Winding Down the Weekend

Whew... time to relax. Went out to do just a bit of gardening this morning, and the next thing I knew, it was time for our son to come up, which was to be about 2:00pm...





My favorite Asiatic lilies (or are the the Oriental lilies, I can never get it straight... )




And the daylilies are starting to really come on now...



My favorite clematis...





We went geo-caching again. This could be one more addiction. What a fun thing to do. We found 2 caches today, neither one with a 'treasure', but just as much fun anyway.



Oh, we also took in a little of an airshow. We purposely selected one of our geocaches that was in the vicinity of the airport, to make it on our way.









And last but not least, I finished another 'tri' last night, RS1. This one doesn't look so very pretty. I'm sure when it gets quilted though, it will smooth out the ripples in the tiny border pieces. (It will also not be 'tipping' like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree!)

Tri - RS7

Oh, I forgot this little baby when I posted yesterday.

Tri - RS7

Oh, I forgot this little baby when I posted yesterday.

Twice As Nice?

Gosh, what a dunce! I finished a block last night, and today scanned it. When I went to name it (E-1), I was informed by my PC that there was already a file by that name, and would I like to replace it.. I naturally assumed I had named one or the other incorrectly. So I went to look at the two E-1's... Here's what I found!






Ever do anything so silly???? At least I think I improved by the second one.









I've now received two wonderful blocks from the siggie exchange. I love them both, thanks Annelies and Fernande!!!




This is my 3rd daylily to bloom this season, but by far the best so far!!!

Oh Fish in the Sea, Come Listen to Me, I Want to Eat You!!!

We have laid up our annual supply of wild-caught fresh salmon. We buy it when it is shipped in for Sam’s Club, never frozen, and we bag it in portions for the two of us. A case (25-35#) lasts us a full year, and that’s eating it at least once a week. Yummmmm...., nothing better..!!!



It passes DH's smell test!



That's alotta salmon!



Forgot to mention what we did on Father's Day. We went geo-caching with son Kyle and GD Darian. It was our first time of doing it, but probably not the last...


How many of you have done that? Any interesting finds...?

Exhaustion is Setting In

Time for a break from the action. I worked on cleaning out the lilac row some more, all yesterday afternoon until I was about ready to drop. I realized I was getting dangerously tired because I was getting a little careless. And after I snipped a triangle of skin off the tip of a finger with the pruning shears, I knew I had been lucky, it could have been the whole end of a finger. So that was definitely time to stop.

This morning looked like rain, so I went out quickly to gather all the clippings and bag them from yesterday, and before I knew it a few more hours had elapsed! I pruned more dead branches and cut more weeds and native grasses. Enough is enough... :)

It is ALMOST done though, and the effort is worth it. I'm finding I actually enjoy trimming the dead wood out of the bushes. I've filled at least half a dozen of those HUGE 55 gallon bags full of twigs, and weeds/grasses from underneath.





I know they're sketchy, but remember, they were not cared for before, AT ALL...! We've had 2 years to try to undo 6 years of total neglect. And it's slow going, you can only do so much at a time.



I discovered a mess under the five stray evergreens out in the ditch beyond the lilac row. (The former owners of this place had a strange sense of taste when it came to where to plant things, or even how to care for them.) So these five trees don't seem to 'belong' where they are, and are not evenly spaced or anything. My next project will be to go out there and cut the bottom branches away and get the weeds out from under them. Because right now, the weeds are so tall, growing up into the branches, and it's so prickly getting them out! Eventually those evergreens need moved 'into' the lot, instead of out there in the ditch where we can't even see and enjoy them.



Standing in the ditch, looking west...



Standing in the ditch, looking east toward the southeast corner of our lot, and the bend in the road that borders us on the south and east.

Maybe I'll even plant some hosta around the trees forming the corner of our lot.


Southeast corner of our lot, looking southwest...


Southeast corner of our lot, looking straight west...




While out at the end of Little Green Acres, I discovered the most precious litle thing... a blooming wild rose. I've seen them around our yard and always considered them a weed, but this was so precious! We also used to have blooming low-lying cactus out there, but I can't find them anymore. Don't know why they died after tall this time, theey are way too low lying to be caught by the lawn mower. (DH mowes so high it's almost comical.)
















