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.

New Arrival

Last night was the night the hives finally moved to my house, fellow beekeepers (more experienced than me) helped move them.  It was fairly quick and uneventful, of course I prepared ahead in hopes all would go well.  I wanted to move them earlier this summer but in all fairness to the bees it was best to wait until most of the forage time was done and the weather was cooler.  Since is was almost dark when they were moved I really don't think any were left behind!

The grass in front of the entry is so they will orient themselves to their new surroundings, I am sure they know something is different!  They will probably be inside most of the next few days since we are expecting rain, I think this will also be helpful for them to orient themselves.  I will go out tomorrow and remove the screens that are covering the other entry/exit holes, already filled the water containers......Welcome to your new home! 

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!

Don't be shocked.........

Yes, don't be shocked that it's me posting again so soon, I said I was going to try and get back in the habit of posting, first step was to learn how to get photos onto the computer, learned that this morning.  Now I need to sit and type!

Here are the two wool projects that I have been keeping myself busy with.................

The bee skep one still has stitching around a few things, some stems and leaves as well attaching the second layer and putting a backing.

 

 

I only need to finish stitching around the edges of this sheep one and it is done, the thread on the left side is where I left off.

 

 

This past weekend my friend Debra and I went into my future hives (they are still at  Debra's house until she moves) and checked them out to see what is going on inside.  Two weeks ago one of them swarmed and settled into an empty hive and we were hoping to see brood in that one and in the original one we were hoping to see signs that a new queen has started her job.......

 

We did see some brood, hoping this weekend there will be more.

 Wish you could smell the wonderful smell coming from inside.

 

My husband recently fixed his tractor bucket, it was wearing thin, so he had to add some reinforcement to the bottom, here he is welding them on.

 

Now that it is fixed, gotta get outside and mow so I can get him back on the tractor to move more dirt for me!!  Hope you have a great day, see you in a few........

 

 





Enjoying this Beautiful Weather

The weather here in Southern Maine has been gorgeous especially for working outside in the yard.  So that is just what we here on the little "mountain" have been doing!  Here is a pictorial tour of what has been going on since my last post.

Posts in and ready to add the fencing........the pile of wood near the tractor has been cut, split and is dumped out back waiting to be stacked so it can season a little more before in comes in for winter warmth.



 

After the fencing installation, the short section to the right is a gate.

 Inside the fencing........I moved my blueberries to this area where they can get more sun.  I will also be putting the hives up on the green carpet area.  Since this photo was taken I have spread grass seed over the area.  The fencing is cedar so I won't be painting it, it will turn a nice grey over time.

 

The pile of compost we recently acquired, this will help to spruce up the dull areas in the yard for many years to come! 

 

Here is the next area that I am cleaning up, I want to plant some forage for the bees, maybe buckwheat and some wildflower mix along with some other "tasty" treats for them!

 

 

 My husband and I  also squeezed in some blueberry picking and plan on going at least once more to pick some to freeze. I am hoping that my blueberry bushes will get this big someday, in a few years I should be able to pick enough from my bushes (I hope) to freeze some.

 

in the sewing department.........I have worked on two wool candle mats, should have photos for my next post.  I will try harder to post more, just need to get back in the habit!  Off to enjoy another beautiful day!