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.

Garden walk................

As I was gazing out at my back garden I noticed 2 Evening Primrose blooms.  There will be lots more.  Those pointy yellow things in the background are more buds.  This is a self spreading plant and I find it popping up many places.  It is also one of the favorite foods for Japanese Beetles but last year we didn't have many and the majority of the plants lasted all through the summer.

When I got out to the backyard I saw the first bloom on a Stella D'oro lily.  They are in the flower bed under my dining room picture window.  A friend gave me 3 plants many years ago and I transplanted them from a front garden bed to the back about 10 years ago.  I think I only have 2 plants now but this garden is so wild and crowded it's hard to tell.

A little more to the right, the tall Garden Heliotrope is nodding in the breeze.  They have a strong very sweet scent similar to lilacs.  After they bloom, the stalk starts dying and I pull them out.  It looks like they are coming out root and all, but the next year they are back.

I had to check the tomato plants while I was out there, and look....a pea size tomato!  We got a little light rain before dark and some more rain later.  That will help the tomato plants a lot.

I pulled a few weeds on my way back to the front of the house and thought I should add an updated photo of my porch pots.  They are looking good so far, but that's because we haven't had a lot of hot days.  When we get the scorching hot sun several days in a row and no rain, the plants suffer, mostly in July and August.

I just love the white petunias with the black veins.  The plants seem to be spreading out nicely.

I had a wonderful visit with the daughters of a friend of mine (who has passed away) yesterday morning.  Off and on the rest of the day I picked up the hand stitching on the binding of the batik table runner.  I will show it when it is all finished.

 

Binding choices.....................

The search was on for the green/coral mottled batik for the binding of this table runner.  I found 1/4 yard of it.

I wasn't sure what I wanted for binding on this placemat.  I took it over by the shelves of brights, stripes, and novelty prints and decided yellow was just right for it.  The back of the placemat is orange with purple dots so this one will look good on that side too.

Since I'm keeping this one, I sewed the binding on all by machine.  It ended up having double batting in it. The first piece I cut was so thin that I added a second layer.  That made it quite thick so it will double as a hot mat in addition to being a placemat.

It isn't as crooked as it looks in the photo, it is just not laying flat here.

My white Peony is the most fragrant, has the strongest stems, and usually lasts longer in a bouquet than the other colors.  The last buds on the plant don't usually bloom, they just get rusty edges and never open.  I got this bouquet at just the perfect time.

 

Ditch quilting...................

I'm still cleaning and organizing so by evening I was ready to do some sewing.  I ditch quilted around the border and around the dark shapes on this one.

I used matching beige thread both top and bottom.

While cleaning off table tops I found this one that had its backing and batting with it so it got quilted too.  I just ditch quilted both sides of the black strips in each block.  This one is a small placemat size.

I used black thread on top and orange thread in the bobbin.  I'll get both of these trimmed today and choose some binding fabrics.

We have an air quality alert because of Canadian fire smoke drifting over our area now so I didn't spend any time outside.

 

Backings , cross seams....................

I took the easy route and made the backing out of the lavender Martha Negley print.  The other 2 fabrics would have been time consuming and I wasn't sure I would even like them pieced together. The backing is seamed and pressed and as soon as I cut the batting, it will all be ready for the longarmer.

I also chose the backing for the table runner.  It has some of the same colors that are in the top but will be interesting on it's own when the table runner is flipped over.

I spent an hour putting away fabrics in the basement, a long overdue task.

I finished sewing all of the rows on the Tilda triangle quilt.  I have enough of one of the light fabrics to add a narrow border.  I would lose too many points in the binding if I don't add a border.  I didn't measure it but it should be about 44" x 64" right now.  I also have the option of using up the ends of a lot of the fabrics and making a scrappy border.

I had a few Coleus plants left over so I got them into a pot a few days ago in time for our rain.  We only got 1/2" over a 12 hour period and are now officially in a drought area according to the ABC weatherman.

Lots of seams............................

I had a few sewing sessions yesterday, first finishing the 10 vertical seams between the columns and then sewing 8 cross seams out of 15.  One more day of sewing on this one.

I cut the border strips and sewed them onto the table runner top.

I'm still trying to come up with a backing for this quilt.  I have 5 1/4 yards of a matching print in lavender if I want to stay with Martha Negley fabric but not match colors front and back.  This would continue the soft pastel look.

I found a one yard piece of another print that I could possibly use with the 4 yard print on the right but it would definitely give a chopped up look to the back.  This one could become the next in line to be quilted if I could just make a decision.