April Flowers

Lots of things blooming in my yard, end of April. These smell so sweet - and I get more and more of them every year:


I'd bring some inside to admire, but the ants like them as much as I do, so they're definitely a flower to keep outside and admire from afar.


I keep thinking about diversifying, and getting some other colors of peonies, then separating these and mixing them together. But my favorite colors are green and cream, like these. I wonder what other varieties they make? I'll have to go hunting next fall.


I have several different colors of iris, too. Plain yellow, plain lavender, and two varieties of purple/white ones.


For some reason, I don't get both varieties of purple/white and white/purple blooming at the same time.

Blocks of the Month and Yarn balls

You wouldn't guess it from all my garden posts, but I HAVE still been quilting. You can get a lot of quilting and web page making done while you're waiting (and waiting) for a plumber to call you back... and waiting (and waiting) for a plumber to arrive ... lol

But finally, I have a new not-leaking hot water heater, and dishes and clothes are being washed, etc. Catching up, here's the web page and the six inch star block I did for April:


The web page for May is almost finished, way early, for once. I won't officially put it up until May 1. Here's a sneak preview of the block, though, a six inch Maverick Star:


I've also been finishing up the Cats and Pinwheels quilt, by adding the yarn balls on the two long border edges. I don't really get into applique, even machine applique, so I'd been procrastinating on this, even though I really thought it'd add to the design of the quilt. Here's the left side:


And a slightly different one. I know it would have been easier to use a solid piece of bias tape for the string, but when I laid it out that way, it didn't look like it connected to the ball, it was TOO solid. So I tried a solid ball, and that just looked wrong next to all the scrappiness of the quilt blocks. I went back to the patched ball, and made a patched string, and I think it'll do. Here's the right side border:

Yet another Cat and Garden Update

First, a request from Mom. She liked the picture of Libby from my last post, but demands that Toby get equal time. So here's my other rescued Siamese. He wanted to look out the window undisturbed and chatter at the birds, especially a dove that lives in the ash tree. But I wanted a picture and kept tapping him on his furry little butt, so he'd look at ME instead of the bird. He finally turned around, looked exasperated, and gave me a couple of long meows. So this is him explaining, "The white bird is out there, I'd much rather watch it, if you'd quit thumping my rear end, I could concentrate. Understood?"


So I'll leave the cat alone, and start with the garden headline news ... my first tomato! It's on the Better Boy plant, the one that had blooms when I bought it. This plant has three, but the other two are even smaller-than-green-pea size.


The wading pool squash are going great so far. I'm not going to let myself get too excited, though, because they were going pretty good last year too, till the rabbit got them. Any of you that regularly garden know of a good companion plant that I could grow with the squash? I've heard corn, but... not in a wading pool, of course.


And here's my windowbox snowpeas. I'll have to put them near the cage pretty soon, so they can climb, but the cage is round front by my peony bush. When they start getting the huge golf-ball size buds, the peonies are usually too heavy for the stem and need some support until the blooming is over.


And, I'll close with another group shot. ;) The banana pepper plants aren't growing near as fast as the tomatoes, anyone know why? Any advice?

Garden Update for Mid April

*grins*
Get used to it, I like to keep a photo-record of my plants. ;)

Here's another version of the group shot I took 9 days earlier - scroll down to see the previous group shot - I like seeing how they've grown, and it's fun to be able to look back on last year and see which ones grew best, and produced earliest. Several of the tomato plants now have buds and blooms, the Better Boy has three teeeeeny little tomatoes, not even the size of an English pea yet.


My squash in the kiddy pool is doing great - I planted 5 seeds per hill, as the directions on the back of the packet showed, but not all of them are up. I wonder if storing these seeds in the freezer (they're the ones that didn't get used last year) impacted their hmm... sprout-ability? Viability, that's the word I was looking for. Most, but not all of the snow peas sprouted, and they were stored in the freezer too.


And finally, a picture of Libby, who hates to go outside, but loves to sit in the window and watch me when I'm outside.

Cat Quilts and Snowpeas Growing!

I'm still working on this quilt - but I did finish piecing my kitty borders. Yes, it's on a fence, and I rotated the pic so you didn't have to tilt your head... lol

Now to put (applique, uggh) the yarn balls on the sides. I've changed my mind and am thinking about only putting them on the long sides, do you agree? With a little scrappy bias tape tail, with one loop in it, I think.


