Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Tumalo Trail coming along

Sorry for the fuzzy picture I must have moved.  The blocks and sashing are all sewn and the red inner border.  I have started cutting and sewing the piano keys.  I am loving this!

The two youngest grandchildren visited us this past weekend.  We really enjoyed having them.  Their innocence is refreshing and entertaining! 

I don't think  I have mentioned that our dog, Ruby, had puppies.  It was an unplanned pregnancy with one of the male dogs that lives down the road who jumped our fence.  There are seven.  Six black ones like him and one that looks like a border collie like her.  They are sweet and the grands loved seeing them.  That is the one redeeming thing.   We have them in the garage with a fan because it is so doggone hot in the afternoons.  They are going outside very soon now. 

We still have grasshoppers by the hundreds.  They eat my tomatoes off the plants as soon as they're almost ready to start turning red.  I step on as many as I can!  This has not been a good year for raising a garden.  The squash were killed by squash bugs and the cucumbers and jalapenos bloomed but no fruit. What?  I've never had this happen. Someone suggested that we might not have enough bees to pollinate. 

Hog Man had another litter of pigs born over the weekend. 

Happy quilting and blessings,



Thursday, July 25, 2013

Scrappy Goodness

 
 
Before I went to guild meeting Saturday morning I laid out the blocks and sashing for Tumalo Trail, Bonnie Hunter's pattern from her book Scraps and Shirttails II.  This week I have been sewing all the rows together and then joining each row.  I have two more rows to go!  This view doesn't do it justice. There will be a small red border that goes on next and then a piano key border which I haven't even started cutting out yet.   The grands are coming so I need this bed.  That was my push to get this done.  If I laid them out I didn't want to have to pick them back up un-sewn.  ; ) 
 
 
 
This little quilt loaded on the frame is all made from scraps and is a pattern from MaryQuilts.com and is called 4 Patches on the Diagonal.    
 
 

I really tried to rotate this picture and I have given up! 
And here is another one I put together recently.  This I decided to use all blue for the triangles because Hog Man thought the first one was to o busy.  I like both.  These will be C.A.S.A. quilts for my contribution to our Kraz-z Quilters project.  I probably have enough four patches sewn to make a couple more little quilts.  And I keep more 2"squares cut out by my sewing machine to sew as leaders and enders as Bonnie Hunter does.

Happy quilting and blessings,
Catering Quilter

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Down but not out

I have been missing.  On the internet.  Not intentional--but due to computers around here needing repair.  One is up and running the other is history.  Amazingly I got a lot done or it seems like I got a lot done without the distraction of the internet or spider solitaire.  : )  

Let's see I got DD Amanda's Dresden quilt completely quilted and bound the last week of June.  Hog Man and I delivered it last week one day and it fits her bed.  Happy Dance!

I had the strangest feeling when we got in the car and drove away.  I felt sadness.  I can't explain it.  I was so happy to have it done and for her to have it but at the same time I felt a loss.  Like something significant was no longer a part of my life.  I know -- WEIRD!  I guess when you bond with something for several years you can't help but experience loss when it's gone.  : )

Enough of that!  Onward and upward.  We had some wonderful cooler weather last week.  Cool as in upper  50's and 60's for overnight lows and 80's for highs.  Unheard of around in these parts for June in Texas.  I got outside and worked in the yard.  I weeded my round brick planter that is home to the irises and tulips.  I edged the sidewalks.  I trimmed with the weed eater.  I cleared an area that briars always want to take over.  It was rejuvenating to work in the cool temps.  We have a BIG yard.  And we (Hog Man does because I am a chicken about mowing a slope on the riding mower and working around traffic!) keep the bar ditch mowed outside our fence because the county only mows it maybe twice during the season.  I did chop down the tall Johnson grass that had sprung up with the last rains we have had.  Long story made shorter--it is looking better around here!  If only it would stay that way.  It's kinda like bathing a child or cleaning house--you do it over and over again.  : )

My friend, Priscilla, lives part of the year here and part of the year in Colorado.  They had to evacuate because of fires in her area.  Their cabin is still safe but fires are burning in a national forest near their town.  Her loss our gain kind of thing.  She is missing out on her friends up there and the cooler mountain temps but I have enjoyed having her back.  She and I decided to go sew with the Paradise ladies the last Saturday of June.  There were 13 of us in the fellowship hall sewing away.  So fun.  I took my blocks from Bonnie Hunter's quilt pattern from her book Scraps and Shirttails II and I got four more blocks sewn together.
You can see them here.   I have continued cutting  scraps and sewing this week and now have 29 blocks sewn with two more laid out to sew.  I need a total of 42 blocks and then the sashing and piano key borders.   Everyone I show these blocks to love it.  What is it about small scrappy blocks that make us smile?

It is the season for show pigs to be born for next year's shows.  Hog Man has two litters so far.  One litter of blue butts and one hampshire.  So for the next few months there will be baby pigs making their way into the world.  It is a challenge to keep the mothers cool when the temps are in the 100's like this week.

Happy quilting and blessings,
Catering Quilter