Helllloooo Summer!

Oh, joy! Temps in the mid 90's and high humidity and feels like +100. We had Paradise Piecemakers Saturday and when Clara Ruth came in she said, "Everybody repeat after me! One, two, three, I HATE SUMMER. I have put deodorant on twice and it hasn't done any good." We do have wind at our house, Thank God! The only saving in this humidity. But my personal summers don't help either. LOL But they aren't as bad as what they were a year ago.We live on a little higher elevation than ground around us and it seems the wind most always blows except in late July and August (the dog days). My prayers go out to those who have lost their homes and loved ones in the tornadoes and storms.
We had a nice time at Paradise Saturday. There were quite a few there in spite of the holiday weekend. I worked on the "Time Travel" quilt. Everybody thinks I'm crazy for working with such little pieces. Maybe I am! It is time-consuming. The quilt "grows much slower".I pieced two saw-toothed borders and got one sewn on the length of one side. These half-squares are left over from the flying geese in the "Soaring Past Time" blocks and are 1 1/2" and finish at 1". I hadn't done a saw-tooth border before. I had to dig out some books and find how they meet at the corners. Hmmm. Seems as though if I want mine to meet like what I have in mind I have sewn the width wise border in the wrong direction. Story of my life! Hello seam ripper. Maybe I have enough half-squares leftover to piece another without ripping out what I have already done. Hope so. Anyway here's a picture.


I went to Wal-Mart last week to pick up DH's prescription and some things and found this
fabric (gotta look-right?) and I want to make another 4 Patch Stacked Posies quilt and I saw this setting at http://edutach.blogspot.com/2008/04/flower-box-quilt.html#links and want to do one like it. What can I say I am addicted to these; is there any help for those of us who are addicted? Is there something like AA or NA? Maybe SnWA? or 4PSPA? I also bought fabric for the sashing and borders for Rose 4 Patch Stacked Posies at our Duckwalls or Alco for some of you so I will be getting that together shortly.

Oldest DS came Sunday and we grilled steaks and we watched a movie I had gotten from Netflix.
Then, on Monday I helped DH move some of his pig pens around. He moved the baby pigs out of the barn. We moved panels around so the calves could get to some grass near the garden. My garden is doing good! I did have to replace some of the tomatoes. I gotta hoe it out this week. We got 2/10 of an inch of rain Sunday morning early. Amazing what a little rain can do for things. Thank you, God, for the rain.

And here is a pic of DGS and DGD after one of their games.



We are almost done hand quilting my pink 4 Patch Stacked Posies at Kraz-z Quilters. Tomorrow will finish it up and then I can bind it and post a picture. I gotta cook something for tomorrow -- got any ideas?
I have a lot to do around here in the next few weeks and months--the garden, machine quilting, my "catering" business, Kid's Camp with the quilt guild in June, keeping youngest DGS a week in July, blah, blah, blah so you may not hear from me much in the upcoming months. Just know that I miss blogland and you.

Blessings and happy quilting,

Fun weekend

Whew! What a weekend! First, I had been invited to bring my "store" to Wise County Quilt Guild of which I am a member on Sat. morning. I spent Thurs. and Fri. cutting fat quarters, organizing, etc. Then loaded the car Fri. evening. Wonderful time at guild meeting with the ladies-- great show and tells and of course they lightened my load. LOL I forgot to take my camera. The car was pretty full. I think I am outgrowing my car. Not sure what we will do next. Hmmmm.
Then I hurriedly came home and unloaded with DH's help and we hopped in the car to travel to San Angelo--4 1/2 hour drive.

