A Finish A Day: Day 3

Day 3: Scrappy Fall Sunflowers

This one has been in the works for a while. You may remember seeing it before. (Like when I cut a hunk out of the middle of it for a different project.)

Now that it is all finished, it has a new home with my broken friend Barbara. I hope it is making her bedridden days a little brighter!! Hugs to you Barb.

23 Years

I am interrupting your regularly scheduled programming for this important announcement:
My baby is 23 years old today!
Where has the time gone?

Your Mimi loves you!!

A Finish A Day: Day 2

Day 2: Love in Pink

Oh how I love 2 color quilts!
This one happens to be the latest new pattern to be added to the shop!
Check it out here.

A Finish A Day: Day 1

I have been absent from my little blog!
But I have not been absent from my little sewing machine!


Finish #1: Cherry Baskets.
This quilt started out as just a little pile of blue string blocks. Oh how I love string blocks!!

The Garden

My garden had been quite the dud producer this year. It's just been too darn cool! It looks good, but there has been so little to harvest.

We did get a bumper crop of boysenberries. That was Fabulous!

We have had exactly 1 tomato. I'd show you a picture of that precious beauty but my guy ate it before I could photograph it! And I might add that the greedy little pig ate the whole thing himself! He didn't even leave me a drop of juice to wipe off the counter!! Grumble, grumble.

We are about to harvest our 2nd, that's right 2nd cucumber!

And this morning, the dew looked so pretty on the leaves. It was like art.

I've had 5 BEAUTIFUL gladiolas.

The potatoes are still growing.

And so are the sweet peas.

And I didn't even bother to plant green beans or tomatillos this year because it stayed so cool for so long. But, nature had a different plan!! These are volunteers.

Don't they look great!! I always grow the same heirloom beans (Kentucky Wonder) and tomatillos (Toma Verde) so I know exactly what I will get to harvest, if the growing season warms up and sticks around for a bit longer. (Like maybe a heat wave that started today and lasted until Halloween!)

How's your garden growing (or not, as the case may be)?

Retreat!

The word "retreat" means very different things to me and my camo guy (see this post).
To me "retreat" starts out like this:

And then a little of this gets added:

And a little more:

And a little more.
We nearly overwhelmed the M&M's.
That would never do! So, I guess survival played a role in my "retreat" too.
We were forced to tame those little blocks!

A little piecing on the deck of a lovely little cabin belonging to my bff's
sister brought all of those rail fence units into block form (the taming).

And a little more piecing and tada (a front a part of a back):

And then after a little quilting done back at home:

So what was with all of those millions of little rail fence blocks in funky fabrics?
A friend of ours, the lovely and talented Joan, gave Melanie and I a BIG shoe box full of them. They were vintage and hand pieced. And they had been carefully sorted into stacks of 100 and rubber banded together. There were SO SO MANY of them! I used 270 of them on my top and another 54 on the back. Melanie used just as many, and there are still lots of blocks left!

Anybody want a few (hundred) little rail fence blocks? Let us know!!

Paris on a Budget

Today was a good yard sale day.
$2.50 for a little joie de vivre!

The Rules

We have rules around here.
Lots of rules.
Lots of really really good rules.
Like "ONLY ONE!! article of camo clothing at a time".
That is a really really good rule.
And yet, there is this rule breaker.
He lives here.
And he scoffs at the rules.



He even has a camo bow to go with that camo outfit.
And he is looking for some camo boots.
Good Grief!

Just for the record, he is pig hunting tonight.
These aren't his church clothes.
I would really really really have to draw the line at that.
But then again, there is this rule breaker.
And he lives here....

Going Green

This used to be the ugliest spot in my yard.

But not anymore!

The cannas (those broad leaves in the back) are my favorite. Grandpa George gave them to me quite a few years ago, and they just keep spreading and filling in. Don't you just love the way the light shines through them! Beautiful.
And the lambs ear (right up front), that started with a little 4" pot. It is also a good filler. And the leaves are so soft and such a pretty shade of grey-green.

Right next to those plants is a beautiful asparagus fern. (Full of oak leaves, of course, because we live under 24 GIANT live oaks!)

I actually have three of these beauties. I bought them at the grocery store about 9 years ago and planted them out back on a whim. And they took. Not only took, but thrived!! Aren't they wonderful?

So, all of that to say that I think "Going Green" is a great idea!!