Binding progress.................

The binding is hand stitched on one and a half sides now.  I did a little in the afternoon and more in the evening.  

I had a couple errands in the morning and then a repairman came to put a new fill valve on my dishwasher.  It had a slow leak.  When he gave me the quote to fix it I had to decide if I would just get a new one or repair this 18 year old one.  When he told me the problems with the new less expensive models and the price on the higher end models I decided to go with the repair.  It has a 1 year warranty on the part and any leak that might happen.  My refrigerator is 19 years old and the stove is 18 years old.

A lot of the blooms are opening on the red fluffy center Coneflower.  This is so exciting since I just planted it last fall.

The petals are the farthest open on this one.

The freebie plant from last year is starting to bloom.  The plant identifier on my phone just calls it Rudbeckia - Black Eyed Susan.  I'm sure it is in the Rudbeckia family but its leaves are fuzzy and the flowers a little more elaborate than the plain Black Eyed Susan.

This is the Hosta directly behind that plant.  It is sending up flower stalks already.  It got up to 93 yesterday and we haven't had any measurable rain for over a week so I watered the whole front garden.  There won't be any mowing grass for awhile because it is so dry.

 

Binding started....................

Only a small amount of hand stitching was done on the binding of the African and batik mottled 16 patch quilt.  I spent most of the day preparing more items for my destash of fabric on my WandafulQuilts blog.

A couple months ago DuckaDilly Studio had a good sale on their scrap packs of Liberty Lawn fabric.  It is quite pricey so I only buy it on sale.  I have a good stash of it started way back in the early 1990s and I want to make a quilt or 2 from it this year.  I have so much cutting to do for 5 quilts that I know I want to make.  This week will be a good time to work in the basement with the extreme heat outside.

 

Yellow

Only one new bloom outside right now.  This is the one that is identified as Smooth Oxeye or False Sunflower.  It gets about 4 feet tall.  I have lots of it in the back garden but it only has buds back there.  With our four or five 90+ degree days maybe a lot of it will be blooming soon.

The centers of the flowers eventually turn brown.  This is a prairie type plant and grows easily anywhere.

I trimmed both quilts that came back from the longarmer and decided on the lighter of the 2 fabrics I showed yesterday for the binding on the 16 patch quilt.  I didn't have the energy to press it so I'll press and cut today and get busy on finishing that one.  I haven't decided on a binding for the Kaffe one yet.  It's a good thing I have a lot of finishes already this year because I feel like I'm entering the summer slump.....and it isn't officially summer until later this week.

Last evening around 7:30 I took my big clippers around the back of the house and cut off a lot of low branches on the lilac bushes.  I also cut off anything that stuck out and hits me in the face when I'm mowing.  I checked out the tomato plants and made sure the "arms" were sticking out of the proper places on the tomato cages.  I saw a few new tiny tomatoes so there are over 30 green ones back there now.  Two of the plants in the front by the driveway don't get as much sun and I only see blooms on them.

Squirrel or chipmunk?

I had to leave early yesterday morning for an appointment and this is what I found when I got home.  I suspect a sqirrel looking for a place to plant a walnut.

I got 2 quilts back from the longarmer so now I have some binding in my near future.  The top one will have a Kaffe fabric and will be hand finished.  I'm not sure on the one on the bottom.  The backing and half of the fabrics on the front are batik.

I found 2 that might work on the 16 patch.  I don't have very many African fabrics with enough inches for the binding.

Here are more blocks next to the 2 choices.

This is the batik backing.  Only less than 1/2" of the binding shows when finished so I think they are both still contenders.

I picked another tomato a couple days ago and it is turning red.  It was pale orange when I picked it.  I put the can there for perspective for size of the Early Girl tomato.  I also had one yellow Sun Gold cherry tomato ripen and I picked and ate it.  There are 29 green tomatoes on the 8 plants in the backyard.

My little neighbor girls were able to pick one Early Girl tomato off their plant.  The other one I planted for them is the little Sun Gold cherry tomatoes.

An everything else day..................

I left a message earlier this week on my plumber's voice mail and yesterday they finally called back and said they would be here in 10 minutes.  I was pretty sure it was the dishwasher line that was leaking.  He put on a new hose but it was still leaking so he suggested calling an appliance repair person.  I called and they are coming next Tuesday.

The photo is my Veronica which is looking prettier every day.

Good news, the shaggy red coneflower is showing red.  90 degrees and very humid yesterday.

All of the Coneflower buds were facing up to the sun.

So on to the rest of yesterday.  I had 10 minutes to grab a little lunch after lining up the repair person and then my friends arrived to hang a new ceiling fan and caulk my bathtub.

I went out around 7:30 to cut some volunteer trees and limbs on the Forsythia bush.  A front was coming through that would drop the humidity.  We didn't get one drop of rain from the predicted "possible severe storms".  I will need to water plants today.

