My daughter is coming to visit next week so I needed to move the piles of quilts off the guest bed. I'm also giving a program for a guild at the end of June so I'm sorting the quilts into traveling and staying home piles.
There are more piled on the coffee table and couch. I have shown all of these quilts on my blog before so there is nothing new here. I think I have shown more than 250 quilts so far in the almost 7 years that I have had my blog. Some day maybe I'll go back and count them.
In the late afternoon I went out to the backyard and cut down volunteer trees again getting ready for brush pick up next week. I didn't know what this bush was that has been growing by a redbud tree for about 3 years. This year it bloomed and now I know it is Honeysuckle, the non fragrant variety, so I cut it down and put it out in the brush pile.
The peonies are really blooming now. This is one of the early bushes.
I love the pink ones most of all.
The native plant Heliotrope is in bloom and very fragrant. Right now my Korean Lilac bush is in bloom, also fragrant and with the peonies and Heliotrope added, the backyard smells wonderful.
I worked on the border for this wallhanging at the sew in. I am doing the border as blocks too and I will have 25 blocks to sew together when I get all of the border parts made.
I got three of the blocks on the top border sewn together and started on a corner block but had some triangles sewn in the wrong direction so it was time to quit for the day.
Click on the HSTeria button on my right side bar to see what everyone else is making with their triangles.
Flannel for design wall, stacks of blocks, pieces of borders clipped together.....I'm ready for the sew in today.
The Weigelas are in bloom. The darker pink ones are past their prime, this pale pink is nice right now and the red one just has buds, no blooming yet. I had several more peony bushes burst into bloom yesterday.
I worked on the back garden yesterday morning. I'm still cleaning out dried flower stalks from last year as well as digging some of the excess plants.
My blue columbine is in an awkward spot but I won't chance trying to move it.
The pale pink columbine is in the back garden too. I didn't see this one coming up early in the spring so I was happy when it did show up.
I have several plants with the deep rose flowers. This one is on the north side of my garage. There are 3 plants, one of which is growing in the crack of the sidewalk. No transplanting for that one.
The peonies are just starting to open. Some years they are all done by Memorial Day. This year they are just starting.
This is the only other plant with a bloom on it. I have about 30 peony bushes so there will be more photos later. I worked on planting all of my pots in the afternoon. I had a gift certificate and a $15 coupon to use toward my purchase of plants so I had fun. I'll take photos after they fill in a little bit.
Last night I decided to cut the pieces for these blocks - tutorial on Debbie's blog. I have a whole box of 2" strips so I was able to cut the pieces quickly.
I may have to play with a zig zag layout.
My neighbors had a whole patch of this little plant, and they didn't plant it. I found one down under some tall plants. I thought it looked like creeping Charlie on steroids when I first saw it. I have no idea what it is.
Two varieties of Cranesbill share one spot by my porch. It's so nice to be into blooming season.
All of this visiting is tiring too. Isn't it something we start out with double chins and then end up with them again when we get old?
I don't think I showed my Mother's Day porch pot that my son brought to me.
Dianthus - pinks- it says on the label that they are an annual but they always come up again and in fact they were already a little green when the snow melted off of them.
This project has been on a design wall in my basement for about 2 months. I was inspired by one I saw in an Etsy shop. I have no idea what measurements were used in that one but I had a bunch of 2" strips of striped fabric and some 6.5" squares already cut so I am working with them. It will be a small quilt, just an instant gratification quilt--all of the pieces already cut and easy piecing. I didn't do any sewing yesterday. I was at the family party for 6 hours and I will see family again today.
This is a Red Penstemon plant in my back garden. It is in the shade for more hours than in the sun. The two plants in the front garden are a much deeper red leaf and are in the sun for more hours. There are lots of Lily of the Valley and Violets in this shot too. They have spread all over the back garden.
Yesterday was baking day for my granddaughter's graduation party. I also dug out a couple dozen volunteer trees from my front garden. They are popping up everywhere and the root is like a corkscrew so they can't just be pulled out.