Our parents live in the San Angelo/Ballinger area. We met DH's parents and brothers and wives at Lowake to eat steak. Yum. It's a little steakhouse that sits out in the middle of cotton fields way off the beaten path. But people flock from miles around. We've been going there for years. Spent the night with DH's parents. I stayed up late talking to MIL who is also a quilter. I showed her how to use different Clover yo-yo makers and she showed me Fabled Flowers by Kumiko Sudo. I had been searching for how to make the folded yo-yo's and there it was in the book. Yippeee! Then Sun. morning we ate breakfast and talked and talked some more. Then we went to visit my mom and step-dad in Ballinger. I had gotten an email from a cousin of mine and she was flying down from New York to visit family. We had arranged to meet at my mother's Sun. morning and eat lunch at a local Mexican restaurant. It was so fun to see her again. It has been many years since I have seen her. Her dad is my dad's youngest brother and my parents took him in when their mother passed away when he was eight years old. My dad was one of twelve. Six boys and six girls. WOW. I was born about the time he came of age and joined the military so I remember him coming to visit and, of course, bringing his family. My uncle has had dementia for a number of years and now has prostrate cancer.

After eating lunch we went to the cemeteries where family members are buried. I hadn't been back to my dad's grave since he had died 24 years ago. And I don't remember the last time I went to the graves of my grandparents who are buried in the Norton cemetery. They died long before I was born. And then we went back to my mother's house and I asked her to get out the old photographs. Don't ya just love looking at old photos? And then after a while it was time to get started home so we could feed the animals before dark. It was a very enjoyable weekend.





My mother, cousin and daughter, and me, standing.

Blessings and happy quilting,

Another busy week ahead!

Cool Mason!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day! I know I did. All my kids came and oldest DS cooked. Grilled chicken breast, asparagus, muchrooms, green salad, zucchini and yellow squash, with a bundt cake and strawberries and bananas and homemade rolls. It was a feast! All the kids had not been here together since Christmas. It was nice.

DH and I worked hard the day before in the yard. He mowed (new riding lawn mower Woo-hoo) and trimmed trees. I cut stuff out of the fence (the country trying to reclaim) and clipped the hedges in the backyard. The front ones are for another day. I thought my arms would be jelly the next day (manual clippers) but they weren't--they didn't hurt or anything.

Today I finished planting our vegetable garden. I know it is probably a little late. But we have had some wacky weather. It was in the 40's yesterday morning and SOOOO windy. I don't remember a spring with this much wind. Last year and maybe the year before we had to replant several times because it was too cool for things to germinate. Anyway, I planted two rows of okra, one row of green beans, two of blackeyed peas, one of zucchini, one of marigolds mixed with zinnias, one of yellow squash, cucumbers, cantaloupe, and watermelon. Let me tell you about the tomato plants that I started from seed back in March. I started fifty peat pots. Oh, yes, I did! :-P The seed was from 2004 so I didn't know how or even if it would sprout. DGD helped me when she spent spring break with us. Maybe it was her little green thumb or something but I had bazillions of tomatoes come up. And kept coming up. I kept thinning them.
Well, I set them outside a couple weeks ago to "harden" them off. I tried to set them out of the wind. Hard to do around here. I kept moving them. To make a long story less long-- LOL -- the wind did a number on them. And they should have been planted oh, probably a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, I lost probably half of them. Did I tell you about pulling the labels out before they germinated? Oh, yes I did! :-) I gave up on them (Oh, me of little faith). About the time I pulled the last label out I happened to see a hint of something green. So now I know I started with Beefsteak, Homestead, Cherry, Better Boy, and some dwarf yellow-orange kind. But I have no idea what I have now. Surprise, Surprise! Remember Gomer Pyle? I still need to pick up some pepper plants if I can still find some. Jalapenos and maybe another kind. Gotta have the jalas for hot salsa. Oh, yeah!

Blessings and happy quilting,

Kraz-z Quilters

We had sooo much fun surprising our dear Agnes yesterday. She didn't have a clue until her family walked in the door that we were up to something. Then it was party time! We are so blessed to have her still with us; she will be 96 on her birthday later this year. And she is still quilting with us. Her stitches aren't as wonderful as they were once were but hey she has an eye infection (bless her heart--she looked like she had a black eye) and can really see good out of one eye.
AND my quilt on the frame! I used masking tape to mark the quilting lines on the outer border. I first saw this done at Post Oak at Busy Bee Quilters. They use different widths of masking tape to mark straight lines for quilting. Yesterday we got all but a few of the lines quilted and the masking tape removed. It is quick and easy and it gets the job done. With the floral print I knew it would've been hard to make a design where we could see it well enough to hand quilt it.




