And because it was so hot outside I actually got some applique done. My “Circle of Cactus” is coming along quickly. It must be all that practice that I did on the other blocks 
I really like the white flowers – I can’t believe I was tempted to change the color of them! I have the next white flower and the leaves that go around it glue basted down to take with me to my quilting group tomorrow to work on.
Last night I finished quilting one more block on the “Insanity” quilt – this block is F-6 a very cute block I think and believe it or not it really wasn’t that hard to do. On the center of this one I did reverse applique where as on the Dear Jane I am working on now “Insanity Revisited” I did regular needle turn applique. I like the way the reverse one turned out better.
We decided to wait until cooler days to finish up on that last tree top that fell. We had gotten part way clearing it out yesterday but with the temperatures climbing near 90 before 10:30 even got here this morning and Mike’s back hurting a little we decided the tree can wait – maybe until fall!! it is not in the way.
Well we picked up some ice cream for this evening and I’m thinking it sounds pretty good to get started on it – so talk to you all later
I have not shared any of my quilting photo’s for a little while and thought it was time to show that yes even though we have been busy with the past storm and clean up I have made a tiny bit of progress on the quilting front. I have not worked hard at any of my quilts though since we got home at the end of May.
I showed you all a week or so ago the completed “Berry Block” for the Christmas Baltimore Album. I have started work on the last block! It is called “Circle of Cactus”. I am once again trying something different with this block. The way I normally do is to cut all pieces out and glue baste all down and then needle turn applique. I know a lot of people only put down a couple pieces at a time – or one flower, one cluster of leaves ect. I am trying to see if I like doing it that way. This is what I have so far. I will glue baste some more of it tonight. What I have here in the photo is already needle turned appliqued.
I have also gotten a couple more blocks made on my “Insanity Revisited” Dear Jane 
quilt. The last photo I posted was June 4th and I had 4 blocks completed on row G (#7) here is what I have so far. It is not laid out straight but I didn’t notice until I had the pictures downloaded. This is still Row G (#7) now with 7 blocks. That block number six is a really hard one 
with the star in the star!! had trouble with it on the first quilt too, it isn’t perfect but I do not care!
I have also gotten a very little quilting done on the first Dear Jane quilt “Insanity” not much but better than nothing. This is still row F (#6) and I finished block #’s 3,4, & 5 and working on block 6.
This morning we continued with the clean up from the storm. We got firewood stacked and I got the grass cut while Mike was clearing out more debris in the woods. We have one more pinetree to take care of 
and we are heading into an unusually hot spell for this time of year after the temperatures have been so nice. Today here in the shade it was 86 with about a 90% humidity this morning and it did rain for a little this morning. Tomorrow and the next are both to be around 90 or more. We might wait to take care of that remaining pine tree until next weekend, the top of that one fell also but we are thinking of cutting the whole tree down because of where it is at. We will see. This amount of firewood is from the maple tree that fell down and the top of a large pinetree, the top of the pinetree also took down several small trees when it landed and a dead cedar tree so all of that wood is in here too.
For anyone interested in looking at more photo’s from the trip go to this link to see the photo’s that Mike has finished editing from our adventure at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky last month. http://www.hawcreekoutdoors.com/Kentucky/MammothCaveNationalPark/
by Karen on June 15, 2009
in weather
I did get some applique work done today but not until late in the afternoon. This
morning before it got hot it was time to start clean up. We started over by the maple tree – Mike had cut it yesterday and we had hauled off 2 trailer loads of branches. Mike spent time starting a fire to burn all those branches and brought the trailer back over for me to load up the firewood.
Empty trailer on the left photo. Filled up trailer on the right photo. While I was loading the trailer Mike got a lot of the branches burned (lower right photo) and started work on cleaning up 
one of the pine trees where the top had fallen off of the tree (lower left photo). The top of that tree was quite large and we found that it landed on a dead cedar tree that we had not cleared off – we were procrastinating – nature took care of it for us he had to cut that cedar tree in
firewood too. The top of the tree also took out several small trees under it and branches off of another tree in the descent to the ground. He has most of the branches pulled out and tomorrow we will unload this maple firewood load pictured in the right upper photo and then proceed to load it up again with pine and cedar.
Caron from Michigan had commented on how long it takes trees to grow. She is from a northern state. Things are a bit different here. Here are two photos that show an area of our land that basically had no trees when we moved here almost 28 years ago in August of 1981. We planted all of these trees in about 1984 – about 25 years ago.
Oak tree, Sweet gum tree, Red Bud, Dogwood and others. The tallest in the background a pine tree is actually across the road and not ours - the ones up by the truck are ones I am talking about.
Tall Maple tree planted about 25 years ago it was a twig as were most planted in this field (no longer a field) - it is a little bigger than the one the storm took out. They were planted at the same time but the one that fell was over shadowed by the Sweet gum tree and the Oak tree and didn't grow as large. Some of these other trees- on the right of the photo - were twigs when we planted them, they are a nut tree. I believe they are just called "filberts" but that might not be the actual name. We planted them about 15 years ago.