And I've got snowpeas, growing like a weed! These pictures were taken just a little more than 48 hours apart - the top picture was taken Sunday, the one on the bottom, today. I can't wait to crunch into my first raw, fresh off the vine, crisp little pea pod. ;p

Garden Beginnings for April

Ready to meet my new plant family? This is Easter weekend, so that means planting time at my house. I spent three hours this morning, shifting dirt from container to container, repotting, and planting.

The squash in a kiddie wading pool first - last year this didn't work. Not even ONE squash. But I kept the extra seeds in the freezer and I'm trying again. This time, better dirt instead of the topsoil I used before. I also poked some bigger holes in the bottom for drainage. I have five hills of five seeds planted. Last year, I thought I was being smart and tried to stagger the planting times, thinking I'd have squash early, squash late, and even end-of-summer squash. Instead, I think I might have not had enough blooming at one time to fertilize each other. I also had rabbit problems - this year, once they sprout, I'm doing the stinky kitty litter trick around the outside of the pool earlier -- after I did that last summer, I didn't see hide nor 'hare' of the rabbit for the rest of the season. :)


I enjoyed the produce from my sweet banana pepper plant so much last summer, I decided I'd have two this year. I'm planting them in better soil this year too, so I hope I don't get massively over peppered! Meet Banana One and Twin.



And about the CD's -- I'm always tempted to lie and say they're providing some esoteric nutrient to the soil, or they're providing reflected sunlight to the understory of the plants ... nope, they're just there for bird scare. When my tomatoes get 'caged' I use scissors to cut a slice thru the CD and put them on the cages, where the slightest breeze spins them back and forth and sets them flashing.

I haven't yet had a surplus of tomatoes in my little garden, so this year I bought still another container, plus more dirt, and I'm putting out a bunch. First, a Better Boy. Lookie, three little yellow tomato blooms! I had one of these last year, and it did really well:


Then I'm trying grape tomatoes for the first time. I often buy these at the supermarket, and spend $2.50 or so for a little plastic box of them. I'll try to keep some account of how many the plant produces, and see if I save anything.


Next, a Big Boy. I'm hoping this will produce some larger tomatoes I can slice and use on sandwiches. I used one of my big new plastic terracotta containers for this - it's a normal sized tomato plant, not one of the little container 'bushes,' so I'm slightly worried that it may be too much for a container. We'll see.


Here's another I've had in the past, a Husky Cherry Red. This was one of the varities that got me started in container gardening - it was so much fun going out every evening and picking a couple of cherry tomatoes for my salad. Juicy, round, and sweet, they were great. And they weren't prone to splitting either.


I have had this one too, and couldn't resist another. I'm not sure if this Early Girl will have the first ones ripe this summer since the Better Boy already has blooms, I'll have to wait and see.


Now, a group shot of my container garden - and if you look off to the left corner you can see my two window boxes with snowpeas. I planted the seeds for that last week. When I was planting everything else this morning, I was delighted to see that I now have tiny little green leaves poking out of the dirt. I didn't have any mulch on them though, so I re-covered the little shoots with some loose mulch when I was adding mulch to the tops of the tomato containers.

Border Cats

Here's what I've decided to do for my border.


I tried another quilter's idea of making a border using strips of the cat fabric similar to a piano key border, but with the tops pointed like the cat tails are done in the center of the quilt. But too many tails were indistinguishable from a picket fence border, and, at least in EQ, your eye didn't pick up the visual cue that made you think... oh, those are tails!

I tried coloring it so there was a background fabric, and every other tail was a different calico. This time it looked like my inner pinwheel and cat blocks were enclosed in a cage.

Then I tried putting one cat on the border, and having his tail curl up to be the first strip in the picket fence, but that didn't work either. I gave up on the picket fence - tail repeat idea, and just put a kitty in each corner, then added the yarn balls to partially fill the empty space. I may try to do some small bit of machine applique to make a 'tail' of yarn looping from the ball on the two longer sides of the border. We'll see!

Pinwheels and Cats again

Well, like I thought in the last post, I took all the blocks down and totally rearranged them. I decided that I wanted a 5 x 7 layout after all. That makes it fit a bed better, or cover your feet better if it's a throw.

