It was a busy day yesterday. My van needed servicing so my grandson and wife took me out for brunch after dropping it off and then we went back to my house. Five sections were broken off the huge green Coral Bell and 4 planted in the center section and one in the section behind it. Then they finished cleaning up the paver area and cleaned off the porch and sidewalk. Also bottom dead branches of the hydrangea were cut off. It is looking so nice now. We went back to get the van afterwards.
This is the area where the new plants came from. Now the little Coral Bell next to the green one has some breathing room. It was almost covered up before. Rain is predicted for several days this week but the radar maps last night look like a lot of it may miss us. I'll keep watering if needed.
Last night I sewed a few more combinations for the 9 patches. There will be 3 nine patches in each combination. I'll sew a lot more combinations before I turn on the iron.
Yesterday morning my helpers came to clean out all of the dead Black-eyed Susan plants plus weeds and volunteer trees. I was hoping we could save some of the plants. In two hours it went from this......
to this. Now I need to find something that will grow in that center section. The big green Coral Bell at the right front is overgrown and we could split 3 plants off of it and still leave a large plant where it is. Since it has tolerated the heat it might be my best bet for that spot. I have room to plant a few more things too so I need to decide whether to do it now or wait for spring. I read that this is the perfect time to get perennials established before we get freezing weather.In the studio I decided to make 9 patches with the remaining group of strips. I sewed 3 sections and overlapped them to see how this first one will look.
This is one of the fabrics I chose to possibly use with the 9 patches.
The newest Kaffe Fassett book came in the mail a couple days ago and I finally had time to look through it. I had seen a few kits for quilts in the book advertised at quilt shops that carry a lot of his fabric.
Here is a snippet of one of the quilts that I liked. I like green quilts and that border fabric is one that I really like. I have been thinking about making another quilt with lots of triangles in it.
It made me think about 2 quilts I made in 2022 and 2023. I just made a lot of blocks, thinking they would all go in one large quilt. In the end I decided I liked the darker blocks separate from the lighter blocks. The lighter one is my favorite and I think I might need to make another one, maybe not in Kaffe fabric next time or a mix of Kaffe collective fabrics and other fabrics together.I was pretty much pain free yesterday so I did some outside work. I watered all of the pots on the porch and the ones in front of the garage. There aren't many blooms on them but they are all still green plants so I have hope for a few more blooms. Then I watered the tomato and cucumber plants. They really needed it sooner but I just didn't get it done before I had the shot to my SI joint. Then I had to take a day off so finally it happened yesterday. We might have rain a few days this week. This was yesterday's bounty, a little less than the day before. Maybe the watering will encourage more to ripen.
I had another steroid shot to my SI joint yesterday morning and they said to take it easy for one day and then resume normal activity. I decided to sort the extra strips one more time by dark and light. I could make 'the other 16 patch' with them if I cut a few more light strips. I could also make 9 patches and do a layout with an alternate plain block (Single Irish Chain). I could just put them away and do nothing with them but they would make a good sharing quilt to put into my inventory.This was yesterday's bounty. I'm staying ahead of the squirrels and the birds. I shared 3 boxes of tomatoes with neighbors and a friend yesterday.
All kinds of plants have migrated from the back garden into this front garden. Just right of center is some Goldenrod. I pull it out all growing season in the back garden and didn't notice this one in front. That's probably because there were so many Black-eyed Susans in here. You can see they are all dead now. I have a crew coming Sunday morning to clean out some of it for me.
Even though I have an ironing table 30" x 60", I was dreading pressing this 72" x 88" quilt top. It wasn't as bad as I expected but I'm sure glad it is done. It was hard to get a good straight on photo because my longarm bar is in the way. This was the best of the 3 that I took. I haven't looked for a backing yet but I still have 2 (of 3) that I pulled when I was making the Snail's Trail quilt with many of these same fabrics. They are on this post (scroll down). I think there is enough yardage of both of them. I also thought maybe I should put flannel on the back so I'll check and see if I have a large enough piece.When I went out to get my mail I noticed how pretty the Sedum flowers are. There are 2 different varieties here.
There were lots of bees visiting them. I tried to get a photo with several of them and this was the best I could do. They were very busy bees and didn't stay in one place very long.
Here is the bad news in the same flower bed. The Zinfin Doll Hydrangea blooms totally dried up and never turned raspberry color. Even though we had a lot more rain this summer, it was followed by long stretches of no rain and high temperatures with strong sun. I should have watered it and I hope I don't lose the whole bush. I haven't been able to do much gardening this year.
I wasn't sure I could get the last 10 rows sewn yesterday but I stuck with it and finished at 10:15 p.m. I hope it will feel cool in the basement today when I go down to turn on the iron.
I planted Marigold seeds in the pots with the tomato plants. Some pots only had 2 come up but this one has about 6 Marigolds in there. I have a 6' tall stake in the middle of the pot to keep the tomato plant more upright this year.
I got a few Marigolds to grow in the raised bed too and they are too weak to stand up. I was surprised it took 3 months for blooming. They were planted the 3rd week of May.
There were 10 seams the first direction, 72" long, and I got 8 of them sewn by bedtime last night.
This was the pile on the sewing cabinet when I quit for the night. There are storms predicted this morning and I hope we get some of the rain. If it fizzles out I will have to be out watering the tomatoes and cucumbers today.
