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!

Baby Eli

I don’t have much in the way of sewing to post these days, because I spent some time visiting my son and my first grandchild last week.  What a precious little guy he is.  His name is Eli and he is such a calm, sweet child.  He will probably be the topic of many more posts to this blog. 

Have you ever reread a post on your blog and thought it really needed to be reworded?  I usually reread my blog posts before I post them and again right after, but for some reason I was rereading my last post and just thought it needed a lot of work and if I were to ever get my blog printed into a book I would not want to keep reading that one again.  I need to get started on getting the blog book made so that it will be ready when Eli starts to read and maybe it will help him to know me a little better.  I am looking forward to being a Grandmother and doing all those things that Grandmothers do leaving memories of special times in this little life.

Ferne

 

Pieces of Summer

I haven’t done much posting to this blog lately, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t done much sewing.  I don’t have anything finished to show for my work (or play, depending how you look at it) so I didn’t think I had anything post worthy.  I was looking back over some of my past posts because of a website I found where you can get your blog printed as a hard copy of your blog.  I have had this blog since 2006, so when I went to have the whole thing printed it was over $75!   I started eliminating some posts and keeping my favorites to bring the cost down and I found that I enjoyed looking at the process of each step as my quilts came together so I thought I should post the process of this fun quilt coming together.

I am taking a few favorite blocks from other patterns, a few blocks I have found on the internet, blocks I have designed myself and just throwing them all together into a sort of quilt collage of things that make me ‘think Summer’ and what fun I am having.  I have laid them all out on the floor in so many arrangements, drew it up on graph paper and EQ6 and now I have some new ideas for some bird house blocks to add to the mix.  I have some appliqué, some paper piecing, a Dresden plate sunflower, and some plain old quilt blocks.  I really don’t know how or when it will all come together or what the final size will be, but I am really enjoying the process. 

And wouldn’t you know with all this thinking of Spring and Summer I started seeing signs that Spring really is trying to show itself.  When I looked out the window this morning and saw the view of the two crabapple trees in bloom I knew that soon the snowy, windy days of the last few months would be nothing more than a memory of the worst winter in years.

Keep thinking Spring thoughts!

Ferne

A Dainty Butterfly Block

I first saw this cute butterfly block tutorial on Four Wise Monkey’s blog and had to give it a try.  She is quite creative and has lots of fun projects to check out on her blog.  I liked it this butterfly block, but it had a lot of bulk in the center so I worked up a way to eliminate some of that and thought I would share my method here.  I am new to writing tutorial so I hope this all makes sense, but following my own directions I was able to make these in about 20 minutes and it would be faster if you had them precut and chain pieced them together.  Let me know what you would do with these cute blocks.  I have a few ideas for mixing them with some other blocks for wall hangings or place mats or mug rugs…and on and on as the mind turns.

This will make a 6 ½” block.

Top wings

Cut: 1 – 4” Square of print fabric

1 – 4” square of background fabric

1. Mark a diagonal line on the background fabric and sew ¼” from each line then cut apart on the drawn line.

2. Iron the seam on one square toward the background and one toward the print.

3. Square up to 3 ½”

Bottom wings

Cut: 2 – 3 ½” squares of print fabric

6 - 2” squares of background fabric

1. Mark a diagonal line on the 6 background squares.

2. Place the first square on the top left corner of the wing square and sew on the drawn line. Cut ¼” from the seam.

3. Repeat for the bottom right corner on each block. Press seams toward the background on one block and toward the wing on the other block.

4. Place the last 2” squares on the bottom left of each wing and sew on line. Trim to ¼” and press toward background.

5. Square all blocks up to 3 ½”.

Put it all together

Lay the 4 blocks out as shown and sew together matching center seams. I pressed the last seam down for the least bulk. Draw butterfly antennae and embroider.

Now start dreaming up ideas to use these in projects!

Here is a link to a PDF file I made for this.

Keep Sewin’!

Ferne