Happy to be Scrappy

Happy to be Scrappy

Sunday, July 29, 2012

The Monkey Is Done



For some reason I rarely post a finished quilt.  Okay, maybe it is because I rarely finish one.  I make a lot of tops but quilt very few.  This one being a gift for great-nephew Leland Daniel and being crib sized made it much easier to make it to the finished stage.  Be sure to click on the picture so you get a larger view.  I love the way it turned out. Even the quilting part went just fine.




I'm now up to eight complete bow tie blocks. I keep telling myself that I have to make more bow ties than blocks.  Since there are still so many to be made...down to about 350 now.  Of course, since the bags of counted blocks have all been opened I'll have to keep track of the new count and pretty soon sort and count again.  But they actually make a pretty good leader/ender project for themselves.

Happy sewing,

Julie

Friday, July 27, 2012

Bow Ties

I, of course, joined the Bow Tie block challenge that Bonnie Hunter sent out.  But I must say - I'M SICK OF BOW TIES.  It would help if I would go back to using them as leader/enders.  But for the last two weeks they are all I have been working on. And I haven't been working on them much.  There are over 500 made. I'm pretty sure that it will take nine hundred to make a queen size quilt out of the 3" blocks.  So the fact that I am just over half way does not make me a happy camper.


This is my drawer of blocks.  They are packaged 50 blocks to a bag. 


These are the stacks that are cut into sets.  I'll need more neutrals before I can make much more progress.


And here are my first four 12" blocks.  I finally broke down and started to put together some of the blocks.  Otherwise I was going to put that drawer full of blocks back into its place, close it, and call it a day.  It takes 16 of the bow ties to make one 12" block.  That should help put it into perspective.  I haven't decided on a layout yet. I've looked at several different layouts and will make a decision after I've made a few more blocks.

Happy sewing,

Julie

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Peaches

This has been an incredible year for plant growth.  It doesn't seem possible after we had such a dry winter.  But I guess since it was also a mild winter it helped along the way.  Some of the real boomers were my sister's fruit trees. And since they said I could help myself, I did.

Yesterday I picked peaches.  And it was only a pleasant 97 degrees.  Luckily the fruit was all within reach. So I had my baskets full in about 40 minutes.


Aren't they pretty.  And you might notice a few plums in one of the baskets.  The picking was the easy part.


The canning was the hard part.  Do you have any idea how slick a ripe peach is when you're trying to peel it.  SLICK.  I have since mopped the kitchen floor and wiped many surfaces down.  That from all of the peaches that shot out of my hands like rockets.  And HOT.  Wow, the air conditioning couldn't keep up with all of the boiling pots.  I don't know how I ever did this 15 years ago in a 100 year old farm house with no air conditioning.  I guess I was 15 years younger too.  But look at all of those pretty jars.  On the left is peach jam. Yum!  And on the right is peach butter.  And there is one jar already in my fridge.  And yes, it tasted great on my toast this morning.

The only bad part of all of this is...........................


There is still a basket of peaches that I have to do something with today.

Have a great day.

Julie

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Wedding Gift

I started this about 2 hours ago.  Apparently it IS a quick quilt pattern.  I'm not sure I've ever had one go together faster.  Actually the pattern is out of the current issue of McCall's Quick Quilts.  They had it as a throw quilt.  I just wanted a table runner that would go with a Fiesta Wear vase.


This will be a gift for an August wedding. Now it needs to be sandwiched and quilted.  Maybe next week.  Click on it to get a better view of the colors.  Wondering now if I need to take that border off and just use one color? Hmmm

Julie