Center Blocks of Henrietta Whiskers.

I have been trying to catch up on some of my BOM's. I am thinking I might want to limit how many I do next year. LOL Anyway, I finished the last of the blocks for Henrietta whiskers yesterday and sewed the blocks together last night just before Biggest Loser came on. I really like the way it is turning out. Today I hope to get the borders on and the applique in the borders done. Then it will be ready to join the ever growing pile of flimsies. I definitely have plenty to quilt on this winter. (grin)

I have already shared blocks 1-7 with you, but here is block #8.

Block #9....It felt good to get this one done yesterday.

Kevin held it up for me out on the deck this morning. What do you think?

Now I need to choose border fabrics. I really want to get this one to flimsy stage.

I hope to show you the past 2 or 3 blocks of Birdie Stitches in a day or two. Still haven't gotten the 36 patch put together, but I do have all of the blocks done. Not much else going on around here. I think that is why I love fall so much. It cools down. We have gorgeous colors on the trees. Life slows down, so that I can work on my quilting without any guilt. LOL  Friday is town day, so I need to work on a grocery list. We have kind of let healthy eating slide. Time to get back on the wagon. I need to get Kevin's lunch around, so I will post this. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a good one.

I Decided It Was Time to Return!

I have had a nice long blog break. I have gotten things done, but not really much to post about. I have done a complete house cleaning. We are ready for winter on the inside, not so much the outside, yet though. LOL The garden is done. We had a bad storm in August with lots of wind and hail. It pretty much destroyed what was left of the garden. We did dig potatoes during Labor Day week. Out of the 12 lbs or so of seed potatoes that I planted we got back about 3/4 of a  wheel barrel. I took 2 of my chore buckets full of potatoes for mom to have and share with other residents in her apartment complex. Everyone was so happy to get them. I was a bad blogger and did not get any pictures.

I have been working on my 36 patch quilt for our bed. I laid them out and decided I needed 12 more blocks. I have them almost done. After counting, I realized that I had 13 blocks instead of 12, so I will have an extra. This will be fairly large for me to quilt. I may need my head examined, but I am thinking about doing straight machine quilting on it with my walking foot. I really would like to have it ready for our bed in a few weeks. I may chicken out, though. (grin) It probably wouldn't take too long to hand quilt X's in the blocks. Anyway here are the first bunch of blocks laid out. I will rearrange these when I add in the next twelve blocks.

At the bottom, you can see portions of the quilt that is on our bed. Sorry about that.
I went and helped Hazel move. I grabbed this great picture of Noah and Izzie. Aren't they cute?

I won a few giveaways, but I'll share about them in another post. I got the Chicken Hearted wall quilt top done. I'm not sure needle turn applique is for me. I usually like hand work, but this seemed to take me forever.

The kit came with the backing and batting too. I now have it pin basted and ready to hand quilt.

Now I need to get off the computer and get some bread made. It feels good to be back. I will try to post at least once or twice a week. Everyone have a great day. Thank you for visiting and please come again.


Winona

Mini-quilts and a blog break.

I have done a pitiful job of keeping up with my blog this summer. Maybe I will do better when fall gets here. (grin) I decided to take some of my embroidery work and make some very simple little mini-quilts. I had planned to come up with a different design for each of them, but I like simple, so just went with that. I am going to get them marked and sandwiched to quilt in a bit, but thought I'd do a blog post first. I may add another border to this one because it is really little. I'll decide as I mark it.

As you can see, I still love fall colors. I always turn in those directions.

I love this one.....

This isn't bad either....

This one is a little different, but I do like it...

 Now all I need to do is get them marked and sandwiched together. I have gathered all of my basting pins, and I'm ready to go. LOL

I also wanted to tell you all that I will be taking a two week break from my blog, well, from the computer really. So if you email me and don't hear back, that is the reason. We have some family issues going on that I need to take care of. Hopefully I will be back on here by the first of September. I had better get with the sandwiching. Thank you for visiting. Please come again and have a wonderful couple of weeks.


Winona

Some Deck Pictures

This heat is getting me down. It was 105* yesterday with a heat index of 119*. It just doesn't get that hot here, but it is this year. Today is supposed to be even worse. I had all my outdoor things done by 8 this morning and it was already 85*. I am so ready for fall.

