Better than a Cat?

Well the laptop is back from the shop so I can finally post with pictures.

All day the hawks that guard our house have been flying around and talking to each other, just a bit ago I was able to get this photo of one of them........

They are not usually this close to the house, but I wondered if they finally realized that there are chickens in the yard (safely enclosed) or if they are taking care of the mice that are probably loving the chicken feed that I drop!  I'm thinking how great it is if they take care of the mice population in the yard, I have still yet to figure out the benefit of mice???

I have finally planted the potted rhubarb plants that I bought more than two years ago, here they are in their new home.

Soon they will be joined by the newest plants that I bought last week, they just need a few more weeks inside as they were potted less than a month ago.

They are currently residing on my dining table, don't you have fresh rhubarb growing on your table, LOL?

In case you thought I had given up quilting, not a chance!  Yesterday hubby and I went to NINE of the 34 quilt shops participating in Maine Shop Hop 2011, we planned out a nice route, we drove up to Belfast and drove down the coast to Freeport with a few stops inland.  Today I went to one shop that was only about 30 minutes from my house and we are hoping to visit a few more in the next few days, the hop will end on the last day of April.  My goal this year is to visit 15 shops and next year I will try to start earlier in the month and maybe get to all of them! 

Here are the squares that were given at each stop, there is a pattern given on the website that we can use them in.........

Here are a few goodies that the individual shops decided to give (most of the places gave candy, but it didn't make the picture)........

I decided that I would work on collecting '30s reproduction fabrics while I was Shop Hopping, how did I do???

Of course I found a few other goodies, but for the most part we had a beautiful day, it was a little too foggy to take photos if I had they would have been beautiful.  It was nice to take a drive in the beautiful state that I call home, I often forget how nice it really is here especially in the historic coastal towns like Rockland, Bath, and Wiscasett. 

Last but certainly not least, I keep those who have lost so much in the terrible weather that has happened in the past week, especially yesterday's tornadoes.  May God bless you and keep you safe.

Puttering and a Giveaway

I know I mentioned that I would have a post with photos soon, well our laptop is in for repairs and that is the computer that I use to "do the photo stuff".  I might get hubby to play with this computer and maybe I can get photos onto this one, that would be awesome.  So for the moment you have to put up with just my words.

Not a whole lot going on in the quilting department, I have puttered outside a little, we just got two loads of "gold compost" delivered......I spent a little time stacking some of the wood that we got after all the other wood was stacked and/or brought inside.  In the coming months we will continue to get the side yard ready for the garden area (that we will have next year) as well as preparing for placing the new coop and yard area.  We have 3-4 trees that we need to cut, limb, split and stack so we will have more sunlight for the garden.  I wonder if it will look anything like the picture I have in my mind, LOL!

Enough gabbing about my yard and onto the wonderful giveaway from Amy at Homestead Revival, I just recently found her blog and was so excited when I saw that she was having this giveaway!  It consists of four books and is called the Homemade Living Series.....Keeping Bees, Home Dairy, Canning & Preserving and last but certainly not least Keeping Chickens.   So hop on over and tell her I sent you (no it doesn't get me extra chances)!



Hope you have a great week!

Puttering Around

I'm still here, been working on the coop, being lazy, and working on the spring bunny punch needle.  I have also been doing some reading, thinking about what changes I will make to the yard, and hoping to gradually make a few other changes or should I say organizing/purging ..........time will tell.  Hubby has been telling me what needs to be done in the yard before I can do what I want so that of course takes some wind out of my sail.  I'm not always patient, but I know he is right (just don't tell him, lol) and it will work better if I take it one step at a time.

I'll try to get a post with photos soon, just reading my ramblings is probably not very exciting.  Hope you are enjoying a beautiful day. 

Procrastination Doesn't Pay

See the cute dog on the base of the lovely birdbath..........

It is a dog just like this one.........

(Peggy the above photo is just for you, since I can't send you snow I dug out a "snowy photo" from earlier this year.)

