Learning to See

It is summer and I have not been doing as much sewing as I would like, but the activities I have been doing are definitely building some skills that I will use in future projects.  Yesterday I spent a little time with my fisherman at the local pond called Grace.  The fish were jumping and the people were lined up at the little bit of shore available to fish from.  Fish were being caught by young and old a like, but not by me so the search was on for the bait the fish would want to eat.  To find it I have found that have to look around you and boy did I see a lot.  I saw reeds where fish could hide to stay cool, the different colors in the water let you know where the deep sections are and this is a place fish like to hang out.  Someone thought the fish might like Cherrios and I heard another person mentioning that she had been using Velveeta Cheese and that didn’t like that either.  I saw when I really looked that the fish were jumping up to catch a certain bug that must have just hatched and they were like little white mayflies.  Changing my lure to something that most resembled the bug got the fish biting my line and when other fishermen see that they all want to know what you are using, this is where fisherman learn to lie because in order to keep your status as the guy catching the fish you can’t give away your secret.

As the fish weren’t biting much I got bored and started looking around me and thinking about how fishing is not really about catching but more about taking in the environment where you are fishing.  Listening to the sounds of the  birds, the fisher people, the buzz of bees and mosquitoes, and so much more.  Butterflies don’t make any noise, but they are always there and so beautiful to observe, but hard to catch on film .  Being a gardener I am always admiring the flowers and plants and how nature is such a better gardener than me, she knows just what looks good together and grows well together, it always amazes me.

I also enjoy the movement on the water.  This was helping us see just where most of the active fish were which was also where the water was deep and cool and the bugs were hanging out.  So casting into just the right spot with just the right lure and dragging through this spot with just the right speed to look like one of the bugs and the fish were biting on my line.  I really don’t care if I catch a fish and we usually let them go anyway, but the thrill you get when one tugs on your line always gets my heart racing and wakes me up from the fishing trance.  Of course, I am always thinking this is the big one I have waited my whole fishing life for, but it usually is not and that is okay.  Fishing for me is not all about catching the big one though my oldest son totally disagrees with me, he claims that if he doesn’t catch fish and if they are not of a decent size he has wasted time.  I tell he to rethink that and take a look around him and soak in the environment around him.  That is what fishing is all about, but catching is always fun too, because the elusive fish is a beauty to behold and natures color combinations are always an inspiration to the artist side of me and could show up in a quilt or a painting project some where in the future.  

Catch a little inspiration by looking around you!

Ferne

Favorite Quilting Tools

One of my favorite quilting tools was introduced to me by Harriet Hargrove at a class I took at a local quilt shop last year.  It is the Perfect Piecing Seam Guide by Perkins Dry Goods.  My picture is a bit fuzzy, but I think you can get the idea of how this works.  You place your needle in the hold on the guide and then I stuck a piece of thick sticky tape onto my bobbin case only so I can change my bobbin without loosing my place.  That combined with my new quarter inch foot for my Janome and I am getting really accurate quarter inch seams.  The foot I am using is not the one that came with my machine it is one I bought extra from my dealer and I love it.

  Another new tool that I just recently got was a new cutting mat.  I got a Gingher 36” mat from the recent JoAnn’s sale and they only had it available online.  It is so thick and I am loving the larger size.  I did have to get a new table though to accommodate the larger size, but got lucky when I found a nice sturdy plastic table on sale at Home Depot for only $39.99.  I love my new set up.  I spent all day yesterday working at it since it was rainy, foggy and cold outside.

On my new cutting board is my newest fabric purchase from Green Fairy Quilts sale.  I got some Moda Cotton Sateen and the colors are looking like fall to me.  I have been wanting to do a falling leaves quilt for a while now and these will be perfect for that.  What you can’t see in a picture is the way this fabric feels…wow!  It does feel like satin.

