Corner decision...........

I sewed some squares onto the center sections of the outside rows on 3 sides of this project and they are just pinned to the wall.  I filled in the top 2 corners with squares and the bottom left with triangles which are 1/4 of the center motif.  I decided I liked the triangles so I chose pieces for the other 3 corners and will get those border rows sewn today for a quilt top finish for the month.

I had to sew a few more Economy blocks too so I can get an idea how it will look.  I'm going to try a half drop in every other row when I get some more blocks made.

We got another .7" rain yesterday.  There is a slim chance of a little more rain today and into Thursday morning before the humidity drops and it becomes cooler.  

 

Landscape job finished..............

We had 48 hours without rain so it was just dry enough that the landscape crew could come back and finish my job.

One group of guys got the pavers/patio blocks laid out in the pattern I requested.  The rest is up to me now to plant my lovely space.

Here is a closer view of the double walkway back to the hose reel corner, a double row across giving me access to work on my plantings for many years.  I figured a single row to divide the front part was enough to give me access to get between plants.  The blocks are varying shades of red.  Now I just need to figure out how to detach my mailbox from the post so I can spray paint it black.

Another part of the crew worked on planting 3 compact burning bushes and laying premium garden mulch along the side of the house.  They had to re-seed the area where the downspout extension is because the rain water pooled and washed out all of the seed.  Good news elsewhere the grass seed is beginning to grow.

There were 12 pavers/patio blocks left over so they carried them to the back yard for me.  I'm planning on making a path through my shadiest garden.  That will be fun to work on little by little.  I will need to dig out a lot of violets and possibly move a couple hostas.

So......that was my exciting Monday!

 

 

Economy blocks................

I just didn't feel like turning on the iron so I could continue on my star quilt so I started something new.  A week or so ago I showed the pieces I was die cutting for 12" Economy quilt blocks.  Last night I went through the quarter square triangles and found all of the sets of 4 alike.  There were 28 so I took out the stack of 6.5" squares to pair with them.

I pulled squares of all different fabrics than those in the quarter square triangles.

Next I paired the triangles with the squares.  Now it was time to sew the first round for a couple blocks.

Then I went through the half square triangles to find the sets of 4. I only have 22 sets so I'll need to cut some more. There are duplicates of some of them but not enough to be a problem when it comes time to do a layout.

The first two 12" finished blocks have been sewn.  I sewed these while watching the new show The Chase.  I never cared for Jeopardy because you have think backwards and come up with the question that matches the answer you are given.  This show has the top winners of Jeopardy facing a team of 3 with great questions and a race to keep the money.  

Sewing sections..........

I have made the decision to make these blocks into a wallhanging and use just 4 of them.  I sewed some sections together yesterday.  It is 3 horizontal sections plus the little triangle sections along the outside edge.  I need to add low volume squares to finish the sides.  I haven't decided if the corners will get some triangles or if it will be all squares.  I can go ahead and sew some of the squares onto each side and decide in a couple days.

We got another half inch of rain overnight Friday night and .3" yesterday morning.  There is still a chance of rain for the next 5 days.  My front yard gets a lot of sun and the grass was at least half brown but the backyard in the shade has stayed green all through the dry spell.  I was reading that white clover is a good alternative instead of grass because it is a good nitrogen producer.  My backyard is grass but full of white clover too so I'm not sure if a mix is a good thing but it's here to stay.

Finished quilt.............

The Sunshine and Shadow quilt made with triangles of all Kaffe Fassett fabric, 385 different fabrics starting with #01 is finished.  I pieced most of the top in 2010 and added one more row in length in 2016, and put the border on in 2020.  It measured 77" x 99" when the top was completed and 73.5" x 98.5" after quilting.

The backing is Kaffe's #100 Persian Vase which is out of print and is now listed for over $45 for a half yard on ebay and etsy.  I have close to 6 yards of it on the back, $270+.  Really I think almost every fabric in the quilt is an out of print Kaffe.  

I had a couple more photos I didn't post yet from my Wednesday landscaping event.  This is how they emptied the dirt out of the truck.  I thought they were going to dump in on my driveway and get it from there.

