Prepping...................

I went through my Marcia Derse fabrics and pulled a selection for the next quilt.  I cut a 7" strip off each of them since that is what I need for the die I will be using.  Now I need to press all of them, and then cutting can take place.  Actually I think I'll be cutting for 2 quilts which both use the same shape.

I checked out my tomato plants and there are 10 tomatoes now.  The largest ones are about the size of a marble.  Three cucumber plants are up but are taking their time growing.  After 2 hot days with A/C running we have had 2 cooler days and windows open.  It looks like we are in for some really hot weather soon.

On the Crooked Cobblestone wall hanging, I stitched around 17 more centers, 35 to go.  Maybe 3 or 4 more days and I'll be ready for binding.

Errand day....................

Sorry, nothing to show for yesterday.  I did grocery shopping and watered the volunteer tomato plant at my neighbor's house because she is out of town for a few days.

I had 2 sessions of quilting around the centers of the Crooked Cobblestone blocks, 23 for the day's total.  52 to go.  

We had something between a mist and a drizzle yesterday.  There was enough to wet the grass and the leaves on the plants but not enough to measure.  We are in a moderate drought area and towns just 30 miles away have gotten rain when we didn't get any or very little.  We keep hoping it will be our turn soon.

A little progress.................

A friend came over yesterday and we planned a quilt that we have both made before, both of us have gifted the quilts, and we both want another that we can keep.  We  had Subway sandwiches for lunch and had a lot of fun. 

I got 8 more centers quilted after I wrote yesterday's post and then got 10 more quilted last night.

I'm just adding 3 closeups of some blocks in the quilt because there isn't much else to show.

Now I have more than half of the centers quilted, 86 done, 76 to go.

I took this photo a few days ago and forgot to post it.  The roses have already died and I think the peonies will get tossed today.  That's the end of the peonies for another year.
 

 

Quilting and digging in dirt.................

I was spending a lot of time looking for the centers of blocks that needed to be quilted around.  I decided to mark all of the unquilted ones with a safety pin, all 94 of them.  Then I counted how many I have quilted around and there were 68.  I'm not even half done; I'm disappointed by that for sure.  Those numbers were after I quilted around 8 centers last night.

When I dug up the largest of the volunteer tomato plants yesterday, I found out it was 4 plants growing very close together.  I also dug up some of the small volunteers and ended up potting 4 of them and replanting the 2 largest ones.  I went out as the sun was setting and put the 2 tall cages around the 2 that I had planted.  Then I saw there was one more volunteer that I missed and it's not in a good spot so I'll put that one in a pot for now too.  My neighbor is gone for a few days so when she gets back I'll share some more with her.  We planted one volunteer in her large pot 2 nights ago.

A little quilting...................

I'm back to quilting my Crooked Cobblestone wall hanging.  I'm ditch quilting around every center of every block.  At the lower edge I'm ready to quilt 9 light color centers, quilting one and then dragging the thread over to the next, etc.  Then I will trim all of the connecting threads when I'm done with that area.  I'm using the backstitch feature on the machine and Invisifil thread so the tie off is almost invisible.

There are 3 tomatoes on this one plant and I got them all into one photo.  The sun shining on 2 of them makes them look yellow but they are really a light green.  There is one more tomato on another plant.

I found another volunteer tomato plant in the raised bed.  I will dig up the tiny ones today and put them in pots until they get larger and then decide where to plant them.

I promise I won't post a photo of the cucumber progress every day but I had to show it has grown a bit since Monday when I took the first photo.  Another is out of this view and I'm still waiting for the last 2 seeds to start growing.

It was nice to have a clear night last night to take another photo of the strawberry moon.  This time I did a better job of holding the camera still since it took a couple seconds for the click.

Empty design wall problem.......................

Yesterday morning I was looking for things to take to the thrift shop and that ended up being a dusting project.  I have said before, I dust twice a year whether it needs it or not.  Guess what, it needed it.

Then I headed to the studio and the bare design wall was getting to me.  I had a pile of small Kaffe scraps that needed to go in the project box, and I found it to be overflowing.  I took out all of the parts that were sewn and put them on the design wall, mostly for a little color in the room.

The box was still overflowing even with all of that removed.  I found another empty project box and put some of the strips and chunks in it, and now I'll take all of these pieces down in a couple days and they will go into the new box.  There would be too much thinking to start making that mess into a quilt top.  I plan on cutting some more pieces of batting today to match with waiting quilt tops.

As the sun was getting lower in the sky yesterday I noticed a lot of the Evening Primrose was blooming so I grabbed my camera and went outside.

One little group had the sun hitting it directly and they were glowing.  These plants bloom in the morning and the flowers start closing up in the evening.

This one was just starting to close up.

I had to check out the volunteer tomato plants and there are at least 3 in this group.  I will need to get out there soon and plant them away from each other.  I saw one more volunteer coming up in another area of this raised bed.

The neighbor girl told me she likes cucumbers so I planted 4 seeds in a pot.  This is the largest of two of them that have broken through to the surface.

The moon was pretty last night.  Overnight tonight will be the full moon.  A couple months ago when the moon was at this height it was 3 houses north of here.  I think about the sun moving to different positions as we get into summer but not being a science nerd, I didn't think about the moon being in a different place too.

 

Small finish......................

The binding was finished last night on this batik table runner.  It is 14.5" x 38".

I considered the purchase of the backing fabric a mistake, but it was perfect for this table runner.

Just in case you wanted to see the front and back together, I took that photo too.

Even though radar showed us in a rain storm, all we got was a few drops, more like a mist.  I stepped outside to take a few photos.  The Annabelle blooms are growing and they are still lime green at this stage.

The pansies loved the rain from the day before.  We got another 1/2" so we have had 1" in the last 5 days.  After less than 2" the whole month of May, I'm hoping June will be more normal.

The smaller pansy pot has a majority of purple with a few yellow and purple thrown in.

This is the view looking north.  The 2 Redbud trees are mine and that is the neighbor's cars in their driveway.

No, I don't have a kitty.  This is the neighbor's cat and he makes sure the chipmunks know he is watching. Actually I am surprised none of them have started digging in my pansy pots.