Hard work.................

I can't believe it took me almost all day yesterday to prepare 2 huge backings and cut batting.  Well actually I didn't start until after lunch.  This was the larger of the 2 and the backing pieces were 91" long, to press, seam, and cut the excess backing fabric off.  Then press the seam.  The batting was cut off the roll and then refolded the other direction so I could trim off the excess.  The only good part is my Fitbit thought I was walking as I was flinging my arms to keep moving the backing while ironing it, so I call them bonus steps.

Repeat for quilt number 2.  They will be heading off to my longarm friend since they are large.

Yesterday someone said there were several Wanda Hanson accounts on PayPal and she didn't know which one was me.  That lead me to do an internet search for Wanda S Hanson and see if any other ones came up.  Well, I was in for a surprise.  No there weren't any more but there was one thing in the search that intrigued me, "Vintage handmade quilt Wanda Hanson" so I had to click on it.  It was an Etsy shop and the quilt pictured had already been sold.  Now just in case you are going to look this up, remember there weren't quilt shops in the early 70s so quilts were made from scraps on hand, in my case from making clothing for my daughter and several other people when I was a custom seamstress.  Also, be sure you know the current slang that the young folks are using: the word sick is a high compliment.

When I clicked on it the search title I found photos of the quilt and the review from the person who bought it and a reply from the Etsy shop owner.  Click on the little photo of the jacket under the seller's response and read the whole review (the buyer was so excited!).  The buyer gave the Instagram name for her shop so I was able to read the comments and her replies to her readers about the jacket.  She also made a second jacket and used the red convertible block on it.  (I know some of you don't have Instagram accounts so you won't be able to see her entries.) The seller had purchased the quilt at an estate sale in IL.  I always wonder what happens to the older quilts I made.

Whittled down....................

I went through the 2 stacks of bold and beautiful that I showed yesterday and whittled the pile down to about half which was 65 floral prints.  Then I went through that pile and whittled it down to 50.  Now I'm ready to start pressing and cutting.....50......fabrics........It will be awhile before I start designing this quilt(s).

Last fall I planted my second try at a red coneflower with a shaggy center.  This one came up and looks healthy.  It also has a lot of buds.

My only concern right now is the lack of red in the buds.  I hope I will see some change as the bud develops into a full bloom.

I pulled out the tag to show you what the blooms looked like last fall.

One Stella D'oro Lily is blooming in one of the backyard gardens.

I planted some Zinnia seeds in a pot.  I hope I won't kill them when I try to transplant some of them.  Or maybe I should just leave them in the pot, saving time and worry.

This year my van, washer and dryer have birthdays ending in 0.  The van is 20 years old, the Maytag dryer is 40 and the Maytag washer is 50 years old.  We bought the washing machine 2 years after we moved into this house.  It has had a few repairs over the years but not many.  My son just put new hoses on it so I hope it lasts a few more years.

Sorting and cutting time...................

I could make it a lot easier on myself and just choose 20 fabrics for a quilt, but I know how bored I would get making it.  I have been sorting my floral fabrics (no Kaffe collective) for a few days.  I'm sorting 2 blanket boxes full into 2 groups, bold and beautiful and soft florals.  They won't work well together in a quilt I have in mind.

While I'm sorting I'm also pulling out the pieces that are too narrow to cut 6" finished triangles.  Most will work for 3" triangles though.  I need to divide this pile into the 2 categories too.

I ended up with 2 tall stacks of the bold and beautiful and put the soft florals back in one of the blanket boxes. They filled about 2/3 of the box.  There was one more category which was prints that weren't florals and not appropriate for my project.  They went into the box with the soft florals.  These 2 stacks will now be sorted again into 2 stacks, one that I think is what will really work and the other pile of will maybe work.

The Annabelle Hydrangea blooms are turning white now and then they will go back to  lime green later in the summer.

Yesterday was the first day of not pulling any weeds after a string of one or two sessions a day for about a week.

I bought a couple medium size containers of flowering plants to set in front of the Pansies.  The flowers in one of the pots doesn't have any blooms right now but I'm hopeful.

Every year I plant Begonias in 3 clay pots to set on the pavers by the downspout extension.

The Zinfin Doll Hydrangea is just starting to produce flowers.  They are small now but they will be so big and beautiful soon.

We had a nice cooler day yesterday but it is going to heat up mid-week and then a string of 90s is coming starting Sunday.  Tomorrow sounds pretty nice so maybe I'll do a little more weeding in addition to watering plants.

 

First quilt top for June 2024

Now all of the seams are sewn and it is officially a quilt top.  It is 40" x 60".  All fabrics are Kaffe collective.  All it needs now is its staystitching around all sides.

Here is a reminder of the pattern which was a larger quilt.  It calls for a jelly roll but I don't buy them so this quilt came from my stash of rotary cut strips.