I finished knitting a dishcloth with the prettiest tweed yarn.
My new triangle project is still in the design stage. The 9 blocks in the center are pieced, the borders are partially pieced in rows. Since I haven't finalized the triangle border, I can't sew the cross seams in the borders until I add them on. I have been working on this at our Thursday sew ins. Since they are just 10" blocks this will probably be a wallhanging.
The block patterns came from 2 different sources. The 5 blocks pattern is from this blog. After I saw the block I drew it on graph paper. Then I found the 4 blocks pattern in the first Material Obsession book and since they were both a grid of 5 squares, they work very well together. Click on the HSTeria quilt along button on my right side bar to see what everyone else is doing with their triangles.
I have started a new project with 2" finished triangles that were cut from the left over strips when cutting the last quilt. Hopefully I will have enough together to show it to you tomorrow.
I have been cleaning and sorting and ran across these photos of a quilt I made in 1999. It is all school related fabric and I think I gave it to my sister in law when she retired from teaching K-2.
Did you get an answer from me? If you don't have an email link I can't answer you........I have 2 email links so that you can email me with questions; one is on my right sidebar, the other on my profile page, 2 different emails so if you have trouble with one, there is another. Questions about the quilt top I just finished? This link takes you to some facts and this link takes you to the construction of the block. You can also just scroll back through the last 2 weeks and see the quilt in progress. If that doesn't answer your question PLEASE email me.
Yesterday I spent the morning digging up plants that hopped the rock boundary of my back garden. Two hours of digging it and I'm feeling it. Then yesterday afternoon I started putting away batiks that were scattered about from the last quilt top. I kept out the group above, some of my faves!!
I found this neat triangle pattern in this 1970 book. I think it might have the same effect as the Northwind block. There are positive and negative blocks which should make it interesting to assemble. It is finished 4" components: square, half square and quarter square.
This was my view every time I walked down the basement stairs yesterday. Gemstones, reflections, shimmering......all candidates that might be in the name of this quilt.
I mowed my grass in 2 sessions yesterday. I have a battery operated mower and it isn't holding a full charge any more. I can get the front and side yards almost done when it dies and then I recharge it and mow the back. I noticed the Jack-in-the-Pulpits were really big so I grabbed my camera and went back out.
I have the dark striped ones and the plain green ones, courtesy of my neighbor and probably the birds. They pop up right through the leaves so I don't even rake in the area where they grow.
Here is the garden outside my dining room window on May 3 and.....
here it is on May 19. It fills in fast and I can barely find the stepping stones but I know they are there if I need to get in there later.
I got up with a migraine yesterday and started feeling better by 7 p.m. so I decided to sew the quilt top together. I rotated it all directions to see if I still liked it.
I like it all four ways so it passed the test.
There are areas with perfect points.
There are lots of areas with imperfect points and seam matches. Imperfect, like me.
I don't think I will change my mind.....I'm pretty sure it is the final layout. I did some rearranging yesterday but I still had to make one new block to get it just the way I wanted it. I'm adding yesterday's layout below so you can see some of the changes (if you want to hunt for them). All of the changes are in the bottom four rows.
Here is the vertical final layout. What I learned from this quilt was that I needed at least another 40 blocks to achieve what I thought I was designing. That means going to a smaller block. These are 9" blocks (72" x 90") so 7.5" blocks would work and would make a 75" x 90" with 120 blocks. I need an even number of rows each direction like I have done here so that when 4 dark corners of the blocks come together it is repeated at the opposite edge. I have spent 2 weeks on this project at this point. I'm not sure when I'll start sewing it together. I did a lot of outside work yesterday and probably will be out again today.
Each day I get a little closer to the perfection that I am seeking. I don't like the way the bottom row is dark and doesn't blend into the row above so I will be working on that area next.
Here is the photo from yesterday so you can compare the changes in the lower left and the removal of the one orange block. I also changed one block on the top row.
This is what it looks like vertically. You can really see the line formed by the last row on the left in this photo. The camera really emphasizes the oranges. They are much softer in real life.
Here is the 
