery quilt and I wasn't clever enough to realize it was for the setting blocks, with the help of my friend I decided to use cheddar instead.......it looks better.  I will probably tea stain this one to darken the light fabric but I am still not "in love" with this one.  I will shop my stash for a backing and make the binding soon.  This year I challenged myself to use more of my stash, this quilt is 97% from my stash!

I am also finishing up the Mastering Miniatures BOM that I started a few years ago.  I had some of the setting blocks to finish, they are now complete and there were 14 blocks that needed to be pieced, yesterday I did nine of them I am hoping to finish up the last five today.

 Off to the sewing room to work on today's goals and later I have zucchini relish, grape jelly, tomato sauce and hot pepper jelly to keep me busy for the days that follow!  

Summer Fun

The weather here the past few weeks has been beautiful, great for getting outside work done.

After putting up the greenhouse we seeded the lawn around it and in the back of the house.

Also spent some time working in the garage, we put up some sheetrock allowing us to hang quite a few things, it was great getting them up on the wall, it looks so clean and fresh on that wall, only 2 more walls to go!

Found some treasures at the transfer station aka "the dump", one 7' long 12" wide board and one water jug that is great for catching water from the greenhouse gutters! 

Finally stained and polyed two interior doors I replaced over a year ago, the house smells a little strong right now but at least the windows are open and hopefully it will get better soon. 

One of the doors was in my sewing room.....things were pushed aside to keep them from a possible spill, everything is back in place just in time for the second pattern of the Kim Diehl What Not Club #3 to arrive via email.  I will also be able to pick up the first month of a BOM offered by my local quilt shop, they have made it up using  'Farm Girl Vintage' by Lori Holt, this one should be quick since all the pieces are pre-cut!

 I have also been working on a quilt for a friend's SIL, it is made using pieces of her father's plaid shirt.  I have one more row to sew on then I will be adding two borders, I will share a photo when I complete the top.

Also need to get ready to do some canning.....the tomatoes and zucchini are going crazy, not so happy with the cukes, they didn't like the dry spell.  Corn should be ready for picking soon, a few new chickens were added to the coop and I have harvested a few more frames of honey that I look forward to extracting soon.  The flower gardens are still looking good, I guess being late starting my zinnias was a not so bad, it makes for some beautiful flowers in late Summer!

 

My husband just finished building a potting table for me using scrap wood, the frame was from leftover PT and the top and shelves were from an old shed, the old boards give it an instant "primitive" look!

 

Until next time...........

Anthem Flimsy

Finished the flimsy, from the Kim Diehl Whatnot Club Collection 3, hoping to get a backing put together from scraps and then doing some "big stitch" hand quilting to complete the project.  It will be a table topper as it is only 21 1/2" x 21 1/2". 

 

Lopped off a few points doing this one but haven't done much sewing lately and the pieces are small so every 1/8" makes a big difference!  It leaves room for improvement when I work on the next one due out in September.

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!



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........

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.

Charged Up!

Hi all, hubby and I finished up with the electric fencing in preparations for the arrival of the two hives, they should be here this weekend.  After seeing photos of the damage bears make when they get into hives and after talking with fellow beekeepers I decided it would be wise to be proactive instead of reactive so up went the electric fencing.

The box we built for the charger to hang inside for protection.

Before..............

 

After............see my "supervisor" in the background!

I also decided to try cutting down two Nuc boxes, they were "deeps" and I wanted them to be  "mediums", I want to keep the size of my frames uniform.  Since I wouldn't have been able to use the Nucs the size they were I figured I had nothing to lose by trying to cut them down, so with my husband's help I gave it a try!  The first picture shows one of them done, the one in the back shows the size they were before cutting them down.  The second photo is with both finished, I drilled an entrance/exit hole and put them with my other beekeeping supplies for next summer. 

I have also been busy in the quilting department, two weeks ago I finished the "flimsy" of this top, I will share a photo soon.

 

 

Remember this quilt, I made it because I loved it, not because I had any plans for it, when I got it back from being quilted I put is away thinking one day I would find a worthy cause.  Recently that worthy cause presented itself, a fundraiser auction for a young man the needs a special wheelchair to play rugby, I was very pleased to learn that the quilt brought in $450 dollars!

Hope you are enjoying Fall!

A Race and Some Stars

Just in case you thought I haven't done any sewing this summer.............the scrappy star blocks that I made quite some time ago are sashed and sewn together, today I hope to get a border on then add it to the flimsy pile.  I also decided to try a "Jelly Roll Race" quilt.......the best part of both of these projects is that they came completely from my stash!

 

Thankfully, the weather has been terrific to work outside.......here is the newest garden that I was able to get finished (along the fencing, to the left).  Later this week I am hoping to complete a garden along the other stretch of fencing, also along the stonewall that follows the road, all the while the grass seed I spread a few days ago should be starting to sprout!  Trying to squeeze in lots more outside stuff in before snow flies! 

Enjoy!

Coming Out of Hibernation...........Soon!

Actually, I haven't been hibernating I just haven't blogged much.   I'm working on those PIFs, I have until April, here's a sneak peak of what I will be using for them............

When they have been received by my PIF friends I will share photos and the pattern!

I have also been having a little fun with some batiks.........

I told my niece at Christmas time I would make her a quilt for her new doll crib, so I decided to make a matching one for her too!  This pattern is quick and easy to make, here are a few photos I took as I made it.............................

The 2 1/2 inch strips.

In the above photo I am "squaring up" the edge, below I am cutting each strip pair into the appropriate sections.

Below are all the cut pairs ready to be made into the quilt.

The finished products.............

This one looks more like a table runner, but I made it according to the size of the doll crib.  The doll quilt is completely finished, I still need to quilt the larger one.

With the temperatures expected to be in the 40s today I am "pretending" it is Spring............

Just ignore the "white" stuff in the background, LOL!  We have had an extremely mild Winter, I hope that we don't pay for it in the Spring! 

Have a great day!

What's Going On................

Finished up the Garden Basket quilt...................

Of course I HAD to start something new, this is another one that I plan to keep, my house is starting to look like someone that sews lives here, LOL.........................

I recently finished up several of the "20 Minute" Table Runners....................

I thought that it would be a good idea to get the Fall ones done before it became Winter!

I have been busy with the addition to the coop yard, finally it's finished and I think I'm on plan C or D of trying to intergrate the younger hens with the older ones........still not sure if Rudy will stay, he was NOT very nice to one of the younger hens.   Here's a photo of the coop yard with the addition, we just made a mirror image of the one we made this spring, if you look carefully you can see the separation between the two yards...........

I love that I have pulleys to open and close the coop doors, there is also a door between the two yards, that has been helpful with the intergration process, the plan is to someday keep the door open all the time.  I also kept the old coop as a back up, and that too is coming in handy, you can see it, it's behind the yard addition....................

I need to take a moment to thank my three son's and my husband, without them this would not be finished or look as nice as it does.  There was one day several weeks ago that we were ALL here finishing it up before dark, it was nice to be working together as a family (sorry I was too busy working to take photos)!

That's all the "excitement" on the mountain, now I have to get in my sewing room, I have a few projects I HOPE to get done.   I would rather give a completed Christmas gift than to ask for it back so I can complete it!  Hope you are having a wonderful November.