I opened the front door and snapped this photo of the dirt being taken around the side of my house.  My grass is flattened from the trucks, Bobcat and tractor running over it multiple times.  We got an inch of rain from Wednesday through 8:30 a.m. Thursday and another tenth of an inch yesterday so the grass is recovering a little.  More rain predicted but spotty coverage.

Bushes............

It was time to get serious about the bushes that would be at the back of the flower bed since we have rain predicted for many days in a row.  We got .15" rain yesterday, better than none.  I knew I was going to get a hydrangea bush but wasn't sure about the others.  I went shopping at my favorite nursery and got some advice.

I knew I had to go ahead and plant them right away because that area would be getting muddy with all of the rain.  I ended up with the hydrangea and 3 Boxwoods.  I was muddy all the way up to my elbows by the time I got all 4 in the ground.

This is the variety of Hydrangea that I chose.  It has buds on it already so I'm hoping for a good show already this year.

Finally one of the larger tomatoes was turning color so I brought it in to finish ripening.

There were fewer black raspberries yesterday but still enough for one dip of ice cream.

The first Purple Coneflower is close to blooming.

This one is one stage behind that other one.  Quite interesting as it is just starting to form petals.

I was so tired after all of the planting I didn't have the energy to hoist my 77" x 99" quilt up onto the 84" x 96" double design wall yesterday for its photo shoot.  Maybe today will be the day.

 

Exciting day...............

It was action day for the landscaping crew.  First they took out all of the Rose of Sharon in the round bed in the front yard.  There was a misty rain at that point.

This is the "before" photo.

Next they dug out the front by the picture window, before and after. This is before they filled back in with dirt.

Then onto the other side of the porch.  Most had been removed by the time I took this photo.

The side of the house was next, about 100 Rose of Sharon, a half dead Burning Bush with a Honeysuckle growing behind it plus many volunteer trees and a huge aster plant.

This is after the dirt was filled in.  I will have 3 compact burning bushes along the side of the house and some of this dirt has been seeded so hopefully grass will grow.  We have rain predicted every day for the next 7 days.  There will be a few more plants under the front window and in front of the hydrangea bush.  The sun was in my eyes when I took the photo so I didn't know the house was tipped until the photo got to my computer at 11 p.m last night.

They were here from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m with a lunch break.  After they left I planted 3 of the Sedums that I showed yesterday in pots.  This bed will have some pavers/patio blocks with a couple walkways for me plus the corner with the hose cart.  They will come back probably next week to do that part of the job.  Then I can plan the rest of the planting.

This is my first picking of the black raspberries so there were enough to have on top of ice cream.

I got the binding all sewn onto the Kaffe quilt that I just quilted, all by machine.  I didn't finish until 10:30 p.m. so it was too late to get it's photo taken.

 

Baking and shopping............

My granddaughter 2 states away is moving again to one state away but only 30 minutes closer to us, still hours away.  I baked 2 batches of cookies and mixed dough for a third batch to send with family that will help them.  I hope the little ones will like the pretty color sugar I dipped the shortbread cookies in.

I also made a shopping trip to W*lm*rt to pick up some things my local grocery store doesn't carry.  Now I'm set for a month.

Here are 4 of the Coral Bell plants in pots waiting for a flower bed to be planted in.  I have one more variety that didn't make it into this photo.  It has large purple and green leaves.

One of the Hostas I dug up broke into about 8 pieces.  I put the 2 largest pieces into pots and they are very happy.  This Hosta is only about 10-12" tall but it spreads out to cover a large area.

I usually buy one new Hosta every year and this is the 2021 plant.  The leaves are both yellow and white with green.  I think I'm going to transplant it into a larger pot today because I'm betting it is really pot bound right now.

 

Quilt trimmed, binding cut................

 I bought 6 yards of this Kaffe fabric many years ago and I knew it was perfect as a back for this quilt.