I'm on my own this week as far as my young helpers... who are otherwise occupied.

The iris are about done blooming, and it's the beginning of the daylilies. There will be a riot of color to show you later when they really get going. Nothing impressive yet though. I have one that has started blooming, but it isn't one of the prettiest, so I'll forgo for now. And I've definitely veered away from my usual topic of quilty things... I'll be back with it though, never fear.

A Gifty from Hubby

One more short post tonight... because it's worth mentioning to fellow quilters. DH just got back from a week in the Czech Republic, and guess what he brought home for me... squishies!!! He did an EXCELLENT job. When we lived there, I got quite a bit of fabric, but none as high quality as what he found for me. He went to the textile shop of family members of a business associate over there. And he brought home 3 pieces of cotton and one of silk. What he found had a VERY nice hand, He got about 12 yards (10+ meters) combined of the three cottons, and one meter of the silk. Isn't he a sweetie? :)

He did the same thing for me once when going back to France. When we lived in Nantes, I had brought back quite a lot of BEAUTIFUL French toiles from my favorite store there, Bouchara. And when he went back sometime after our return to the States, he went shopping and brought me back more pieces of the toile I love so much. He did an excellent job of selecting that time also!!!

Click on the images to see an enlarged view of my new Czech fabrics.




...my favorite...
Notice the pixies. I LOVE pixies!




This one kind of reminds me of French toile.








...and the silk...

It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This...

Warning: If I totally drop off the radar screen for a bit, it's because I'm having gremlins in my stupid laptop again. No more Dells!!! I'm hoping DH surprises me with a new HP for my birthday next month.

It's been awhile again since I was on here. I guess that's just the way it goes in the summer.

We've been busy with our Little Green Acres, watering, watering, and more watering. We did finally get much prayed for rain last week, 1.4" in 24 hours. But that was about it, nothing measurable since. We NEED it, June is our month for precip.... so if June is dry, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the summer.

My neighbor youth friends, Makiah and Nathan, have continued to come over and help me with the yard work this past week.



I also spent some one-on-one time with Makiah, teaching her to piece by hand.

I just love working with this impressive young lady! She is so mature and composed for her age, and is interested in everything, and is always up for anything, whether it be gardening, or sewing, or even helping in the house. She definitely is NOT afraid of working! In fact, she's quite eager for the opportunity.

One afternoon Makiah joined my granddaughter Darian and I for some sewing with all three of us together.



So between the three of these young people, one or more of them either sewed or gardened with me, or both, every day but one last week. It doesn't get any better than being totally immersed in your two favorite hobbies...

I'm always amused at how amazed young ones are at themselves the first time they sew with a machine. Makiah's words were identical to my granddaughter's on her first go-round, "I can't believe I'm sewing on a sewing machine!"



I mentioned in my last post that Darian has begun a new bargello project. It's moving right along, and she's doing a very good job with accuracy. She had some good help with fabric selection from one of our most favorite quilt shops, Bismarck Sewing and Quilting, but she also does a good job with colors herself.

Darian's New Project

Oops, I just got an email that my sister is going to be checking in, so I better hurry up and post something so she has something new to look at. :)

My granddaughter came over today, and she is starting a new quilting project.



Don't anyone take notice of the shirts in the background not being ironed... while the cat's away we mice will play! ;)



She's planning on making a bargello lap quilt.



This is going to be fun, fun, fun!!!


Is it just me, or are you others who are both quilters/gardeners torn between being outdoors in this beautiful time of year, and doing quilty things?

Click on the images to zoom in. You really need to see them blown up to get the full impact of nature's glory!

It's Arrived!

Look what's here, it came 2 or 3 days ago. I have been so anxious for its arrival. I really haven't had that much time yet, to explore just what all the differences are between EQ6 and EQ7. But I'm pretty happy abut the unlimited number of activiations. Because of all my PC gremlins and bad luck in that area, I ended up having to purchase EQ6 twice, due to exhausting the number of allowed activations, including a courtesy one at the end. What a string of bad PC luck! Oh well... and soon I'll get Windows 7 and get rid of this darned Vista 64-bit, and hopefully that will make life easier too. I really suspect my hobby software applications don't like to play well together: (EQ 6, 4D Embroidery, and now my Babylock embroidery software), because after I got my Dell laptop back from the factory for major repairs, I didn't load hardly anything else back on it, and have still had nothing but horrendous performance with it. Perhaps I just got a lemon.... Next time an HP!

