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Monthly Archives: October 2015
Jam and a giraffe
Last night after blogging I made 10 cups of strawberry jam. Ummmmm, it is good. I also made another 4 pints of pear sauce. The pears are still not all ripe.
This quilt was so much fun to make. Normally I would have appliqued the giraffe first, but it is for Mary’s coming grandson and she wants to digitize the face and feet to sew on the embroidery machine. The back will be a giraffe print fleece.
Winterizing the greenhouse
Yes, except for the tree in the middle, the rest is weeds that grew due to my not getting out there when they were little. September and most of October, they spent trying to see how much they could take over. Now, I’ve been out there, moving them to the compost pile. Does it count that I’ve started now? I want to get the boxes weeded and covered so they’ll be ready to go in the spring, since I didn’t get winter crops in.
Now it’s time to get some strawberry jam made. DH tells me he is out.
Dark green scrappy quilt
Another quilt, 56 x 72, is ready to go to its new home. I love the phases a quilt goes through -0r rather that I go through as I work on the quilt. I really like choosing and cutting the pieces. When the flimsy is all put together, sometimes, I like it and sometimes, I really wonder. Then I start quilting it and I think it is going to be a total disaster. Finally the binding is on, and once again I like it. I like it even more after it has been washed and is ready to go. Sometimes, I don’t want to let them go.
Busy, busy, busy
What is this life if, full of care
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare. (W.H. Davies)
Sometimes I feel this quote describes me. I feel driven to do all that I can. I’ve been too busy to really enjoy my animals and I miss that. So I’m going to try to slow down a bit and enjoy more time with the sheep, the hoop house garden and family. The quilts and other items are needed, but others are also making them and together we do make a difference.
“The” socks
This is just getting ridiculous. I started these socks nearly a month ago and have only just finished the instep. But I’m on the home stretch now. Perhaps the elves will finish them this week. The yarn is 100% wool called Tarantella and produced by Elann I started the pattern “Dirt”, and shortly realized that I was not following the pattern. But rather after the ribbing, I worked the first 2 rows with p1,k1 around, then a knit row all around. Then reversed this and did 2 rows of kl,pl and another knit all the way around. So there are 6 rows to my pattern. I continued the way I was going as I had no desire to rip out and start over again. They will be a good, usable pair of socks
Organizing
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Prairie Moon Organization Challenge for this week.
Clean out a drawer
I have several of these that need organizing plus several desk tops that need finding. So I pulled my stack of recipes that I have printed to try (since 2005) and started putting them in categories. Most of them are now in these notebooks available by category so I can actually use them. Obviously some have been tried, because I have written on them “really like this one” This challenge has taken 2 weeks to complete.
Super Bowl 2013
This is the quilt top on our bed currently. I wish I could give you this pattern as it is so easy and I just changed it to put every other row upside down to look like a lattice. I like that look so much better. However, they have eliminated it from their site. It was on the Homespun Hearth site 2013. They do have free mysteries several times a year, so you might want to hop over there and sign up.
A couple days ago, I showed you the first blocks, and today I have the second blocks done. All that was left, was to put the squares together and put borders on them. It is the same pattern as the first photo on this page, but in different colors, it looks so different.
Tomorrow I will do some organizing and cleaning
Shopping and Sew fun
After a delicious lunch of roasted potatoes, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, and zucchini patties, I was almost too full to carry on with the day.
However, Mary came over – do you like those spiders? We went to Quality’s Sew Fun because we wanted free tickets to the Sew Expo in November and that was the gift for coming.
And we rather liked this apron display.
The program consisted mostly of various handbags and a few table runners and potholders. So we decided to go shopping at JoAnn’s where we found some giraffe print fleece for Mary’s new grandson (arriving in Jan). So now she and I each have another project. She will be making stuffed giraffes and I will make baby a quilt.
Super Bowl game mystery quilt
How many times do we go out expecting to be back in an hour and it turns into 3 or 4 days? Exactly! And that’s what happened to us today. We went to look at some granite for the vanity top, which we didn’t find, then made a few more stops and before we knew it, the day was nearly gone. We bought a few more cases of water, so now if we get snowed in without power, we’ll be okay. However, I still need to get some 5 gallon containers of water for the animals.
I did get some cutting and sewing done. I decided to do the 2013 Homespun Hearth Super Bowl mystery quilt again since I liked it so much. It is all cut out now and with these 24 blocks sewn, I am at the half time mark for the flimsy. With tomorrow’s schedule, it may have to wait until Thursday.