And before mine there was Jan's quilt a Drunkard's Path Butterfly. The colors are spectacular!

For all the mothers out in blogland--Happy Mother's Day.

Blessings,
Marilyn

Another project?

I already had these cut out and Sunday afternoon I just needed something to sew that didn't need my brain. Just something to chain sew. And I did all 70 of them. I love the "4 Patch Stacked Posies" pattern. It is addictive. The blocks are positioned on my muslin backed quilt "design bed". I'm thinking of the lighter pink in the roses for sashing strips and corner stones from the same focus fabric. What do you think? Doesn't the fabric remind you of the wonderful roses that are blooming here in Texas?

I make armchair pincushions to sell and I cut out four one day this week. Hopefully, I can get those sewn up today. Last Thursday I went to Post Oak to visit the Busy Bee Quilters. It's about a 45 minutes drive one way in a very rural area. It's not unusual to see wild turkey, deer, or even a cow eating on the side of the road who has found a way out of the fence. There weren't many wildflowers and I was disappointed at that. I had a wonderful time and again they helped me out with my inventory. Sorry, I forgot my camera.

I planted some zinnias, cosmos, and salvia flower seeds this week. Hopefully, they will come up and bloom for pictures this summer. Yesterday was Kraz-z Quilters. Kathleen and I stayed late after everyone else left and finished Jan's Drunkard Path Butterfly quilt. I will post a picture soon. And guess what? It's my turn to have a quilt done! Which one do I pick? Hmmmmm.
I gotta decide quick because I have to get the backing ready and thread. Oh my! Oh, can you keep a secret? Good. We are planning a surprise to honor our darling Agnes at Kraz-z Quilters. She is 95 years old and has been a member since 1992 when she moved to our area from Austin. We are making her an honorary member and will invite her family in the area. Fun, Fun!

Tomorrow, I plan on going to watch DGD and DGS play ball about an hour's drive away. DH is BBQing a pig this weekend for a golf tournament fund raiser. I'm not crazy about going with him and staying all day (it's about an hour's drive in the other direction). So I will let you know what I do.

Blessings and happy quilting,

Baby pigs

They were born April 21. In this picture they are not 24 hours old. Patty(mama pig) had ten and now there are eight. This is her first litter. And in the next picture look closely at the little pig by itself. Can you see it's ears? Baby pigs are born with their ears all stuck up and then in a few days they unfurl and come down. They weigh 1 1/2 to 2 pounds each.

There are hundreds of yellow irises. I found some purple ones that weren't too damaged by the wind. And here is my Don Quiote red rose. They are very fragrant but have a problem with black spot. AND I turned on the a/c today. I couldn't stand it any longer. It got to 86 degrees today and high humidity.

Blessings,

Another busy weekend

I attended guild meeting Saturday morning and stayed for the work day to finish up on the donation/raffle quilt. Then Sunday morning DH and I went in to metroplex to visit oldest DS to help him out with a leak he has in his yard. I cooked burgers while they worked and shopped for supplies. But alas, what they repaired did not fix the leak. (We think the boys made a leak when digging up the line.) So poor DS must call a plumber and hopefully it is not under his foundation or in the outside wall. I took my yo-yo maker along and while the "Boys" played in the mud and on the way home I made yo-yos. Beware of the bumps in the road. LOL Ouch!

Then we came home and bought a riding lawn mower. Woo-hoo! Double woo-hoo! It is going to take some getting used to. Like operating the thing. Chewing gum and walking, etc.