Last week, Kevin was home on vacation. We built a deck. Well, Kevin did most of the work, but I helped by being a go-for, clean-up specialist, adviser, and cold drink provider. LOL  We set all the posts in concrete the previous week, so they could cure a little bit before we started building. I am so proud of our new deck. It is not finished yet. We still have to put rails around it and build steps, but have to save more money before that can happen. Wow! Things are expensive. A five pound box of deck screws cost $25. Of course one box wasn't enough. LOL  We hope to continue around the east side next spring. I would love to have a deck on the east side for summer evenings.

Kevin had planned to make it 6'X8'. So that is what I thought we were doing. He didn't tell me that he decided to go ahead and make it 8'X12'. It was quite a happy surprise for me. I love our new deck. I went out on it this morning and watched the sun come up. It has a couple of coats of stain on it now, but I haven't taken any pictures since Kevin put that on. Can you see Buddy's muddy paw prints on the storm door? LOL Speaking of Buddy. He was our little helper during the building of the deck.

As you can see, he got a crew cut when the heat hit. He is much more comfortable now. His hair is so soft. I can finally use the Adirondack chair that Carolyn's BIL, Terry built for me. I love it.

I built the temporary steps while Kevin was screwing down the deck floor. Concrete blocks aren't too pretty, but they get the job done. (grin)

I'll leave you today with a picture of the view from the deck. As you can see from the approaching shade in the first picture, it is shady from about noon on. Now if it will ever cool down in the evenings, we will get a lot more use from the new deck.

Thank you for visiting and please come again. Have a wonderful day and try to stay cool.


Winona

Thimbleberries Sew Day!

I just joined this group. If you have read my blog for long, you know I love Thimbleberries. I have made many of Lynette Jensen's patterns. I did not think I would have time to do anything this month, but the deck went better than we thought. I will do a separate post showing it. We finished today.

Anyway, I drug out my Thimbleberries books and decided to make something from Pint-Size Traditions. I also have Pint-Size Traditions II and love both of these books. While it is so  hot, I like to stick to small projects. This book never fails me. (grin)

I chose to make Sunflower Glory. What better time to make a sunflower wall hanging than the dog days of summer! This little quilt should only measure about 15" square when done. Perfect to work on in this heat.

Then I headed to my stash to come up with the fabrics for this cute little quilt. Here is what I have chosen, but I can always change my mind. Happens all the time. LOL

Now I need to get it cut out and ready to sew on the next Thimbleberries Sew Day! I'll try to figure out how to add the button over in my sidebar later. Sometimes I can figure it out, other times I can't.

Thank you all for the happy anniversary wishes. We had a good day. I think we will be going out to eat in the next day or so. Just didn't have time on Monday. I bought myself a few goodies for my gift. Kevin got wood clamps. His cost as much as mine did. Those things are not cheap. Anyway... I received a 50% off coupon in my email box from Joann's. I decided to treat myself to a new quilting book. I found Fat Quarter Quilting by Lori Smith. I really ohhed and ahhed over these little quilts. So I decided to get it.

I was ready to go, then, what is this? Pat Sloan's Redwork with a Twist. Oh my goodness! I had to have it! Ok, I also had a 40% off coupon. Kevin wouldn't mind. I got both of them. (grin)

I have spent the past 2 days drooling over these two books. They are magnificent! Now I need to decide what to make first. That may be hard. LOL

After buying two books instead of one, I decided to just go all out. I stopped by Hobby Lobby and found some cute fabrics that needed to come home with me.

Rhonda is sharing a cute as can be BOM  called 'When Nature Calls'. I think I can use some of these fabrics in it. Rhonda just posted the first block this morning, so hurry on over and check it out. Again, if I can figure it out, I will put the badge over on my sidebar. After Hobby Lobby I went for a haircut. My dh says I was scalped, but I like it short in the summertime!

Well, that is it for me this evening. I was going to post about our deck, but I think I will save that for tomorrow. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a good night.


Winona

It's Our Anniversary!

