Nature walk.......................

I went outside around 4 yesterday to take a few pictures of my crispy plants.  This Coral Bell was a pretty deep green and purple until 2 days ago.  The plant will survive but it will be scarred for the rest of the summer.

The Hosta on the right is starting to show signs of crispy areas but the other one is still looking OK. They are in the east sun until around noon.

This Hosta is in the shade about an hour earlier than the other 2 and has a flower shoot already.

The porch pots are doing pretty well.  The Lobelia in one pot looks like it might not make it and the Petunias in the front pot have no flowers currently.  They are the white with black veins variety.  I think they might come back OK.

The black-eyed-Susans are very hardy and haven't shown any signs of stress.  They are full of buds.

Around 6:15 p.m. yesterday a little tiny storm on radar was approaching and suddenly it was larger and we got heavy rain for almost 15 minutes, 1/2" in the rain gauge.  There were only scattered storms on radar all afternoon and it didn't look like we would get any so it was  a wonderful surprise.  We have gotten a little over 2-3/4" of rain now this month.  About 4" is normal.  This beats last month's 1.8" anyway.  Now maybe our half green/half brown grass will turn all green again.

Butterflies finished..............................

I got busy early in the day yesterday with the binding on this quilt.  It is all done by machine.  I'm going to round off the numbers and say this is 35" x 44".  Most of the fabrics are from the mid to late 1990s and early 2000s.

I think the backing fabric is from the same time period.  Most of the butterfly blocks were made in that time period too.  There were line drawings of them in a book but no patterns or measurements if I remember right.  The little hourglass blocks were used as fillers to put it all together.  Here is a post from October 2024 when I was getting ready to assemble the blocks in a quilt.

I finished knitting this dishcloth last night.  They always look like a wonky shape when they are finished but they square up nicely with the first wash.

 

Quilting finished, binding choices.....................

After looking over my bright stripe collection, I brought these over to the trimmed quilt to audition for a binding.  It has to look good on both front and back of the quilt.

These were the best choices with the backing fabric.

This one is okay with the front too although a little bold.

I think I prefer the narrow stripe since the quilt is small, about 34.5" x 44.5" (I think that is right but wasn't going to go back down to the basement to measure it).

Radar showed that we were in a storm area for about 40 minutes late yesterday afternoon but in the end there was only a slim coating of water in the bottom of the rain gauge and the whole driveway never got wet.  There are more hopes of storms in the next 6 days so I hope we get more rain that that in at least one of the storms.

 

Quilting and nature.....................

I have continued quilting on this baby quilt and am almost finished.  It is all ditch quilting and I just need to put a few more stitches in the background.  I hope to get it trimmed today and choose a binding fabric.

I went out early yesterday morning and watered everything and cut some volunteer tree/bushes that have been bothering me.

These are the Creeping Bellflower spires.  All of these are in the grass line along the edge of my back flowerbed.  It will be a mass of purplish blue flowers for a couple weeks and then they will be pulled out.

The Annabelle Hydrangeas in the back are doing fine but the bush at the front of the house is really in heat stress.

This is the stage of the buds on the Purple Coneflower plants in the back garden.  They are native prairie plants so they are drought tolerant.

The tomatoes have grown a little.  They don't like temperatures in the 90s.

The Evening Primrose was just starting to close up when I checked on them in the early evening yesterday. 

Hot, hot, hot............................

I know most of the US is under this heat dome and it isn't fun.  It's the humidity that is the worst part.

I spent most of the day working slowly, some quilting, some knitting, a little organizing in the basement.  One good thing happened; I found my missing Kaffe Quilts in Italy book which has been missing for several months.  I sewed 2 pieces of batting together with the triple zig zag for a piece 48" x 58".  I will check and see if that works for any of the small tops waiting in line.  If not, I'll add one more strip to it.

Last night I decided to check out what's in this box.  I cut most of these strips 15-20 years ago.

This is the top layer.  It looks like I have a good variety cut.

Yes, there is another layer below, more light fabrics under this end of it.  There are probably enough strips to make a couple king size log cabin quilts.  No, I'm not making any more king size quilts!  I made some 3" nine patch blocks last year.  I could add to that pile.  I'm trying to come up with some easy night time sewing.

More nature.........................

I went out to see if anything needed watering and the cucumber plants have almost doubled in size since yesterday.

This is the tallest of the volunteer tomato plants.  No blooms on this one yet.

The smaller of the 2 volunteer tomato plants has 2 blooms on it.  Soon I should be able to tell if it is a Sungold plant.

I put the rest of the volunteers in small pots.  There are 2 in one of the pots.  I should have separated them. 

I found one tomato started on one of the Rutgers plants.  It is a little larger than the 4th of July or Early Girl so it will take longer to ripen.

There are lots of Evening Primrose mixed into the bed with the Stella d'Oro lilies.

Just past them is the Annabelle Hydrangea.  It is actually at least 2 bushes, maybe 3.  The blooms are white right now.  They look like green and yellow with the sun shining through the trees on them.  Every year I think I'm going to dig out the small bushes but I think of it too late in the spring and by fall I'm ready to ignore it.

I cleaned my sewing machine and wound bobbins so I am ready to start quilting a baby quilt.

Crooked Cobblestone finished..............

The binding was finished around 7 last night.  I think this is #13 of the total Crooked Cobblestone wall hangings and #12 of batik ones.  The blocks in this one were made in 2016 and this was the selection left after making #12.  I finished designing and sewing the top in January 2024.  I started quilting it in March this year but put it aside for awhile before finishing it this week.  It is 36.5" x 57.5".

I took my camera outside yesterday afternoon after the sun came out.  We had rain in the morning, but only enough to wet the bottom of the rain gauge.

This is the first Ox-Eye False Sunflower bloom.  It is small, about 1.5" across.  There will be lots of them soon in the back garden.  This one is next to my garage.

Also along the garage, and all across the back garden are the invasive bell flowers.  Yes, they are pretty, there are just way too many of them.  I have already pulled lots of them but the rest will be pulled out after they bloom.  Even though they come out bare root, there will be lots of them next year.

Going around the corner of the house I checked out the tomato plants.  Two of the 4th of July variety tomato plants have little groups of tomatoes.  The largest are no bigger than a ping-pong ball.

This is the group on the second plant.  I also saw 5 little tomatoes on the Early Girl plant.  Altogether on 6 plants I counted at least 35 tomatoes.  These photographed here will be a little larger than a golf ball when ripe.  I like the small tomatoes better than large ones.

Continuing on by the backyard garden, there are still lots of Evening Primrose blooms.  I just let them grow wherever they want to be.  You can see they are surrounding the Hosta plants.

The pots in front of the garage are doing well.  The Coleus won't like the high 90s so I may shelter them inside the garage starting on the second day of the heat wave.  I think the petunias will be ok as long as I keep them watered well.