My sons thought it would make a great birthday gift, son #2 dropped it off and set it up on the porch.  Well here's where the procrastination comes into play, it rained earlier today and filled the basin with water, then this  "cute" dog.............

..............decided that he wanted to drink from it, that is when I said "gee I really need to move that", but I didn't do it immediately!   Later in the afternoon while having a "fun" time doing paperwork with the windows open enjoying the beautiful spring afternoon I heard the sound of breaking pottery.  Low and behold I am now regretting not taking a moment to move the bath out of reach! 

I didn't take any photos before I glued the many broken pieces but here is what it looks like now.........

  Thank heavens for this wonderful product, the photo is a little blurry, it's Gorilla Super Glue ..........

 it doesn't look quite as nice as it did before the break, but it's all in one piece and should hold up.  Tomorrow I will set the top back on the base and see how it holds up. 

How Much Would You Bid?

I've been busy quilting and binding the Java quilt for a silent auction fundraiser.  The proceeds will help defray the cost of sending the students, that won gold at the state SkillsUSA, to the national competition in Kansas City.  My youngest son will be attending again this year. 

I already had the Java Quilt top finished I quilted it this week and just finished binding it this morning.  I put it in a basket with a coffee mug, flavored coffee and a great book.

The nursery where my son works donated the pottery flower pot, I just added some seed packets, gloves, two gardening magazines and some tools to make this a fun choice. 

So would you bid on either of these, which one............I love them both so it would be a hard choice, LOL. 

It was a BEAUTIFUL spring day today so I spent some time outside with hubby insulating the new coop, we are planning on working on it some more tomorrow afternoon.  I will post photos when there is noticeable progress to share. 

Rudy and his girls enjoying the warm spring afternoon.......

Tour of the Interior

 The weather is warming up and we are planning on making a few improvements to the new coop before Rudy and the girls take up residence in their new home (and hopefully a few new friends).  Tomorrow we will make a materials list and then once we gather the materials we will begin.  Here are the pictures that I took of the inside of the new chicken coop.........

The nesting box, yippee I won't have to lift the whole roof to get the eggs!

The back wall with a roost, we will be insulating the interior and covering it with thin plywood so it will be nice and cozy for our cold Maine winters.

A real working window for ventilation during the summertime, hmmmmm wonder if I could make some cute curtains, LOL.. 

Here is a close up of the nesting area, right now it is one big area but we will partition it to make 3 separate areas, hopefully this will keep the chickens from sleeping in this area and help to keep the eggs clean.

This is the side wall, the "square" is the door for the chickens to get outside to their yard.

Other changes we are planning on making, adding another window for ventilation in the summer, putting wire in front of the window(s) to better secure the interior, we are also going to wire it for electricity in case I want a light or fan.  Hubby has a few things he would like to do to "dress up" the outside and I would like to paint the trim to match the house.  Of course we are also going to build a completely enclosed outside yard that will attach to the side of the coop, it will have a door for me to go into the yard to keep it clean.  The top of the enclosed yard will have some type of roof (probably some metal roofing) to provide shade in the summer and keep snow out of the yard in the winter.  Hopefully we will have this completed  in the next two weeks. 

Stay tuned for updated photos as we go along.

Are You Game...........

Yesterday I received a package in the mail from Terry, it was the PIF that she made for me, I signed up to participate and this is what she made for me, this lovely runner........

She also included two fat quarters that are happily sitting with my other fat quarters waiting for their turn!  Thank you very much Terry, the colors are just perfect!  I love having homemade things around my house especially if they were made by others, just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, LOL.

Now I need three of my blog friends to sign up, here is how it works.........I will make a homemade gift for the three of you and then in turn you will have to make something for three others (and so on and so on), you will have a year to make your gifts, the only other requirement is that you have an active blog.  Please respond on my blog and be sure that I can reach you to get your contact information. 

Have a wonderful day!

UPDATE:  I have three friends that have signed up for PIF, thank you. 

New BOM & a New Skill

Friday's snow meant that I had to wait an extra day to pick up my new Block of the Month.......Tonga Rhapsoday designed by Wing and a Prayer. 

This will be the first quilt I have ever done with batiks, I really love the colors!