Got another DJ triangle done last night, LS7, Sally's Steeple.





And our forest is growing on 'Little Green Acres'.... :)



We put in 3 Quaking Aspens this week. Now we just have to water the heck out of everything because we keep getting rain forecast, but it keeps skirting around us. It even missed us yesterday, with a 70% chance of rain!!!

A Very Busy Week

What a busy week it's been. DH and I were contemplating on it as we took a break at the end of the weekend and thought about all we've accomplished in just the last week.

Our time has shifted away from finishing my quilting studio for the time being, and into his shop and outdoor work. Since I got his undivided time and attention all winter, I guess I won't complain (at least for the time being). :)

Here's a closet he built around his heating system in his shop. The French door was really a bit of over-kill, but it was free, so what the hey... When we bought our home, it was part of the many materials that had been left in the basement by the former owners who never quite realized all their ambitions. Since the door is pine, and our woodwork is oak, we had no use for it in the house. My job is the 'painting princess' for this and any other finishing project.



I want to call attention to my French friends of a couple of the artifacts up on the shelf. When we were living in France, we loved going to the open air flea markets. We found LOTS of treasures there. One thing we were collecting were the old galvanized steel watering pitchers, which you'll see a couple of. And also at the left end of the shelf is an old metal carrying 'tote' for bottles or whatever (like our old milk delivery pieces here in the US). We developed a real appreciation for French wine while there, and we had wine bottles sitting in this item for decoration purposes, as much as anything. Ever since then, Dennis has referred to it as his 'French 6-pack'.

Then we turned our efforts to outdoors. We got instant forest two days ago. We have some really great neighbors, and a couple of years ago they gave us first shot at buying some really nice big spruce trees from their lot. To make the deal even more enticing is that they have a friend who moves trees, so we got these very mature trees for a song. We moved 8 of them 2 years ago, and 8 more Monday. I'll try to show before and after shots of the various spots where they were planted.


















Can you say Happy Farmer???




How it's done...









And today, we are FINALLY going to plant our vegetable garden. We had debated about not even having one this year, what with hurting knees and feet (for BOTH of us). But we just couldn't quite make ourselves do without... especially fresh tomatoes! That's why we're getting the late start. We were lucky to even find nice plants anymore at this time of the year. (We never start with seeds, our growing season is too short and/or the kinds of veggies we concentrate on are more conducive to just starting with already established plants.)


After all the hard work, it was time for another sewing day with friends. This time it was with Evelyn and Denise. I really wanted to get a day in with Denise as she is starting a new job very soon, and had a couple week lapse between the last and the new one. And I definitely wanted to take advantage of that window of opportunity. Evelyn was finishing up a quilt top on a mystery quilt we started in guild workshop last Saturday (which Denise taught, incidentally).

Denise was working on a Jinny Beyer BOM, Moonglow, from Bismarck Sewing and Quilting, a favorite shop I've mentioned recently. (N-O-T to be confused with a very unscrupulous local shop who shall not be named, which I've noted has recently taken part of Bismarck Sewing & Quilting's name as part of their advertising, to plant branding confusion: "Bismarck's Sewing and Quilting Headquarters". No coincidence, I might add.) Denise also works part-time at Bismarck Sewing and Quilting. Small world isn't it?



Anyhoo, she got me going again on my Jinny Beyer project, and now I'm all inspired to keep working on it. Thus far, I had only done the first block, and block #6 is now out! I had ended up hand-piecing block #1, which I'm finding myself doing more and more when I'm challenged with something tricky when machine-piecing. But I think it may end up being a combination of paper piecing the various units, then hand piecing them together. We'll just see...

And last but not least, I did knock off another Dear Jane block last night. This was B-3, Mirror Images.

OK, that was NOT last, need an update of 'how my garden grows'...


Same hosta scene, different day.


Note the pixie, not the errant weed!


"Stepping Out" Irises from Mom! Don't you just love them!?


What an assist the sun gives in this beauty.


First time seeing this little bloomer. It's a variegated miniature iris.

And did I mention spring is absolutely my favorite time of year!!!???? :) :) :)