Category Archive: Life
Globetrotting bom
Between gardening, running to the store, and making my Fitbit happy, I snatched a bit of time to put this July block together
Here are the blocks so far for the year. Since she only gives us one clue a month, I’m not sure how she will fill in between the blocks or what she has chosen for borders. It will be interesting as this is a very busy quilt top.
The rest of the spring volunteer potatoes are now out of the greenhouse, so I can plant some broccoli and cauliflower there for the late fall. This will be a bit of an experiment to see how late I can still harvest it. ae nd I want to get more carrots, lettuce, table onions in there as well. We’ll see how much energy there is for all that since I also have a quilt that must get quilted.
Aurifill BOM
The July block of the month is done. It was very easy and I enjoyed it.
Here are all 7 months for 2014. I think it will be a great Christmas quilt.
I’d like to show you that I made progress on the knitting and I did -= until I had to take out 8 rows due to a couple dropped stitches as I was doing cables. So I went back to where I was at the last photo and am ready to start again.
Rug cleaning
This is the rug the dogs love to sleep on when they have to be in the house at night. Since it is a heavy woven, cotton rug, I can’t just toss it in the washing machine. Out on the deck it went with dawn and a very good stream of water from the hose. We spent about 2 hours out there working on this, which is also why we enjoy some of the good, warm days. Yes, we got wet and it felt good.
It was so wet and heavy, we left it there for the night and it rained a bit this morning. So it stayed out there all day. This evening, it was dry so came in and was rolled up for the summer. No, it’s not perfectly clean, but I can live with it and it is much better after cleaning.
Stars of Honor BOM
All the interior blocks are now finished and I’m guessing she will have us do the star points and rectangles next time. But I’m liking how it has gone together. It will easily be finished by Thanksgiving which is the goal.
Again I took time to practice spinning, but can you tell me why is it when we have longer, sunnier days, it seems I get less done. Oh, wait, it must be because my body thinks it’s vacation time. And then again, perhaps it is because we went grocery shopping and to the chiropractor. That does eat into time. Or shall I blame it on this Fitbit that wants me to walk 10,000 steps daily.
And the bad news is that one of the neighbor’s house was broken into sometime between 8:30 and 2. She has dogs and a locked gate. I guess whoever could see the dogs are locked in the back yard. Perhaps the most immediate neighbors didn’t notice any barking – that is if the dogs did bark. That doesn’t make me feel better. I have big dogs, but they bark enough off and on at coyotes that I’m reasonably sure my neighbors on either side would not come running to see at what they were barking..
Stars of Honor July
It was an equipment failure day. I just brought my quilting machine back from the local store that cleaned it. When I turned it on, the computer didn’t work. Not their problem, they didn’t work on the computer (even though the computer was attached while they had it) So after talking to the repair man at the company, we removed the computer portions and sent it to him in Utah. But all of the trying to get it to work, doing what they said etc., took us several hours. We will see what the repair man at headquarters thinks went wrong.
This one little block is my accomplishment for today. Tomorrow (hopefully) I will get the other three done to show you.
And I nearly forgot to send you to this site, which I think is marvelous with the videos and instructions. http://thecrochetcrowd.com/stitch-cation/
Water!
When we moved here and had our well drilled, we were “out in the country”. The driller we hired to drill the well, hit a great underground water source and all was going super. Then some developers decided they would build many houses near us – and I mean well over a thousand. They are still building. All those homes need water, so they drilled, either 8 or 10 large community wells. And all those wells take water. This slowed us down from 35 gallons a minute to insufficient water to even water our greenhouse all at once.
The man who services our water treatment system told us that we should either have a new well drilled, or get a 1000 gallon storage tank. So while I was gone to my class, Bill had the well pump men came out to see if they could coax more water from the existing well. While they worked, I prayed that God would supply us with water. I not only asked for water, but abundant water. Today they finished their work and we have ABUNDANT WATER. We need 10 gallons per minute to service our fire system, but have 25. And it appears to be much cleaner coming out of the ground than what we had before. What a GOD!
We weren’t completely without water while they worked as the neighbors let us hook up a hose to their barn for the three days the work was being done. It felt somewhat like camping in that we tried to use as little as possible. So now the dishwasher is going and the greenhouse is getting watered. Next will be the laundry and watering the outside gardens.
As we were discussing this at breakfast this morning, we realized again how blessed we are to live in a country where we have clean running water. We are thrilled to help fund wells for those who don’t have this privilege.
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Port Townsend day 2
Here we are in class, trying to learn more than we can even absorb in one day, with the most beautiful scenery outside. We are on a peninsula in NW Washington State, on the upper Northeast side. Here are some snapshots facing south (Mt. Rainier was visible in the middle of the second photo, but too far away for the camera)
Starting Over and Over and Over
Remember this cowl from yesterday Although I have knit many socks, and a few other items, I’m still a beginner when it comes to knitting. This pattern has several “new to me” techniques. First was the new cast on. I think I have that learned now having practiced it three times. Next came the cables which caused me to take rows out several times. And the last thing I noticed is that the twisted stitches weren’t all twisted and my piece looked like a beginner piece. So I put all the yarn back on the ball and have started over again. Now I’m only about 6 rows into the project.
But I bet when I finish this project, I’ll understand a lot more about these techniques! I’m glad this is a small project. And isn’t that why we do some of these things – for the learning involved. I could just go buy something like this, but what fun would that have been?
Since this is a day of rest, the project has been put on hold until at least Sunday. I’ll be driving about 3 hours to a class on spinning for 3 days and will try to blog, but I doubt there will be much knitting time.
Happy Birthday, son/butterfly garden
Do you recognize this which appeared shortly after I arrived in the sewing studio this morning? I was across the room and it sounded like cracking ice. I looked up to see this large window splinter. It is double paned and only the outer one broke. I will place a call to the insurance company in the morning. I have no idea what it was all about as I wasn’t even near it, now were any of my animals,
I had about enough time to finish the quilt on the machine, but the machine didn’t want to work – which is why I didn’t finish it earlier. So we took the machine to the “hospital” on the way to Seattle to celebrate our son’s birthday.
First stop was Panera’s Bread which we all enjoyed, then off to the Butterfly gardens at the science center.
Before entering the gardens, there is a display of a few insects and these wonderful dioramas of what people might enjoy eating,
And then with proper instructions on how to behave inside the gardens, we were allowed to enter.
The first thing we learned was that if you want to keep track of your group, dress them alike
The Science Center has permits only to import cocoons. So a hatching box is necessary.
This child wanted to have her photo taken when the butterfly landed near her.
The entrance as well as the entire garden is very tropical and beautiful. I should remember to visit in the middle of winter as it would be so cheery.
Signs abounded with information about the butterflies and the plants. Interestingly, we noted that often times the butterflies were attracted to flowers much like them in coloring. I hadn’t thought about that before, but it does make good sense.
This species won first prize in my book. It looks like an eye on the outside, but on the inside – gorgeous blue.
And here are a few of the others unidentified and in no order
And of course one can’t have a birthday without a clown!
These are coffee beans growing here and obviously being admired
Did you know the cocoa tree sprouts flowers from it’s trunk
We were checked for hitch hikers before being allowed out into this room. I can’t wait until August to take the grandsons.