Thirty Four years ago Kevin and I were married in the Methodist Church. It seems like a life time ago, yet I still remember it like it was yesterday. LOL I  still love him and he still loves me. What more can you ask for out of life? (grin) We don't have much planned for today. We are building a deck on the front of our house. We have the posts all set. We have to stick around because Menard's should deliver the deck lumber today. Then tomorrow or Wednesday we can start putting the deck up. I am quite excited about this. It won't have a roof right now. Just can't afford it. Things are just so expensive right now. Eventually we hope to add a roof so we can sit out any time we want to.

Since I don't like to do a post without any pictures, I will share the first four Farmer's Wife blocks that I have done. I did a couple of these by paper piecing. I hope I get better at that. Let's just say I became reaquainted with my ripper. LOL
Here is block #1, Attic Windows....

Block #2, Autumn Tints....

I skipped #3, Basket, because I didn't want to deal with the handle, but I will eventually do it. Here is block #4, Basket Weave....

Block #5, Bat Wing.....

Here they are together.....

So far I have enjoyed the ones I can just rotary cut and sew together, the paper pieced ones, not so much, but I want to practice my paper piecing. I can just use templates on these instead of doing the paper pieced version, but I'm not really crazy about templates either. So this quilt will probably have the blocks put together in a variety of ways. I guess that is how you grow and learn,  right? (grin) Kevin is on vacation this week, so there probably won't be much sewing for me. I just hope we get the deck finished. Thank you for visiting. Please come again. Have a wonderful day!

Winona

The Garden Is Producing.

It is hot, hot, hot here! But I think it is about like that everywhere in the USA right now. We are in a major heat wave. I am ready for fall, but I am enjoying our garden. We have been getting some produce. I went down early this morning and picked 2 chore buckets of green beans and our first tomato! That first tomato is kind of puny, but it is always a big deal around here when we pick the first one. (grin) I have the beans all snapped and in the fridge. I will probably cook them this evening after it cools down a bit. Kevin suggested I wait, since it is so hot. No point in making the a/c work any harder than the poor thing already is. I snapped a picture of the produce from the garden.

The peppers aren't huge yet, but peppers are still $1 a piece at the store, so I decided we might as well be eating our own. I planted 9 and they are loaded. The hail we had a few weeks ago, made some bad spots on some of them, so they need to be eaten anyway. Our onions did not do well this year, but I will pull them this week. We'll use what we have. The deer have enjoyed my sweet potatoes. I planted 16, and now have 6. I hope they decide to leave those for us. (grin) The muskmelon and watermelon, that I had given up on, are finally up. Not sure if they will have time to finish, but we will see. Our pumpkin is starting to bloom and my lonely little cucumber vine is blooming as well. The corn is a tasseling and the potatoes are dying back. So things are going pretty good in the garden area.

I know of a couple of babies that are due towards the end of the year. I have a thought running around inside my head. I have been playing on EQ7 to come up with a design. I picked up a couple of fat quarter packs at Walmart. I think these will make great baby quilts. The first one is kind of neutral, so I am thinking it could be used for a girl or a boy, but preferably a boy. 

Now this one is more girly. I love these colors together.

I am spreading my wings. I used to only choose Thimbleberrie like colors to work with, but I am trying to stretch out of my comfort zone. I have become quite fond of some of the brighter colors. Can't imagine a quilt on my bed made from these colors, but for babies and children, I love 'em. Now to decide on a pattern in my EQ7. I worked on it a bit yesterday, but have not come up with a definite plan. I'll add borders and sashing from my stash.

Last week I decided to make a bag for a young woman who lives in my mom's apartment complex. She is very good to mom and always doing favors for her. I decided to make a bag for her to thank her. I chose the Phoebe Bag. This is a pattern by Rebeka Lambert and was really easy to make. I used some of the fabric that my friend, Cyndi sent to me. The young woman who this is intended for loves cats. (grin) 

Isn't this cute? I did not have a magnetic fastener, so resorted to the old standby...velcro. It works. LOL Here is the inside. I still need to hand stitch the lining together at the bottom, but otherwise, it is done.

Here is a picture that shows the gorgeous outer fabric a little better, but the first picture is truer to the real color.

Don't you think she will like it?

Well, Kevin just stuck his head in to say he might need my help in a bit. He is getting ready to build a small deck onto the front of the house. So I am going to help whenever I can. (grin) Everyone have a wonderful day. Thank you for visiting and please come again. Stay cool and hydrated. Fall is coming. LOL


Winona