The stripe will be a perfect binding.  Dorothy you asked if I would be cutting it on the diagonal.  You are a no reply commenter (your email address isn't enabled in your settings) so I will answer here.  This stripe is printed horizontally on the fabric so to cut borders I needed to cut 4 wide long strips on the lengthwise grain.  This left me just enough fabric to cut the binding on the lengthwise grain too.

The Marigolds in the raised tomato bed are getting big.  We got 1.2" of rain with the big storm that raced through at 10:30 Sunday night.  The tomato plants loved it and I think they grew about 8" yesterday.

There were 2 tornados with the storm just 25-35 miles east of us.  One was an EF-3 with lots of damage.  They said it was 3 blocks wide as it raced through at least 2 towns.  The other was an EF-0 and also hit 2 towns.

The Sneezeweed (a Rudbeckia variety) is starting to bloom now.  I have several of them scattered here and there in the back garden.  

Some of my tomato plants along the driveway got ahead of me and didn't get routed out the top of the cages.  I went out with strips of fabric and tied them up to the sides of the cages.  I need to keep a closer watch on all of the rest of the plants.  I have gotten 5 ripe tomatoes so far, all small ones.  I have a larger one just starting to turn color in the raised bed in the backyard.  I predict a BLT for lunch today.

Quilting!...................

It's quilted!!  I made it easy on myself and did straight lines with the channel lock.  The stitching started getting goofy about 18" in on one row so I stopped and pulled that out.  I figured it was a piece of lint caught in the tension of the bobbin case and it was.  I cleaned it out and then finished the quilting.  I haven't taken it off the machine yet.  I'll get it trimmed today.  I think I might use the same stripe as the border for the binding.

The pink variegated thread was still on the machine from quilting the 2 pink baby quilts.  I figured it would be fine for this multicolor quilt.

Leaves of three, leave it be.  I remembered where the poison ivy was last fall and checked to see if it came back.  I guess I didn't get all of it last year.

One of the plants I dug out of the front garden was a Black Eyed Susan.  I put this one in a pot right away and I planted 2 other small parts in the back garden.  The ones planted in the ground aren't doing very well so I was happy to see this one has buds.  I have had a huge area of Black Eyed Susans in the back garden for about 8 years but I don't see any there this year.  If we start getting rain on a regular basis I may plant this one in that area.  Otherwise it will just stay in the pot until fall.

The rain finally started around 10:30 last night.  The rain sounded pretty heavy so I will check the rain gauge this morning.

 

Loading.............

Another hot humid day and not a lot of energy.  I did get the backing pressed and loaded on the longarm and put the batting on too.  Here is the whole photo of the quilt top.  It is 99" the long direction so it is filling the whole longarm rails except for about 10" on the right end.  The backing is 105" (99" + 6").  I think I have only quilted one other quilt this large so far.

My older A/C unit that we put back in the dining room window bit the dust Friday. 90 degrees and humid and all I had was fans.  My son had an extra small A/C that he didn't need at his shop so yesterday he took out the dead one and put the new one in the window.  Then I ordered another larger one to replace the one we threw out last year when my trim painting was done.  I drove 10 miles to pick it up at the big box store and it will hopefully get installed early this week.

This weedy mess is supposed to get dug out this week and new black dirt brought in.  This is one of 4 areas they need to do.  

Storms are predicted for this afternoon and evening.  I don't know whether to believe we will really get any rain.

A little nature...........

The pots by my garage are filling out nicely.  The Coleus will grow a lot taller before summer is over.

I spent a lot of time in the basement yesterday putting things away and pressing scraps...no sewing was done.

Here is the other pot by the garage.  I depend on the Coleus for most of the color in these pots.  The trailing vine has little purple flowers for some contrast.

I put some of my flower pots by the tomato garden along the driveway.  I have planted some Marigolds between some of the plants and I see a few of them coming up.

The Milkweed is in bloom.  This is in the garden that will be all dug up.  I see some holes in the Milkweed leaves but haven't seen any Monarch caterpillars.  I saw one Monarch butterfly about a month ago but haven't seen any since.  I don't see any way to transplant Milkweed with a root that just goes straight down in the ground.