Then I needed to make some more blocks - but (like the Grinch) I had a wonderful, awful idea - How about one BIG mama cat, to go with the five little ones? That way I wouldn't have to make as many pinwheels. I also picked the very darkest skinny green sashing, 1½ inches. So here's what I ended up with, this is all sewn together:


I've got to put the sashing around the top, and right and left sides still. Then decide if I want to make a pieced border, THEN a calico border, or just a couple of calico borders.

Because the pinwheels finished at the odd size of 9¼ (9¾ before sewing them together) the quilt's not as big as it looks, hanging in my doorframe there. When I get the rest of the skinny sashing on, it'll be 52 x 73ish, so to get it to twin size I'd have to add borders of about eight inches all around to make it 68 x 90. That's awfully big, isn't it? Any thoughts for a simple pieced border instead of a wide plain one? I have plenty of calico left... lol

Pinwheels and Calico Cats

Here's another project I've been working on the past month or two. It started with some very scrappy calico pinwheels made in Pat Speth's class:


I decided I didn't want to do 35 pinwheels, to make the quilt 5 blocks by 7. Then I found this calico cat block in an old magazine. I redrew it to the size I needed and made four of them - it really made me like the blocks better to have some cats in there! I need ONE more cat for that empty bottom right corner.

My design wall is too small, so I had to overlap most of the blocks to get them to fit, even with folding the right hand row around to the back. I wish I had a bigger house --and a studio with a skylight and a maid to keep things clean and might as well wish to win the lottery while I'm at it-- but meanwhile, this design wall is as big as it's gonna get!

Now looking at the photo, I see that I've got to shift some blocks, those two brighter green background ones are too close together, and I don't think I like the two cats that're looking left being that close either. Anyone else get to this point and decide to just take them ALL down and start the layout over?

There'll have to be sashing between the blocks, because the pinwheels spin different directions. It'll be thin sashing, maybe 1 or 1½ inches, but I can't decide what color I want. There's a forest green... and a mauve, and a medium blue, and a dark blue. None of them are solid, but they're all a very tiny print, and almost read as solid. It's gotta be from stash, I'm on a no-buy thing till I use some fabric up. Any opinions?

Block of the Month for 2010

Been working on several things, but I'm such a bad blogger! Here's the block of the month I'm doing for my guild, for 2010:

Start Page

It's going to be stars, this year, a different star for each month. People can choose between 6 inch or 12 inch stars, and do whatever theme they want. I've put several suggestions/hints for theme ideas on that Start Page, some suggesting they make their own design for a medallion center, and one at the end for just a sampler quilt. It's pretty neat, seeing all the different colors being used to make the blocks.

Here's an Ohio Star, for January:


And the Strip Star, for February:


And a preview of the block I'll have up in March, the Rising Star:



My web page for the Rising star isn't up on the website yet, I usually put them up around the first of each month. ;)

Personally, I'm going to do six inch stars in a pastel scrappy theme, for Spring. I'll arrange these around a white medallion center, tall and skinny like the Easter one on the Start Page link. I think I'll put a tulip or daffodil in the middle instead of the bunny shown there.

And here's one of each in brown and green and cream, of each star - in the 12 inch size:


The Ohio Star (sorry the view is wonky here - the block is straight, I promise!)


The Strip Star - I paper pieced this one too.


And the Rising Star. I paper pieced the inner and middle star, but not the outer star points.

I'm going to give people the option of using a solid 3½ square instead of the teeny little star in the middle there, I know a lot of folks don't like paper piecing fiddly bits. :)

These will be added to my kingsize 'Neverending Sampler' that I've been working on for *blushes* about 25 years. As I've gotten better at quilting, I look back at some of the early blocks and think... ewww! I can't use that!

December Update

Gosh, I'm not posting much, am I? I'll try to start doing better, I promise. ;) I've been busy, though! Here's the Carolina Christmas logo I just finished for Bonnie at Quiltville:


I've also put this logo on different items in the Zazzle account, if anyone wants to show their support for Bonnie and advertise for Quiltville.

Here's what I've been working on in the evenings after work. First, the finished Autumn table runner, at the completed top stage:



When we used it on the table at Thanksgiving, Mom decided that it would look better just a little longer, so I added another couple of rows of blocks on each end. I'm glad I hadn't backed it and quilted it yet!