When I read  the directions I realized that I had to paper piece four of the sections, I was concerned because I have never done it before.....well thanks to the Internet and the two quilting "bibles" that I have I was able to figure it out!  As a matter of fact I'm excited because I will be able to try some of the blocks in The Civil War Love Letter Quilt book that I bought last summer! 

This afternoon I finished up block 1 of Tonga Rhapsody........

I am going to behave and NOT sign up for any new BOM for a while, I have lots of projects that are WIPs and many more that I would like to make.  Especially since I now have a new skill that I will have to practice sometime soon!

Green and White

FOR THE GREEN:

I finally finished Green Piece......well I thought I had until I took the folded quilt back into my sewing room and saw the "flange" fabric hanging on the ladder.  Well I wasn't happy but I have decided that I will NOT be putting it on.......if I were to add this flange I would have to take off the outer border so I could attach it.  What would you do if it were your quilt?? 

I hung it on my clothes line to get photos, the photos are not the best because of the angle of the line.  I will take better photos when I get it quilted, I will be taking it to the quilt shop to get that done, it really needs "special" quilting around the applique blocks. 

The colors are really much nicer than these photos are showing.

Now to the WHITE...........

This is what it looks like outside my windows this morning, it is very wet heavy snow that may change to rain later..........the words "power outages" are being mentioned on the news also!  I have made sure that things are in order in case we do have an outage, we are fortunate enough to have a generator but I still don't run everything with the generator......but I know it could run my sewing machine, LOL!  Before today things were looking up in the snow melting department, this is certainly going to slow that down.  I do realize that I am blessed to be warm and safe during storms like this but I still have to grumble a little.

Have a wonderful day, wherever you are, whatever your weather!

Giveaway Win and Some Quilting

Last week I found out that I won the Lapel Stick giveaway that Sandi at A Legacy of Stitches put together!  Yesterday I received the booty in the mail, I always feel like a little kid again when I get a package in the mail, come on girls I know you do to, LOL!  Of course she didn't only send the Lapel Stick she sent along a bunch of goodies...................

Underneath all the "booty" are two dish towels along with a pattern and all the stuff to applique her tulip pattern onto them!  She also sent a pattern to make a Pincushion, needle case & Scissors case, the patterns are ones that she designed!  Thank you Sandi for your fun little giveaway.

Gotta get to the sewing room......I have a "top finish" planned for today, finally!  My niece is also coming over to quilt her second quilt today, I will share photos of them when she has completed both of them.  The first one just needs a binding and the second one will be quilted today and she will start the binding soon as this is a gift that needs to be completed by early May.  I need to talk to her and see how comfortable she feels about hand stitching the binding.  I always hand stitch the binding, it would take me a few hours to finish a quilt of this size, but hand stitching is brand new to her and it could be overwhelming, she may decide to machine stitch the gift and practice hand stitching on the one she keeps??

Hope you have a blessed day, I know I will :0)

A New Home

Thought I would share photos of the new home for the girls and Rudy.  We were going to build one this spring, but hubby saw this one on craigslist and we went and checked it out decided we would buy it!  We are going to make some upgrades as soon as the weather gets a little warmer, we will also be moving it to it's permanent location and add an enclosed yard.  Over the winter we learned what we need to do better and the coop will be closer to the house and not "downhill", this past winter I fell twice on the ice, not fun!

Here are some outside photos, the camera battery died so I will take inside photos another day. 

We are thinking of adding a window to the door, I would like it to be a working window for ventilation this summer.  We are thinking of "dressing" it up a little on the outside and painting the trim to match the house, I really want this to look nice since it will be visible from the road.  I will share the inside plans when I get those photos taken. 

The girls are doing well with their new roommate Rudy, as a matter of fact I have had two eggs everyday for 9 days straight!  Rudy is learning his place in the yard and has learned to mind his manners when it comes to eating!  We are hoping to get several more girls later this spring when the new coop is ready. 

In the quilting room.......I have about 10 leaves left to stitch and then the center block will be finished on GP and I will be able to finish up the top.  My hope was to finish it up by this weekend but it is going to take a few more days. 