Having the right tools makes quilting easier and more accurate. 

ferne

A Little Quilting Going On

It has been a while since I posted to my blogs with summer trying to show itself here there is a lot to do outside away from the computer, but the last few days are feeling a bit like winter again.  I guess winter just doesn’t want to go away this year.  So I got a little unexpected time to sew.  I have been spending my lunches designing a border for my summer quilt and I am working on putting it together.  I had to go back to the drawing board a few times, but that is to be expected when you don’t follow a pattern.  I always seem to make things harder than they need to be first, but I did a little simplifying and it is getting there.  I will post pictures when I get a little further since there is not much to really look at yet, but I will say that it involves a few bird houses and more flowers and lots of soft pink fabrics.  I opted to keep the colors of the border muted because there is so much going on in the quilt and this is just a frame for all of that.

I did take some time a while ago to try this cute and complicated paper pieced cow I saw on a blog while blog hopping one day.  ( the blog was Piecemeal Quilts and the pattern was designed by Sandy)  I don’t have the name of the blog on the pattern so if anyone reading this knows please feel free to let me know, the creator should get credit as it took a lot of thought to get this right.  Now just as often happens when I first attempt something complicated, there are a few mistakes.  Thinking all went pretty well I took a picture of the cow then started to wonder why he had such a pointed head.  Well, it seems I put a colored fabric where there should be white and I also didn’t get the fourth color in his snoot for more dimension.  I am going to try to remake this cow because it was a fun project.  I had no real project in mind for it and I still don’t, but sometimes I just do things for fun then it grows from there.  Today I saw a cute cowboy boot on a blog called Sew Take A Hike, she gave a link to a free pdf file with the pattern for a quilt using paper piecing.  Don’t you think they would really go together nicely for some special guy?  I don’t have a cowboy of my own, but if I did he would get a cow quilt for sure.

Besides gardening I also spent a day doing a little fishing with some fun guys.  This one had the right idea…kick your shoes off and sit a long the river with your pole in the water and enjoy!  This is my grandson, Nathan showing us the real way to fish.

Nathan and my son Andy came down and spent a week with us while my sons Andy and Rob added a shower to our tub and they did a fantastic job.  Now   when we have company they don’t have to use the shower in my room anymore.  They actually get a kind of spa treatment in the other bathroom.  It is so large and roomy in there and beautiful too!  Here is the tub before and after…amazing!  I am loving it!  Today I will take the first shower in it.

My vegetable garden should be taking up more of my time and I should be harvesting things by now, but the weather isn’t letting that happen here.  My flower beds are looking nice however!  Some tomatoes are in, but they are not producing yet and are only about 2 feet tall.  We’ll be lucky to have fruit by winter.  I did get my melons, cucumbers and pumpkins planted and they are starting to grow by leaps and bounds.  Hopefully I will get to make more Zucchini Relish this year, we sure enjoyed it last year, but our supply is gone.  I am also wanting to try making Pickled Watermelon Rind like my Grandmother use to make.  My Dad brought me a box of memorabilia of my Grandmothers and in it were a few journals with lots of recipes.  I am hoping to put some to good use around here then put them together into a book for my sisters, but that will be a project for the winter or sooner if the weather doesn’t change.

I broke down the other day and ordered an Accuquilt Go Baby and one set of dies.  It is a neat tool to help you cut pieces quickly and accurately for quilting.  Now I am waiting patiently for it to come in the mail.  Amazon says it shipped so maybe today will be the day.  I saw it on sale and my sweet sister gave me a gift certificate for my birthday so I snatched one up.  The only thing is I am not sure if it comes with a cutting mat so I ordered one, but I might have to wait to use it till the mat comes.

 …the sun will come out tomorrow…I am hoping…

Ferne

Where’s Summer? A Quilt Collage

I spent this holiday doing a little baking, some sewing and a little tiny bit of gardening.  It was so cold and windy that they gardening part of my day was cut short so I came in and looked at a quilt that I have been putting together with misc. blocks that remind me of summer and I just had to work on it.  I keep thinking how we are six months into this year and it is still feeling like winter.  Hopefully summer will last a little longer so our veggies get a chance to produce.

