Sunday, May 31, 2015

May Wrap Up

I figured I wouldn't have a whole lot done on my goals for the month of May.  Sometimes life just gets topsy turvy.

How did I do?

1.  Farmer's Wife  get a row or two finished
I got 1 row of sashing and cornerstones, and one row of blocks on it this month. 

2.  Grand Illusion get a few more blocks finished
I only touched this one to move it from one area in my sewing room to another. 

3.  Slow stitching

a.  The tractor needs some love.  The cross stitch is finished, the name is charted I just need to cross stitch the name.

b.  Redwork Words of Wisdom-

Finish Q and maybe R

 I also finished S, T, U, V and started W!



4.  Swoon

5.  Yellow Brick road the top is done I do need to add borders though!
6.  Quilting

I finally figured out my tension problems.  I still have an additional skipped stitch but I am about 1/3 done with the quilt.


7.  Aurifil Block of the Month for 2014
I finished the center block.
I also got the parts cut out to set the blocks, and two blocks together. 


Of course there were some other things kind of jumbled in there.
Planting the garden, and weeding flower beds!
What is left are not weeds, those are actually new plantings!
I started working on the Lori Holt Farm Girl Vintage QAL.  I am a couple of weeks behind.
I also started working on the next stocking cuff for the family.
Amidst it all I also read or listened to 6 books this month!

Not a bad month overall considering all of the changes going on.  




Saturday, May 30, 2015

Time Is Creeping

OK I know that time does not creep. My great grandmother used to say that the older you got the faster time seemed to pass by.  I am right there too. I cannot believe it has been almost a week since I last posted.

First of all I hope everyone had a fabulous Memorial Day weekend.  We were super busy.
Saturday we took the kids because the youngest daughter and her SO were working.  The oldest boy was in trouble so he was supposed to work at pulling weeds.  I figure after about 6 hours of work he maybe accomplished about 1 hour of actual work.  He still owes grandma about 4 more hours of work for his punishment.   DH took the daughter's minivan and put 4 new tires on it, mounting and balance, and also a new spare tire.  Then while the kids were playing, DH tilled the garden, and the kids all helped spread cow manure.  We told them what it was, but they did not believe us.
This is the area of the garden where the minions helped spread manure.  After DH planted he spread straw we had left over from our holiday decorations in the garden to try to keep the weeds down.   Also the bunnies seem to love our squash so DH put up rabbit fencing.  He says it will keep the honest bunnies out.  Unfortunately we have one bunny who is obviously not honest and one of DH squash plants is now missing. 

Sunday DH and I planted the tomatoes, then ran to the nursery to purchase some zucchini, yellow squash, poblano peppers, some hot hungarian (there were no jalepenos) and a ghost pepper, the nursery was pretty well picked over when it came to veggies.  I did get a couple of herbs, and a few flowers to make a pot for the porch.

Of course we had an overcast day with really strong winds, and my poor little tomato plants were suffering so I used skewers and garden twist ties to prop them up. We planted green bean seeds, and sunflowers. We could not get the garden tilled down enough to plant corn.  Maybe next year.  We also could not find any cauliflower which really bummed DH out.
My poor little tomatoes staked with a skewer and gardening ties. 

 DH squash with their straw mulch. 
Monday, the youngest asked if we would take the kids so she and her SO could have a free day to do something fun.  Of course we said yes.  It is good for them to come and play outside.  We played hard, and had a very long day.
driving tractors (for pretend)

Hiding in the bucket
Here are two out, the other one is on the other side of the room.  Even the dog was passed out!

Tuesday morning I had to wake Finn up so we could take his brother to the bus stop, and do some errands.  We got lucky and found some 1 gallon tomatoes on sale for $1.99 so I got some slicing tomatoes, since we just planted Romas.  My days are very long watching  the kids, I usually do not get home until well past 8pm.  So Finn and I did the grocery shopping for my house, went to the park, had lunch out, and got home with plenty of time to spare for a nap.
My big tomatoes

Wednesday on the way to watch the kids my emergency brake light came on.  I pulled to the side of the freeway and called DH.  He asked me if my brake pedal was soft.  It wasn't so he told me maybe my emergency brake needed to be fixed, but by the time I got close to the kid's house if I had to brake hard, it was going all the way to the floor. Somehow I had broken a brake line.  DH took a half day of vacation and came to retrieve my SUV to fix it. On the way he stopped at a local farm stand and he was thrilled to find 8 cauliflower plants, which he promptly purchased.  And planted when he got home. 
A couple of DH Cauliflower plants

I do not get a whole lot of time for sewing or even being on the internet.  I also end up coming close to my maximum data usage...so then DH is frowning at me. I finally remembered to ask the daughter for her password so I can use her Wifi on my phone when I am watching the kids.