Oh! Oh! I gotta tell you this. I placed some orders to replenish inventory and also decided to order some fixtures that are portable to make displays more attractive and organized. Well, one piece is a freestanding pegboard. I forgot to order the hooks to go along with it. My good fortune!
Huh? You might be thinking. Well, when I realized I forgot I started calling to find some in my area. Lowe's has them. Then I thought about a gal who had a quilt shop a few years ago and closed it. She would ask DH to look for them and then second call while I'm at guild meeting--Come and get them. She gave these to me. You might be thinking, "Okay, this gal gets excited over peg hooks?" I get excited over anyone's generosity. There's probably a couple hundred or more peg hooks in this tote. Not that I need that many (I think?) at this time. But, and more importantly, I have made another connection with another human being and hopefully a new friend.

Okay, now for the pretty stuff. I took pictures of my irises this weekend. We have dark purple ones, yellow ones, orchid-colored ones (see the header above) and just a few white ones. There are blooms on top of blooms this year. I didn't take a picture of the purple ones (the wind did a number on them.) And the wind blew last week! Blessings to all.

Busy, Busy

Saturday went fantastic at the Lone Star Quilt Guild. Wow, they were SOOOO nice. And helpful. They helped me unload my car AND load it up again. And they lightened my load considerably! Thanks, ladies. I demonstrated the large yo-yo maker and the large flower yo-yo maker. They were good students and I hope I was a good instructor. And many thanks to Kathleen! I could not have done it without her.

Then, I came home and unloaded everything, pant, pant. And then we went to get DGS, Mason, and kept him overnight. He is just too precious. He is about to cut some teeth so he was sucking on his bottom gum. We had a blast with him til his mommy and daddy came to pick him up.


Yesterday, I reorganized my wares after Saturday. I spent two days reorganizing LAST week getting ready to take it Saturday. But it was well worth it. I liked how it was organized better. And now I've got to replenish, so I've been looking at another supplier who handles some things that some customers have asked about and getting an order worked up. And I have to get my sales tax stuff sent in this week. And I have to mow the yard again. And I've been making quilt labels. Did I tell you I make quilt labels? Shame on me. I sold some Saturday. So I've got to replenish them as well. Here are some I have on hand. I do custom labels as well.

Happy quilting to all and blessings,

Stormy weather

A little stormy weather last night, but we are okay. Hope the same for you Patsy. We missed the bad weather last week. But there were some in Decatur and Chico that had large hail. We had hail last night but it never got bigger than marble size. I am waiting for reports from Paradise. They may have had a tornado. The DFW area has had widespread damage from last night.

We had a blast at quilting yesterday. We are still quilting on Jan's king size butterfly quilt and will finish it up in the next two weeks. Kathleen and I are having a blast making yo-yo's. I think she has bought every size and kind Clover makes. I got the regular yo-yo maker mastered as much as one can master it, I think. I got out the flower shape and fell in love with these little flowers. Kathleen had attended a demo and the lady putting it on said not to waste your time with the flower yo-yo maker. It takes a little more manipulation but well worth it in my opinion. And the package gives ideas--making corsages plus decorating gifts and baskets, etc. So Kathleen after seeing it yesterday just had to have one. Heehee.These are my practice ones. The ones on the left are made according the directions that came with the maker. The ones in the middle I added a little poly-fil to the center as I closed it up. The ones on the right I used a piece of the cotton scrap left from trimming the square after inserting it into the disk. What do you think? Personally, I like the ones on the right.

Wish me luck for Saturday--I go to a guild here in town and demo the yo-yo maker and take my wares. I've asked Kathleen to go with me and help me. Hopefully she can make it. When I had a booth at a quilt show in Sept. I got overwhelmed being by myself. I don't think this guild is all that big but we are on a time constraint.
I ordered the book "Tradition with a Twist" which has the Blooming Nine Patch pattern in it. I so want to make that pattern. I have collected two fabrics so far that I want to use. OH, I HAVE TOO MANY PROJECTS I WANT TO DO! TOO MANY I HAVE TO COMPLETE BEFORE I START A NEW PROJECT! Argggh!

And here is some "cotton" candy or scrappy "jelly". My trimmings from the yo-yo makers.

Blessings,