So the summer themed quilt collage is ready for a border and I have no idea what I will do with it.  I have a block I might use in the corners that is a bird house and I was thinking I could appliqué little birds in the border or maybe some flowers of some sort.  But, for now working on this quilt made my day a little brighter even though it was windy and gloomy outside.

Thinkin’ Summer ~

Ferne

Blooming May

What a long winter and from the sounds of the weather report there is still a cold snap on its’ way in a day or two, but hopefully it will be the last.  I don’t know if  it because of the cold, snowy, wet winter or because the plants were so grateful for the few warm days we have been having but, there are so many wonderful things blooming right now.  We are going into our second year and some things were in such sad shape last year that they didn’t really do much.  Things are really responding to our pruning, fertilizing and watering though and putting on quite a show for us this year.

My favorite surprise flower was this beautiful bi-color azalea that was under an overgrown camellia.  Last year I limbed up the camellia and pruned it back then fertilized the whole bed, added some acid planting mix and low and behold this beautiful little bush sent out the most lovely blooms this year.  I don’t know what it is called and have never seen anything like it, but I am calling it “Beautiful”.

This azalea is blooming in the same bed.  It seems a little late for azaieas to be blooming, but hey, it has felt like winter here for far too long so they may not know what time of year it is.  If they want to show me blooms like these at anytime I will totally enjoy every moment.

  I have been seeing Iris’ blooming everywhere, but they just started in my yard and boy are they ever putting on a show.  Deer and Gophers leave them alone so the previous owners had planted them everywhere and every color.  They are sure pretty and some of them even have wonderful fragrance.  I’m having trouble deciding which is my favorite, but I am leaning toward the bi-color yellow and they have the most wonderful bubble gum fragrance to them.   I have a light blue one that smells like baby powder, nice!

Speaking of flowers with smells I  planted some Chocolate Flowers last year from seed and they have come back and just started blooming.  They smell even more like Chocolate than a Chocolate Cosmos which is a surprise because there is no brown on the flower at all except for a little tiny center so Chocolate is the last thing you would expect to smell from this flower.

The birds have been happy with the sunny days too and are really lining up at the feeders.  We have 3 feeders in one little tree and the other day I noticed that every single hole had a bird feeding at it and more were waiting patiently in the tree for an opening.  They are very polite and even sing while they wait, we could all learn a thing or two from the birds.  

This Weigelia was another surprise for us.  Last year we were about to dig it out, but decided to give it a hard pruning and fertilizer and see what came of it.  It leafed out a little last year, but this year it is blooming it’s little heart out.  We planted it next to a dark leafed ninebark and they make quite a charming couple.  The pictures just really don’t do it justice, but in person you can’t take your eyes off them.

I could really write a short novel about what all is blooming right now and every bloom is exciting to me to watch life spring from things we almost gave up for dead after such a long cold winter, but I will have to save some for a later post.  Probably though all the Ceanothus are my favorites right now.  I adore the shade of blue that the flowers open up into, but the one that have right outside my door has not only the little blue flowers, but a beautifully variegated leaf.

The orchard is coming along nicely too.  We planted it only a few months ago and it is already looking like an orchard.  A young one though and it isn’t photographing well, but I am amazed at how each young tree is pushing out little shoots that will be branches and a few even made flowers that could potentially be fruit though we are suppose to remove them this year.  We will probably leave just a few though.

Our vegetable garden has not been planted yet and that is probably a good thing with the current weather report for this weekend.  I have been harvesting a lot of sugar snap peas though and eating them cooked and raw.  Yum!  The carrots are growing too and I finally put in potatoes that have started sprouting up, hope the frost doesn’t bother them.  I will be having lots of onions and garlic in a few months and am even pulling a few little baby onions to cook with and add to salad.   The greens in the front bed are Strawberries and they are loaded with flowers.  I actually ate the first strawberry yesterday, I picked it a little early so it wasn’t as sweet as it should have been.  I need to practice patience…

Patience is a virtue in the garden and life…

Ferne

I am posting this same post on my other blog, Growing Thymes so if you read both no need to today!  I just haven’t had any time to sew lately so this is it!