I have the main part of the quilt top finished!! Now on to the borders. I haven’t even gotten that pattern out to look other than knowing that it has a red flower in the center and has a white flower on each side of the red with greenery extended on each side. Each border is the same design. The finished size of the quilt with the borders is to be 75 x 75 inches. I might enlarge it possibly if I have enough fabric with maybe another sashing design around the next applique border. I’m not really sure. The size it finishes to will not fit the bed of course so if I leave it the size it says it will be for draping over the couch or for hanging on the wall at Christmas time. We will see when the time comes. So far this quilt has taken me about 120 hours to make. It took about 20 to 25 hours for each block and then sewing the sashing and blocks together added more time to it. I started it back in February.
I’m glad to have gotten to this point on the quilt top. I don’t know if I will start a border right away tomorrow or wait a couple days. I have not quilted on “Insanity Revisited” for awhile and really need to put in some time on that one too. After all I have to get it off of the frame so I can quilt this one when the time comes!
I took a few pictures in the yard today. Here are some of my flowers.
I never planted these tiger lilies, I had one bulb wash in from a storm once about 5 years ago I guess and since then they have populated themselves and I now have about 25 of them blooming! The have little black seeds on the stalks and they fall off and eventually grow to full size and that is how I have gotten so many of them. I will have to dig them all up one of these days though as I do not want them growing where they are, which means the next couple weeks I need to get out there and pick all of the seed pods off of them and put the seeds where I want them to grow and then dig the bulbs out this fall and plant them too.
Also here is a photo of my bird feeder that I took this morning, if you look closely you can see a bird at it. I have had a lot of purple finches at the feeder this year, I’m not sure if this is one or not, I couldn’t get the bird clearly in the photo. I also have woodpeckers, nuthatches, cardinals, & bluejays. I’m sure there are others but I always notice these that I named.
I had so many visitors to my blog Sunday night to Monday night from Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Estonia that I must ask why? I have feedjit on the sidebar which shows the world map and where you all come from to visit. I tracked it back to a Scandinavian Yahoo group but I wondered what was on there that made you all come visit! Please tell me I am curious 
I love having visitors from all over the world and that is one thing that I love about blogging is making “friends” with all of you from around the world. It is fun getting e mails from so many people and comments about quilting. I like to go see your blog sites and see what you are working on. If you come visit please leave a comment and if you have a blog leave me a link so I can see what you do too. When I first starting blogging about 2 1/2 years ago I had no idea I would become so addicted to it.
I have made progress on the Christmas Baltimore Album and while I should be sewing right now to finish putting the blocks together I am blogging instead. It is coming along really well and I should finish putting this part together tomorrow – now the question is “will I?”
Don’t you just hate it when you get a pattern and the directions aren’t clear? It did not give the measurements for the triangles. Math is not my strong suit – when it says long side of triangle is — I’m thinking – what about the other sides – you mean I have to figure this out myself!! As you can see I did figure it out and I’m really shocked that it didn’t take me all night to 
do it and that I didn’t ruin any fabric due to not cutting it the right size!
I also made a little progress on “Insanity Revisited” yippee! I have not worked much on it lately. I did a block on Sunday and 
another almost finished today – maybe I will quickly finish that one tonight and get done with it. I am working on Row G – the 7th row out of the 13 needed – so I am about half way done with the blocks!! This photo on the right is G8 and the one on the left in progress is G9
I had a good visit with my mom yesterday. It was a tiring day partly because it was so hot and also because my mom is 84 years old and physically frail (her mind is great). She is in a wheelchair due to Rheumatoid Arthritis which has pretty much made it so that she can no longer walk – she can stand briefly but not walk. To take her to lunch and shopping I have to constantly assist her into the car, then fold the chair and lift it into the back of the car – and then get out all over again, and again and again! It is a workout! We met my little sister and her little girl for lunch and shopping. Coming from a large family we have a bit of overlap in generations. My sister’s little girl is 2 weeks older than my granddaughter (they will both be 7 at the beginning of fall) (my little sis is 13 years younger than I). We enjoyed ourselves and mom enjoyed getting out even though it was hot.
