SOCKS AND GARDENS

The second pair of shorty socks is finished!  I need to dye some Bare yarn in the stash so I can make another pair of socks!

I ate a few sugar snap peas yesterday!

  They were extra good to me!

And I need to extend my fencing for the peas-they are getting very tall.  I will be cutting some small bamboo canes

 and weave the grid higher!

The green beans are full oof blooms

 and looking lush and pretty, too!

The zuchini and summer squash are full of blooms

 but also some baby fruit;

and isn't it cute?!

The bell peppers are doing their thing--I can already taste the stuffed pepper dish I will use these for!

I'm growing banana peppers which I enjoy stuffing and roasting!

But some other members of my neighborhood (deer) have discovered my garden!!!  Bill put up a large barrier so they can look but not touch my peas, beans or squash!  I don't think they will bother the peppers--we'll see if it works!

GRAND FINALE!

Mary and I went to the last shop of our hop; Lake City, 

which was a 2 hour drive of conversation and laughter away!

I bought some ombre fabric to make a Dahlia quilt-something I have wanted to do for decades!

And guess what?  I am going to stay home today and spend time in the studio--after a very busy week, it will be a haven!

 

SHOPPING TRIP

While at JoAnns yesterday, I found the right fabric for the outer border for the mini petals,

and even found a nice fabric for the backing!

Look what we saw at a park recently....it is about 18' long-what's left of it.  Google pic says it is a whip snake skeleton! 

 Who knew they had ribs!?! 

And just so I don't leave you with a snake thought--here is one of the many magnolia blooms that our tree is presenting! 

 Oh, if only you could scratch and sniff!

MOUNTED!

I tried a new way to mount my Hummingbird Diamond Dotz and it turned out very nicely and I will be using it for lots of projects that need a bit of support to display!  This is especially true for odd-sized pieces that you can't find a frame for!  I bought some artisit's canvas panels and cut it to size

 (in this instance, the boards are cut 9" x 9").

I then glued the front of the canvas 

and stretched the Diamond Dotz material over the canvas.

Several hours later, I turned the canvas over

 and folded the back to give a miter at the corner.

I glued the flaps down to the back--

I simply used Elmer's white glue. 

(Sorry for the upside down picture but no matter what, it will only load on the blog upside down!) Once the flaps were glued down, I placed a piece of white, thin cardboard (like in the layer of a new shirt) cut to cover most of the back and glued it and used a roller to press it firmly in place.  The picture hanger was then centered and also glued with a pile of glue over the ends. 

 It dried very securely!

And here were are--two nicely mounted matching pieces! 

 As soon as my WA granddaughters finish their birds

 and mail them to me, 

I will mount them and display all four! in a grouping!

PLEASURES

This is what tropical milkweed looks like. 

 It is in bloom throughout our property.

If you look closely, you will see that some of the pods are bursting with seeds that the winds take and spread even farther abroad!  (Are those seeds on the one pod? I had to go and look it up and they were aphids so I pinched them off !)  

These tall plants are red ginger plants-prettier flowers than the white ginger but their aroma just doesn't compare!

  Ok, they do have a very pleasant smell but it is very subtle.

I did fnish sewing the mini--petals blocks all together--correcting any arrangement errors and a few stitching ones, too!  I will attach a narrow grey inner border (which I have) but will have to purchase additional fabric for the blue ourter border it needs.

And yes, I am still knitting hats on the Sentro knitting machines--mostly making babies' and childrens' hats.

And this package arrived today!  Just you wait and see what I am going to make with these materials!

 

HORIZONTAL ENFORCEMENT

 Another migraine drops me for the count! 

 It hit near bedtime so after a few hours of no vision and fighting nausea I was able to fall asleep and did sleep soundly and deeply until I woke up with the day-after-a-migraine headache! 

 Thankfully, I do have medicine to help control the pain and shorten the time spent in the migraine mist. 

 I placed dotz and managed working on quite a bit of this wall art--I thought the 

even when I cannot see

part of the verse was very appropriate!