I finally figured out my tension problem and have been working on my quilting.  I still have a needle skip for 3-4 stitches occasionally but not enough to take all the stitching out and mess with the machine tension.

Restart after changing bobbins
I have done a little bit of hand work this week.

I finished the letter 'V' in the redwork words of wisdom.

I have sewn some hexies,and some yoyos.  I think I need to figure out a pattern for my hexie flowers, and my yoyos. I am running out of hexie mylar templates, so they are going to need to either start to go together, or I am going to have to puchase more templates since you leave them in until you are ready to put them all together.  
A couple of partial flowers. 

Hexies ready to be made into a flower

My tiny yoyos

I had to restart my owl stocking cuff.  Somewhere I got really far off, not too sure where, and I cannot seem to figure out where to take out. :(  Also I had put my water bottle in the bag with the piece and the pattern and it bled on my piece.  I was afraid it would not come out so I started again.  I since then have put my pattern in a plastic sleeve to protect it. 

I am really enjoying babysitting the kids.  I am sure there are days they are not thrilled with me, but the time sure seems to be flying by.  Recently there was a news story that grandparents that watch their grandchildren have a smaller likelihood of developing dementia, and have better memory and cognition.  I guess that is a good thing right? 

Does time seem to creep upon you too? 

Saturday, May 23, 2015

He's Back

I just want to preface this post that my husband is the greatest and I know he doesn't mean to do the things that happen but......there is a reason why I call him Conan the Plant Destroyer.  If you do not know the story you can read about it here

A couple of weeks ago I was weeding the flower beds and mentioned to DH it would be nice to have a hand held hula or hoop hoe, and maybe he could make me one?  I have seen a couple on Amazon and they are kind of expensive.

The same day I mentioned the hoe, I also planted my perennials I got for mother's day, and prepared the planter where we grow our lettuce, and had enough seeds to plant a row of a romaine, and a couple of leaf lettuces.

Thursday I came home and DH said:  Look what I made you!

He went on to tell me how well they work, and look I cleaned out the lettuce planter.  I just looked at him and said you didn't!  I shook my head and walked away.  Those were not weeds, those were lettuce starting to sprout.

These were my two volunteer plants but you can see a couple of seedling starts.
I have a few seedlings which remained, until 'The Finn' helped today.  This is all that is left of my lettuce seedlings.  I will start again tomorrow.

My tomatoes look good.  They are ready to go into the garden tomorrow. 

The flower beds were cleaned out pretty well.
The tall purple are columbine, the shorter purple are heliotrope.
The weigela is coming along.  The picture is not great but the smell is fabulous.
The creeping phlox is creeping and filling in nicely.

We had the kids today.  They were put to work helping weed the berry patches, and the flower beds, spreading manure, and getting ready to plant seeds.  I feel like everything is going in so late, but all of my plants so 60-80 days to maturity so I think we will be fine.  Yes Conan the Plant Destroyer struck again, and he brought his progeny to help now.  :D

I am hoping to get the garden in early tomorrow so I have time to sew. 







Thursday, May 21, 2015

A Wee Bit of Alone Time

Saturday night DH went off to work to clean up the city after the Bar-B-Que cook off. Someone has to do it.

I had time to get some stitching done.

I finished the letter 'T' for the Redwork Words of Wisdom.
Sunday was a lazy day.  I am in a never ending sashing and cornerstone loop with a couple of different quilts.

I had a lovely package in the mail from Julie over at Julie Rose Quilts.


She shared this lovely fabric with the iris.

A little chunk of musical instruments.


Also these three pieces with the lovely teacups, tea pots and vases. 

I had one day free this week.  I took out quilting from my quilt on the frame.  I had been having problems with tension.  Taking quilting out takes forever!
My last try at fixing my tension problem worked!   I was using Aurifil 40 wt variegated on the top and Aurifil 50 Wt in an azalea color for the bottom.  I ordered some 40 wt in the azalea and it made all the difference in the world.

I had a 40% off coupon for Hobby Lobby and I decided that I would purchase a bobbin winder.

First I took the thread off of the bobbin from the machine I am using for the quilter.  That bobbin filled almost 3 bobbins.


Finn and I play a lot all day so I don't have much free time.  I did get the letter U finished this week for my Redwork Words of Wisdom quilt.

I am looking forward to the three day weekend. I have things prepped to sew, and hopefully it would be nice weather so that I can get my corn, beans, sunflower, and even my tomatoes are ready to be planted.  Do you look forward to time where you are alone and can get time to sew?