Look forward to a giveaway from me soon — so many people have give aways and I never have had one and it is about time I think. I have so many regular readers that I need to do a thank-you. I will look things over and decide what to give away – I think there will be at least 2 winners and I hope to have it planned by the end of the week. I have recently won a give away myself from Deb – Quilt Gal – in Canada, I will put a photo on here of my gift when I get it.
I have not spent as much time this weekend putting the blocks together as I had thought I might. This is what I have done so far – the sashing is time consuming getting the corners and the nine patch area done. I do not have a design wall so this is where I start to go back and forth to the living room – laying it out on the floor to make sure I do not mess up the placement. I am done for tonight – I’m at the point where I felt I was going to start making mistakes! That tells me I’m tired and to leave it for Tuesday. I still need to cut my large triangles and do more sashing of course. Tomorrow I am visiting my mom for the day (a 2 hour drive both ways) so I know I will 
not get back to this until Tuesday at the earliest.
We have made quite a bit of progress on the porch and the deck so it is time for photo’s I guess. This first photo on the right is of before the work this past week. The railroad ties were rotting – it doesn’t look like it in this photo, but the part closest to the plants was. At first we thought to take 
the top one off and replace it but then we found the ones underneath were worse so we dismantled the whole thing and the plants are now in other places in the yard. We decided to take the railing down on this end and extend a deck = like this photo on the left. At the end of that photo where the plants are is where my swing area starts – we are going to put cobblestone type of stone down at the end here 
where the dirt is and it will tie it all together. I will show another photo when we finish it. Here is another view of what we have done on the right – this side faces the driveway. While Mike was building all of this I was using the pressure washer to clean all of the old porch floor boards to make it the same as the new so it would blend together. It really all came clean too. When I got done with the floor boards and the railings on the far end I decided to do the siding on the front of the house too seeing as I could reach it all! That is what I was doing yesterday.(I didn’t take a photo after the siding was clean too – it is much lighter now!)
Even though this has been a lot of work the last couple of weeks I am glad we have changed it. On the stone area that needs to still be finished we are going to put a round firepit that we bought at Lowe’s. It has a domed screen top and I have wanted one of these for sometime now. We spend a lot of time outside and with our mild winters we really do spend a good portion of the year out here. We have never had any luck growing grass in the front yard – it is hard as rock and it is more moss and weeds than anything else so why not cover it up!
Finally I have started to put the quilt top together. I worked outside for a good part of the day again today working on the
porch and the deck. I was too tired to cook supper – well I could have but I was tired! We went out to eat, went to the bookstore and then home. It was still in the 90’s outside when we got home close to 7 so I came in here to the sewing room and started to put the sashing on the quilt blocks. I didn’t get a lot done but this is what is done so far.
This will be set on point so you have to imagine this at an angle. I do not have a design wall and I pinned this to the stain glass dragon wall hanging in my room here and then cropped it. I have to cut some more sashing and hopefully I will work on it this weekend. I do have the border pieces cut to the correct size and they are put aside. I have some triangles to cut from the background fabric and some squares to cut for the 9 patch at the intersections.
I like how it is looking and I’m so glad that I didn’t get a bright red for the sashing, this one is more of a “brick” red maybe? Anyhow I like it.
I have not touched either of the Insanity quilts – I have really been putting in a lot of time outside these past several weeks on our remodeling project of the deck and porch. As soon as I get these 5 blocks put together for this quilt then I will get back to Insanity. This is normal for me, I will work really hard on those quilts for awhile then I loose interest and work on other things — then I get back to them (really – I always finish my quilts even if it takes 3 or more years to do so like with these quilts!!).
I have all 5 of my Christmas Baltimore Album blocks squared up to the 16 1/2 inches they are supposed to be and I have started to cut out the red sashing but I have not made anymore progress than that.