This is the freebie plant from my local garden center last year.  It had about 6 leaves on it when I got it.  It was in a pot last year and in the fall I planted it in a space where I had removed a Hosta.

It has lots of buds.  It had more than one color flower on it last year.  I forgot to check and see if it was 2 plants planted together last fall so it will be a surprise this year what I get.

The Veronica a/k/a Spike Speedwell is starting to bloom.  I used to have one in the back garden and it was tall and floppy,  I think maybe this one is going to be a shorter plant.

I decided to just move my new yellow Columbine to a larger pot instead of putting it in the ground.  I will probably plant it in the fall.

I put a second de-stash post on my wandafulquilts blog.  I didn't get as much sorted as I wanted to yesterday.  I had to clean out an area for a plumber to come and fix a problem.

 

Final layout...................

I finalized the layout yesterday morning and have just 2 more seams to sew on it.  This is the layout photo I took in case any blocks flew off the design wall before I got to the sewing stage.  I had to give up on the idea that no background fabrics would be touching.  Since they are close in value the only way you will see the ones that are next to each other is if you are close to the quilt.

I picked another tomato the day after the first one and they are ripening nicely on the windowsill.  I put the Dr. Pepper can there for perspective.  The small 4th of July variety always ripen before any others because they are small.  They produce all the way into October.

Yesterday my neighbor and his friend (who used to work at my son's shop) came over and trimmed dead branches off my Redbud trees.  I also had 2 big broken branches caught up in one tree, one of them broken since last summer.  I thought maybe they were too high (and also resting on another tree) to get down safely but one guy holding onto the 8' step ladder and the other guy near the top step got the job done.  The little neighbor girls are in my yard often and I didn't want the branches to come crashing down on them.  Now I have a lot more light coming through the trees and a safer yard.

24 blocks................

There are 24 blocks on the design wall, enough for the size quilt I want to make.  I'm not happy with the layout. The darkest strips are alternated in each block; vertical and horizontal.  There are 4 background fabrics and I'm trying to not have 2 of the same fabric touching.  There are duplicates of 2 fabrics so I don't want those 2 blocks next to each other.  And then.....there are dark blocks and light blocks.  I see 2 blocks with stripes next to each other; one has to be moved.

Another thing that bothers me is that the background fabric that is directional is going 2 different ways. With all of the other things to consider for the layout it is almost impossibe to have then all marching in the same direction.  It would have been easier if I had 10 different background fabrics.  I have at least another day deciding on the layout.  The blocks haven't been pressed yet so maybe I'll do that while I'm moving blocks around.

21 of 24 blocks..................

Since I have 4 background fabrics and both dark and light blocks it has been a challenge to get a good layout.  I need the last 3 blocks to be light blocks.  I might still move a few blocks although I'm pretty happy with the balance right now.  But the more I look at it, the bottom left block may move one space to the left.

Every day I do some weed control in the back garden.  I want to mow the area behind some of the Peonies so last night it was a lot of Creeping Charlie that was 10" tall.  It climbs up to the height of everything around it.

While watching the weather forecast I decided to finish one of the 2 dishcloths that were on the needles.  

6 more blocks..............

I made 6 more blocks last night with lighter fabrics in one direction.  I plan on making 8 more blocks so I will have to be strategic on color and value choices.

I picked my first tomato of the season yesterday.  This is a 4th of July variety which are usually about golf ball size.  It's mostly orange with a little green but advice from growers on websites say to pick them when they first start turning color because they have gotten all of the nutrients they need from the plant by that time, and also, why share them with the squirrels when all they want is one bite.  I have found that they ripen quicker in the house than when I leave them on the plant.

I cut a volunteer Forsythia bush and several small Redbud trees that were growing outside my crank-out kitchen windows.  I have a little more to cut on the Forsythia and then I may try to dig the roots out.  The branches were getting caught when I tried to close the windows.

10 blocks.................

While I was in the basement tidying up I cut more pieces for this quilt.  I needed to have some lighter blocks to look similar to the selection in the pattern.

Here is the full layout of the blocks.  I'm making my quilt smaller so I won't be following this, just using my own judgement which block goes where.

Back to organizing and cleaning today.

 

Cleaning and organizing..............

For the last few months I have spent the first week of each month doing clean up and organizing.  This group of fabric has been laying in a pile in my studio for over a year.  I had 2 leftover blocks from a quilt I made a few years ago and I really like the combination of gold, green and a little blue in them.  I will likely put this pile and the 2 blocks in a project box now in case I get motivated to actually make a quilt from them.  All fabrics are batiks.

I made a little progress in the basement while doing laundry.  I need to vacuum down there so maybe I'll do that today.  It got up to 85 yesterday and today is supposed to be just as hot and more humid so the basement should feel good.  It was still 75 at bedtime last night.  This is a little early for this kind of heat.