Tuesday, July 16, 2024

Summer so far

Needs something more on that back wall


Well, I think it's finally all put back together.  We got new carpeting and flooring in May.  It's great and I love it but why does it have to take so much out of me?  I just don't adapt well or quickly.  I never have.

The quilt in the hoop is finally done and I have it hanging on my sewing room wall.  I started it in 2004 when the pattern first came out.  I hand appliqued the gold house on the right, the whale house, the sailboat, and the house above the whale before it became a UFO.  During the lockdown I tried to finish up things instead of start lots of new things.  I finished the applique and it went into the closet in the quilting queue.

The pattern by Sue Garmen is "All Around Town".



 

As I hand quilted it I imagined who lived in the houses.  The block below was student housing.  Notice the cobwebs on the grass.  College students don't want to be bothered with mowing the lawn.  The house with the angel is "Guardian Angel Daycare".  It was fun to think about the people inside as I quilted.





The "Garden Gnome" is back to work outside.  We have shelled 1,000s of peas.



My granddaughter above was my biggest help.  The peas were picked three times a week and she would dutifully shell peas and only nibble a little.  Toward the end of their growing season I gave her one of the days whole harvest.  She took it home and ate it all.

We are currently working on green beans.  I pressure canned 6 qts. yesterday.  They are not as fun to prepare as the peas and definitely not as sweet to chew on. 



Just a couple of pictures from the 4th of July.  My grandson below is wearing noise cancelling ear muffs.




We try and get together every Thursday for a family dinner during the summer (I have no idea what I am cooking this week!)  Whoever can come, comes, and so it changes from week to week.

Last week was a hot one for us.  I didn't want to heat up the oven so we just had bacon waffles.



It's not a low calorie meal because the bacon grease gets cooks into the waffle.  We ate them with real maple syrup - yum!




I finished this little quilt for my upcoming granddaughter who is due in September.  I made this quilt using a line by Barbara Brackman called Patterns of History from 2004.  It is a very pale pink.  The outer border was ice cream cones.  They were tricky to make but I was rather please when it turned out.

When it came time to bind the quilt, the curves and valleys were definitely not even and were more work than I wanted to go to.  Knowing that even if I worked really hard the binding would still not look very good.  So I decided to do a knife edge.  After working on that for a week (it was really slow and time consuming) I threw in the towel and cut the edge straight for a regular binding.  

I learned a lot about me with this quilt.  I used to like to do things the hard way for the satisfaction of being able to do it.  I have drawn the line with ice cream cone borders.  Uncle. . .  





I call this quilt "Dainty".

Robin

Summer meanderings.

I haven't posted much because I don't really have much to show or much to comment on.  But. here goes.  I sure haven't done much...