Quilting Re-visited

 This project has been languishing for quite a few months but I gave in and bought different fabrics than the line I thought I could make the whole thing from.  I sewed most of the blue row 

 and then cut out all the rest of the yellow ones I have to piece-there are eight blocks in these piles!  I also went through what fabric I do have from the Robert Kauffman line so the next time I go to JoAnn's I will know what I need!  I am using 4 values of each of the colors from darkest to lightest.  It feels good to have a working plan again!

(See the 'block' under the yellow block?  It is Will's block he designed!  I love that he likes to work with me in the studio!)

The Perfume of Fairies!

 Night blooming Cereus is worth staying up way too late to sit and admire and 

breathe in the amazing savor of this bloom! 

 I am losing my sense of smell but am so grateful this still can cause an aromatic thrill!

 Look at this center!

 The bloom looks delicate but it is a very large and substantial flower!  

The center is 2" across!

The common name for this flower is Dutchman's Pipe because of the stem supporting the bloom-

This is what it looked like this morning--see the 'pipe'?

I knew tonight was THE night because of the exploding bloom.

This was the bloom last weekend so you can see how it has, well, blossomed in just a week!

Friday Felines- Our Lena Love

 Lena has been very interested in the cat doors we have.  

This one leads to the pool patio.  

 She recently got her paw stuck trying to push the door open.

When she withdrew her paw, it got stuck in the swinging door 

and she screamed to crazily, I wasn't sure what I was hearing! 

 This happened a few days ago.

Here she is looking out the door......she didn't know I was snooping;

 ...after staring at the door for a minute, 

she picked up her mousie and played instead.

Yes, it is much safer to love a mousie than to experience a pinched paw!

For those of you who have read the blog for some time, this is the cat Bill found hiding in our garage just before my birthday, last December.

She had broken her hind leg from an animal attack and survived.

After months of vet visits and bills, 

she is a most loving member of our family!

(The leg was not amputated but instead was set so it is permanently straight.

She runs and jumps with abandon so we feel we made the right choice!)

Trip Ups!

 When we went to the beach on Tuesday, I realized when we arrived home that I had left one of my flip flops on the pavement next to my car door-you know, sit down, wipe the foot, swing it in, repeat with other foot, shut the door and drive away!  I could cry-I live in these things!!!!  Needless to say, a new pair are on their way but still!  I was so mad at myself!

 Last night as I was knitting on the second sock and measured it to the first one to see how far to the heel-I knew I was close-I noted that the second sock seemed narrower.....I stretched and then I counted.   Yes, 4 stitches narrower which adds up to 1/2" narrower.  One stitch I would fudge but not 4.  I hurried and ripped out before I could fall apart!  (I am now almost back to this point thanks to a nice wait at the doctor's this afternoon but at least they were fitting me in so I shouldn't complain! )

And I could see I was running short of yarn on the messy bun hat so I thought I was close enough and did the ribbing to be done.   Well, there is a difference between quitting and finishing.   It was not finished.  I had to send for another skein.  It's a good thing I am not a novice knitter or I might just go fishing instead!

A Birthday Outing!

 

 Yesterday we celebrated Matthew's birthday with a family outing to the beach!

I knitted along on the messy bun hat 

and am nearing the end of this hat-another 2" is all!

 The waves were quite impressive for our shores-the rip tide warnings were still in effect so no one headed in to enjoy them from our group 

though there were plenty who disregarded the warnings-

I figure that it is the weeding out of stupid from our population....

There were plenty of bird life activity and we were very happy to watch them.

Will goes into his beach mode 

and tossed his ball and chased it for hours! 

 Ethan was not interested in the water at all at any cost!!! 

  He like hanging out with Grandpa 

and stealing sips of Grandma's lemon water!

 The beach was littered with shell detritus but I didn't find any shark's teeth!

 We did find some Coquina rocks and that is always a treasure!

This guy didn't fare so well with the waves so large.

 I enjoyed sitting and watching the waves come . 

 Very restive. 

Every once in a while a bit of foam would whip up

 and the texture is so interesting! 

 The whole day was perfection!

We came back home to cheesecake and a game of cards.

Sunkissed, rested and sated.

Raggedy Perfection!

This lap blanket is so homespun soft and wonderful! 

It was cut with the Accuquilt die for an 8 1'2" rag block.

I used a fat quarter bundle of homespun plaid fabrics.

I used 1 1/2 yards of the same type of fabric for the backing blocks.

It turned out so well, I will be making another and another!  

This one is 34" x 48".

You can see the wonderful fringe that results from the four layers of fabric.

The embroidery worked out great for the quilting motif for each block, too!

I will tell you-
there is a LOT of lint after washing and drying this blanket!
I have heard of people adding lint to their wool batts for texture-
now I understand how that could work! lol

Some Saturday Satisfaction

 While I had some quiet time on Saturday,

I finished embroidering the center area with an in the hoop quilt design.

 I even began sewing some of the blocks together!

It went much more smoothly than I thought!

These blocks were cut with the Accuquilt cutter, 

the 8 1/2" rag block die.

 I layered the back blocks-all the same fabric,

the batting and the front fabrics and then loaded them in the hoop

for some machine embroidery.

A very interesting project!

On the knitting front-a new hat that I am going to alter so it is one of the new

messy bun hats that has the crown open for long hair!

It's for my niece and I hope to see a successful end soon!

The hat is a KnitPick's pattern, Evergreen Cap, which is full of cables!

I will miss Bill this morning as we drive to church-I knit and tend the boys while he drives-so there will be quite a bit of knit time lost! lol

(Bill is still on storm duty in southern FL)

I 💗 FALL KAL

 Cascading Leaves socks are finished!  

What a great knit!

 Using the Berrocco Comfort DK yarn on #3 needles 

really made the socks fly off the needles!

These socks were knit toe-up over 52 stitches.

 This is the only tree that turns orange in the Fall.

I don't know what it is but it is pretty!

 Right behind that tree is this cluster of Candlestick Cassia.

It is planted around a tortoise burrow.

We have seen several after the hurricane

so we know they made it through alright, too!

 Some of our trees didn't make it though!

This is in the grove of my Live Oaks.

There is hours of work with the chainsaw ahead.

 Most of the beautiful trails my husband cleared for me on our property looks like this.  Hours of raking needed here!

This is just the debris we picked up in the front yard 

and around the house!

And the reason for the spotty blogging-I am trying to catch up from the storm!

When Bill comes home,

he will have plenty of work to do for the next month!

I also had the wonderful distraction of two additional grandkids!

My Fernandina Beach sweethearts came for an overnighter

to check out the storm damage and give me a hug!

Priceless!

Cascading a Leaf

 Another sock done for the I 💗 Fall Knit-a-Long!

 This one is done on the #3 needles over 52 stitches.

The yarn is Berrocco DK;  it is super soft acrylic.

I kept the design up the front only and worked ribbing up the cuff on the remaining stitches!   I will be flying up the second sock in no time!

What Can You Do?

 When the power is out, you have to creative in your creative activities:

 Load up a quilt from your neighbor, Millie, on the frame.

Use up every last bit of your dishcloth cotton and make a radar map dishcloth!

 Pull out the Accuquilt cutter and cut out 35 rag quilt blocks for the front of a lap quilt, 35 for the back........

 and rotary cut  35  6 1/2" squares of batting for the middles!

Layer them up in a pile for sewing a quilting design on their middles-soon!