MINI PETALS LAID OUT

It took forever to arrange the blocks for this top!  I not only wanted a balance but I wanted the X to be prominent enough to have an affect on the pattern.  I did see a mistake when I took this photo and have since corrected it! lol

 I have managed to piece 5 rows which is halfway through the top--I will be finishing it up today!

This is the pattern I am using to the gist of the design only I didn't want my X smack dab in the middle--it works for me!

SHORTY SOCkS SUNDAY

 These pretty socks are completed and ready for gifting!  I knit them from KnitPicks Static in the colorway Squiggy.  The cuff of the socks are k1p1 in a turned hem which I whip stitched down on the inside.  They come just to the ankle.  There was enough left in the skein that I am making another pair but this next pair will be even shorter-the kind that just peek out of your sneakers. (or trainers or tennis shoes or whatever you call yours! lol)

MINKY MASTERED

Against all odds, Mary and I got her quilt loaded onto the frame!  We had to piece the backing which was a surpirse so took longer.  Then we couldn't get the back to piece nicely because the backing is minky fabric!  It is so stretchy and miserable to work with!  Once the quilt is finished, it will be a beauty but the construction can be tough!  

and then there is working with me-at times very forgetful no matter how many quilts I have done! lol  We loaded the backing on backwards and then we wound the fabric on the wrong way, etc!  If I was alone, I would've walked away but between the both of us we mostly laughed!  

While Mary was doing the actual quilting lines, I glued one of the Dotz hummers to a piece of canvas board--

I did cut it first to be square which the hummingbirds patterns are made to be.  I just trimmed the board on the jigsaw-a breeze! Today,  I will glue the back side and apply a piece of paper to the backing to hide the  canvas edges and glue the hanger on, also.  I will have two hummers on the wall

 by the end of the day.

I am hoping to spend some time on the lathe because I feel a big bowl coming on!

 

STEAM PUNK QUILT TOP!

It was a piece of cake to piece this top;  it is made of a panel which I cut up into blocks and some complementary fabric for the in between blocks. These are a few of my favorite blocks--

Hearts, keys and gears...

wind-up toad and keys...

a bumble bee clock with gears....

and an industrial coffee maker with keys!

Mary is here today, working at the frame to finish a quilt for her granddaughter. I will be piecing another top!

 

QOV FINISH!

What a good feeling to finish a quilt for the Quilts of Valor charity!  I powered through the binding yesterday-struggling to rearrange Lena all the way! lol

As soon as I was done inspecting for stray threads and such, it went right into the washer and dryer so it is ready to be folded and turned in to my local QOV group.  This quilt was started in February on the QOV sewing day.

My friend Mary is coming on Friday to work on a quilt for her grand daughter and as soon as hers is finished, I have another QOV to load up and finish! 

 (the Long May She Wave quilt-a-long)

 

WATERCOLOR WEDNESDAY

I've found some inspiration on a '100 days of Watercolors' on YouTube to help me ramp up my watercolor work again.

  It is relaxing, if nothing else.

She does a lot of different subjects  so that appeals to me, too!

I'm about a week behind but I will be doubling up and skipping some but will try to work on it every day, at least.

In another kind of painting, I spray painted this 3" high shelf Bill found somewhere and put it in the lanai.  A nice pop of color!

Speaking of color--the irises are blooming happily-

nice to see them in full bloom.

And the buddha plants are all blooming--I do love

 the combination of orange and green!

 

PLEASURES OF HOME

At the frame, the first QOV is finished!  I was working on the miles of binding and the iron stopped working!  I tried to figure out why, I think water got in one of the contacts, and it shorted out.  Very frustrating!  I will finish the binding application first thing this morning so I can turn it in at Quilting Group today!

I worked on more of these blocks and will take this to finish the pile for my project today.

Yesterday, I enjoyed an early morning weeding/hoeing session in the garden beds.  The growth in just the 11 days we were gone is amazing!  The plants all tripled in size!  

The hour spent puttering with the plants was very good for me!

Bill's cherry tomato is tall and productive--the small beef tomatoes are catching up!

Tomorrow, I will show you a few other projects I enjoyed working on--it is nice to be home.