Gotta go do some stitching!

P.S.  I wanted to add that I have been having a difficult time getting into some of the blogs that I follow, I noticed that when I had a "specialty background" I had trouble getting onto my own blog and that is why I went back to the "boring" templates.  I am not sure if others are having the same trouble, I don't want to mention names of those "free templates" but if you notice less comments to your blog that could be the reason.

A Few Finishes, Progress & Snow

I'll start this post with the finishes........

The bunny wall hanging is completely finished!

On Sunday afternoon I decided to FINALLY make one ( I actually made two) of the "20 minute table runners" I already had the fabric waiting on my "ladder".

Before.........

After (I do need attach the button on the Spring runner).........

I have made more progress on GP, I cut the fabric for the pieced border and began sewing them together, I have one side complete and the rest are waiting in line next to the sewing machine "waiting for a turn"!  I am aiming for a completed top by weeks end, wonder if it will get done?? 

I also cut the pieces for this month's Civil War Chronicles, unfortunately I realized that one of the "leftover" fabrics from month one that I need for this month (month three) was not large enough, my fault as I messed up the cutting in month one!  So now I need to get more, I will check the local shop, if they don't have any I will order some.....meanwhile I will sew as much as I can so I will stay on track with this quilt.  I feel really great so far with the progress I have made to "catch up" and by the end of the month I should be "on track". 

On Saturday I took a little time "tidying up" things in my sewing room, I realized that the way I had chosen to fold my large pieces of  "stash" fabric was not working, it was hard to grab one without two or three coming down too so I found an easier way to fold them!  It also freed up more shelving space, so I took a little more time moving things to allow me to keep my WIPs easily accessible!

 

Some "eye candy", be kind, I know I have a lot of fabric, but I usually get it on sale!  The baskets in the lower left corner have fat quarters, the best part is that this shelving unit is the one I found at a garage sale for $5 last summer!

 Here is the shelf where the "overflow" of fabric goes, along with batting, and various other goodies!

 This is where I stack the WIPs.

I will finish up with the SNOW, this is what it looks like out my sewing room window this morning!  Thankfully, it will be in the mid to high 40's today and will melt quickly!

Have a wonderful day.

Setting Myself Up........

Setting myself up for a productive weekend.  I have been busy plugging away at the Green Piece quilt and at the end of the day yesterday when I couldn't find something I realized that I needed to take a moment and regroup!   My plan this weekend is to get the two BOM projects finished up so I will be ready for April, so I made sure they were organized and ready to go.

The Garden Basket quilt, in my defense I started this one late sooooooo I was behind from the start!  I cut all the felt pieces and ironed them on so now they are ready for stitching in the evening when I'm in my chair.

The second one of course is the Civil War Chronicles, month 3, I have to make 4 identical blocks with the yummy fabric in the box.  They should not be that difficult, just time consuming for the cutting, then when they are together I can sew them to the month 1 & 2 blocks for the center of the quilt. 

For those of you that are sick of hearing about Green Piece, then skip this next part, LOL.  I finished stitching the last of the small blocks, then I stitched the blocks and rows together (except for the center), the center is almost complete I just need to stitch around the leaves.  Next I need to make the pieced border, once that is on then I will attach a flange and the second border, then yippie it will be ready to be quilted.

What is done so far......

Here are the border and flange fabrics........

 



Before I get started I will be going through these Green Piece "leftovers", some of the pieces are fat quarter size so they will go with FQs some are smaller and will go with scraps.  Lots and lots of yummy leftovers, I will have fun adding them to some of the project I hope to work on soon.

I can't wait to show you the new BOM I will be starting in April, I also have another project tucked away for when I get a few more things finished.  If you look real close you can see the fabric through the clear plastic container in this photo..........

I love these containers, while I love the look of baskets, these containers snap closed and are very easy to grab and go!  They also stack nicely, when I get the shelves in my closet finished (future project) they will fit perfectly, I will probably get a few more and that should be enough to keep me organized!  

Have a great weekend.