I spent a good part of the day outside once again. I went over part of the deck that I had been cleaning the day before yesterday and got more of the dirt off of it on the second try. Mike went over the same area tonight and got more off of it. Mike finished building the deck this evening now to get it all cleaned up and the tools put away. Once the porch is all cleaned up we will take photo’s of the finished look. I will have to post some before and after photos. We still need to power wash the porch boards before a picture gets taken. I will need to start looking for a couple more pieces of deck furniture when we get completely done. I know there are bound to be some sales coming up – after all we all know that by July the winter stuff starts coming out to the stores – surely the lawn furniture will be on good sales then.
Also today I dug up all of my old strawberry plants and tossed them. They have not been producing for the last 3 years and I’m tired of trying to get something out of them. Right now I am using that area to plant all of the bulbs that I had taken out of the flower bed that we dismantled in order to put the new deck in. I had a lot of bulbs. I have no idea right now where I want them so I put all that I had dug out plus some that my sister-in-laws mom had given me. They will keep well there until the fall, maybe by then I will have decided where to put them permanently.
I have taken a couple photo’s of my yard and plants that I will share with you until I get the photo’s of the deck and porch posted.
Purple Coneflowers, I have a lot of these all over the place, some in beds and some on the edges of the woods.
my swing where I spend the evenings reading sometimes looking at hummingbirds coming to feed (they are not here very much this summer)
go to this link to see this great fabric that is being give away. Quilt Qua Home I don’t know about you guys but I would like to win that bundle!
It was so hot today – up to 97 here at home among the trees – 100 in the town! I managed to work outside for just a little bit this morning and then wimped out. I did too much yesterday and my body ached just a little too much!! and it was so hot outside I said no I will do it tomorrow (if it is cool enough).
I did finish my 5th Christmas Baltimore Album block “Circle of Cactus”! Now all five blocks are finished and I can get started this week putting them together before I get started on the borders. Looks like this top will be done by Xmas and maybe even though it most likely will not be quilted I can have it set out someplace for decoration. I do not have a Christmas quilt so this is a first for me — over 25 years of quilting and I never made a quilt for Christmas – I do have wall hangings and a table decoration but no bigger size quilt.
I hope you all aren’t having the heat that we are and if you are that you are staying cool!
Now I need to find my directions for this Christmas quilt and start seeing how I am to put these together – I don’t think it will take long – I just need to get my act together and get my head out of my book long enough to do it!
Have a Wonderful Day award from Astrid in Mauritius
Thank you Astrid for the award and thinking of me for it.
I am supposed to pass this award on to 8 blogging friends. I have read so many blogs that I know I can not pass it to everyone so I am sorry in advance if I have left you off of the list. Here goes – I have come to enjoy these blogs and get inspiration for ideas from all. I love the chatter and the comments from all of you. Pass the award on if you wish.
Crispy from Crispy Quilts
Wanda from Exuberant Color
Melanie from From Scratch (my daughter and the only one not a quilter on this list – but she does love them!)
Chris from Greetings From Shady Grove
Anya from Hill Creek Quilter
Mary Ann from Mary Anne’s Corner
Nanci from Quilting at the Cottage
Miri from Milk & Honey Quilts
Today was a day that was spent outside almost all day. Last week we got a pressure washer to clean the deck and the porch. Mike has been adding on to the deck and it is so nice and clean (the new area that is) that the old part looks so dirty now. While he is building the deck today seeing as it was cloudy I got started with the power washer. I got the deck area just about completed today. I forgot one section of the railing and then I have to go around the outside of it and get the side of the railings that face out to the yard — this is such dirty work you wouldn’t believe it!! I had shorts on because of the heat and I was barefoot – my legs were covered in girt and slime LOL I would have made the grandkids laugh to see me.
Tomorrow I will finish the deck and then get started on the porch flooring boards they are not as bad as the deck is because of being under cover of the roof, but they still need cleaning badly also.
I got no sewing done today and I forgot to glue baste the last flower down so I will try to do that tonight before I go to bed.