And this is the Block of the Month row by row quilt I've been doing for the last year, finally all sewn together. It was just a little too tall to hang on the library shelves, so you can't get the full effect of the row of maple leaf blocks across the bottom:



Two final borders on this and I'll be done. I can't decide if I want a 1 inch brown, then a 3 inch green, or a 1 inch green and a 3 inch brown. :D If anyone's interested in seeing all the instructions for the blocks we used for the rows, they're all on the quilt guild's website: www.ucquilts.com

And finally, the pinwheel blocks you saw the EQ design for:


I've decided that I've definitely met and exceeded my scrappy comfort level with this quilt. Color controlled scrappy like the brown/cream/green row quilt = good. A billion different colors of calicoes put together like this one = bad. That triple-scrappy sashing between the blocks is too, too much scrappiness. It does look old-fashioned, but the end result is too busy.

I'm now planning to unsew and rip out the sashings you see there and use a fabric that reads as solid instead, maybe a blue or a dark green. I can always cut up the 1 inch sashing strips into segments for 9 patch blocks, maybe even use them between some solid borders for this quilt. I've got 17 blocks finished. I can't decide if I want to make it a 4x4 layout and have one block left over for the back, OR a 3 x 4 layout and have 5 left over for a whole row on the back, OR make three more pinwheels and do a 4x5 layout. Decisions, decisions!

November Update

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Here's what I've been working on the last week. Mom mentioned 4 days ago that she wished she had an autumn themed runner for her table for the upcoming holiday. So I've gotten it pieced, but not backed and quilted yet. Here's the design I drew in EQ:


And the actual thing in fabric looks pretty much like my initial design:


Notice on the bottom right corner between the leaf square and the maroon square that I ran out of bobbin thread on the LAST seam - I lacked about an inch or two. Isn't that always the way it goes?

And here's what I learned how to do on our quilt guild's retreat - Happy Villages. We cut stairstep chunks of fabric, lightly glued them down, added doors, windows, and roofs, then covered the whole thing with a layer of tulle and quilted it.


I've still got to bind this one. I'm thinking blue binding to match the sky/ocean around the top and blue sides, then where the edges turn beige for buildings, I'll switch to tan binding and go around the bottom and tan sides.

It was great fun to make, and now I'm thinking of making holiday themed ones... wouldn't it be neat to make one for Easter, say, and buy some fabric with little eggs on it... then hide them all over the village? A Christmas one with candycanes and gingerbread? A Halloween house in shades of black and gray, with spooky things looking out the windows and pumpkins everywhere?

I also made a design wall... and I must say I love using one more than I thought. It's one of those dressmaker's accordian fold boards, with a cheap vinyl/flannel tablecloth carpet-taped to it... then those inexpensive metal expanding curtain rods are clipped to the top and bottom to hold it out straight.

A Third Idea

Here's a third setting idea from my friend Ann (link to her blog on the sidebar - go look at her grandkids... lol)

Ann's a quilter too, and she suggested alternating the dark and light blocks.


Whichever design I end up using, I'd always been planning on adding a couple of borders to take the quilt out to twin sized, I have some deep green and blue calico that should be enough for borders - so I went on and put blocks in that outer border of the two below, then added two more solid borders on. Now which of the three do you like better?

Quilting and Tomatoes

Bet you'd thought I'd forgotten my blog, didn't you? But I've been quilting and tending my tomatoes and working - I'm just more hooked on the facebook games, Farmtown and Vampire Wars, than blogging... lol.

I'm taking another quilting class Saturday, this one is from Pat Speth, and is all about using 5 inch squares. We have lots of homework to do before the class, getting all of our nickel squares cut!

But I'm not choosing one of her layouts... typical troublemaker that I am, I'll be using one of these two... either dark IN or dark OUT. Which do you like better?



I know they're not my 'typical' colors or quilts you'll see on my blog, but I really needed to get all these older calicoes out of my stash. I'm not buying a thing for this class - by using the thin strips of calico for a scrappy sashing, and using scrappy variety in the blocks, I've got more than enough calico and small print fabric to complete this. :) I'm glad to finally be using it up - it's funny how my fabric tastes have changed, I'm much more into batiks and tone-on-tone prints now than sweet little calicoes and tiny florals.

And finally, here's an October 22 tomato update for you:


We haven't had a really hard freeze yet here in Memphis, so yes, things are still this green. The Early Girl bush is producing nicely, and as you can see, I'm still rolling in cherry tomatoes, too.