I received an award today from my good blogging friend Astrid in Mauritius which is an island in the Indian Ocean. Astrid originally from Norway has lived on the island for awhile now. Although we are fairly new friends we have enjoyed each others blogs since we found them. I need to select 8 blogging friends to pass this on to so it will take me a 
couple days to get this on my blog. Thank you Astrid! Astrid takes wonderful photos of the island and puts them on her blog along with her quilting photo’s.
I made more progress on my “Circle of Cactus” only one more white flower left to do! I will be glad to be done with these 5 main blocks and I’m ready to get them sewn together soon.
I also got one more block of “Insanity” quilted, F-7 I really need to try to quilt more
in the heat of the day and not sit around reading, but I have been in a reading phase – I tend to get in spells where I read more than I quilt.
I won’t even discuss the weather today – other than to say it continues to be hot in the 90’s!
Today was another hot day but the humidity wasn’t as high as it was the other day. Mike continued to work on the new 
portion of the deck – it is in the shade most of the day. While he worked on that I was sitting on the porch working on my “Circle of Cactus” block and reading my book that I started yesterday – with a glass of ice cold lemonade not far from my side. (I have been trying very hard for the last 4 months or so to cut back drastically on diet coke – I have drunk way too much of it over the years – I am doing really good at it!) Hard to believe I started this one only a week ago. I have one more cluster of the red cactus flower and then one more white flower with the green leaves around it. In the very center is a cluster of red – I wouldn’t say petals, but you will see what I mean when I get to them.
I thought I had read that book by Barbara Bickmore that I told you all about yesterday – but I hadn’t. I am thinking it is possibly a book that my daughter left here by accident maybe years ago for me to read but it ended up on the shelf with me never having read it. We do at times read the same sort of books and at times they tend to end up in the wrong house. Melanie if this is your book let me know — or if you want to read it feel free next time you are in town. It was a good book and I’m glad I picked it up. I finished it earlier today and have started on another one of hers called “The Back of Beyond” it also starts out in the 1930’s but is in the Australian Outback. The story centers around a female doctor working with the Australian Flying Doctors Service. This link will lead you to what the Flying Doctors are now – this book is when it all started! Of course it is fiction so some might not be quite accurate, but I think she did a lot of research from what I have read over the years of the service. The link from yesterday will lead you to a list of her books. This book I have read before but it has been quite awhile and I am sure I have forgotten some of it!
Today was another day that ventured into the 90’s and humidity was here also. It isn’t so bad when it is dry heat (although I do not like to bake in an oven) dry heat is tolerable where as with humidity you just drip!
I pulled a book on the shelf today that I hadn’t read in forever. I had completely forgotten what it was about – it was published 1993. Have you read Barbara Bickmore? Here is a link to her site and books. I do not think she has anything new for years now but I enjoy the couple that I do have. The one I am reading is called “Distant Star” it takes place in the 1920’s in China. I have one other of her books and that one takes place in Africa. The one good thing of collecting so many books is I can almost always find a book to read — the bad thing of having so many books is dusting them!! LOL I am not very good at that and sometimes when I pull a book off of the shelf to read I have to dust off the top of it before I sneeze!
I got some more done on the “Circle of Cactus” I will take a photo of it tomorrow when more progress has been made. I think I will be sewing the body of the quilt together by the end of the week! This is the 5th appliqued block and all blocks will be finished size of 16 inches. There is sashing between them and then an applique border. I will get all of what I have done sewed together and then start work on the border.
It is my grandson’s 9th birthday tomorrow the first day of summer. Last night his dad took him to a business dinner 
with him. My son-in-law is in the bug business. He trains others on how to get rid of bugs safely for businesses and homes. Last night his company had a company dinner and the appetizers were beetle grubs! yuk is what I thought, my daughter passed on the dinner but my grandson was pleased to take her place — boys! here is my bug guy. He said it was cruchy and tasted like shrimp – I don’t know if I believe him