We were back to normal water pressure this morning thank goodness because I got done with six loads of laundry today in between working outside until 12:30 when it got way to hot and sunny for me. Back to work tomorrow to do more clean up in the morning.
I did get done with a little of the applique on the final Christmas Baltimore Album block. I will continue to work on that over the next two or three weeks and hope to finish it before our next trip.
by Karen on June 14, 2009
in weather
At 7 this evening after being without water for about 30 hours the water started to 
slowly trickle out of the water faucet. It has taken 45 minutes to fill up the toilet tank! Maybe the water pressure will be back to normal tomorrow? I really need to get laundry done and do not look forward to a laundromat.
This morning Mike cut the maple tree (upper left) up for firewood (firewood upper right) and we hooked the trailer onto the back of the truck to load up all the branches. It started to rain so we headed back to the house. Then it stopped raining so the trailer got unloaded – then we took it back to try to finish the job – started to rain again – we will finish it tomorrow.
Seeing as it kept raining off and on all day we decided to take a drive around the neighborhood and take photo’s of the storm damage.
large tree down in neighborhood
lot's of trees down at this house
a neighbors house a half mile from us,(our old English teachers house) lot's of damage to back of house, a tree fell on the back porch and roof, also a lot of trees down all around house
a common site this weekend, trucks with trailers full of branches
big tree down at someone's house - we saw a lot of these today
a church 3 miles from us that my niece and nephew use to go to bible camp at in the summer time. There are six very large trees down by the roots and two partial trees down that we saw, there might have been more that we missed.
the neighbors across the street from us (that is the end of our driveway) they lost a very large tree in the middle of their front yard - our maple tree that fell down looked down right puny compared to that - we were lucky.
Now maybe I can get back to quilting tomorrow? Hope so
by Karen on June 13, 2009
in quilts
Here we are at 9Pm and we were just going to go out to the camper to get the bed set up and bring night time things out and the electricity came back on!!! Now of course we still do not have our water running but surely it will come back on in the middle of the night. One can hope right? Keep your fingers crossed and I will update you tomorrow
by Karen on June 13, 2009
in weather
Well I have no new pictures to upload. We are still without power and now we are without water as well!! Evidently the water pumping stations do not have enough power for enough water pressure and therefore – no water!!
I really must say having just gotten home from camping a couple weeks ago we are somewhat prepared. There is still water in the water tank for flushing the toilet in the camper. We will sleep in the camper tonight – I don’t want to sleep in the house knowing I might wake up at 3 in the morning to make a trip to the bathroom only to have to go all the way outside to do it LOL. No it will make more sense to sleep in the camper.
We did run to the store and got a bunch of gallon jugs of water and some smaller water bottles as well. If it looks like it will be days before we get power back and water we can always get more water in the camper and we will be set. We will take it each day as it comes.
The power company is out working on the lines, but there are still downed lines all over the place. We will start our clean up tomorrow. We got all the smaller branches up last night and took today off to go to Little Rock as planned to visit our daughter as we had not seen her since before we left for our trip on May 1st. It was when we got home and I went to start supper that I found we had no water.
So it was back to town to get some drinking water and got pizza while we were there so I wouldn’t have to cook anything tonight. Sure is great having a generator. I hear at least one other generator near by but it seems most of our neighbors do not have one. We actually have two as the motorhome has a generator and then we also have a small honda generator. It isn’t large but we have the refrigerator/freezer going and we have the computers up, the tv, and a light in the living room. No A/C and it is going to start getting hot this week – of course just when you don’t want it too.
by Karen on June 13, 2009
in weather
Yesterday shortly before 2 in the afternoon we had a severe thunderstorm with straight line winds. I had been in the near by 
town 12 miles from our house getting some groceries and odds and ends shortly before the storm struck. I thought I had enough time to get home so set out for home. I didn’t get far before the storm struck about 15 minutes before the weather forecasters said it would – they need to fix that and get more accurate LOL – really they do a pretty good job. I had to pull over into a parking lot in a small shopping center 4 miles from home as the rain and wind was so bad it was dangerous to stay on the road. While I was in the parking lot I could see the wind picking up a metal carport that was by the 
hardware store. Having no idea where the heck the wind was going to set this carport down at I decided to get out of that parking lot and continue on for home.
The rain started to clear up the closer I got to home. But I had to turn back when I saw this -( photo on the left.) Mike took this photo later in the afternoon. When I saw it right 
below the hill in the photo where you can’t see there were more lines down across part of the road. I had to turn around and take a long way home – trees were down everywhere. One tree was blocking the road but I managed to get around an edge of it and made it home finally. I thought for sure we would have house damage as there were so many trees down everywhere but our house came through it fine and so did the workshop and the camper!
We did loose a tree though and branches off of others. The top right photo 
shows several branches that came off of a very large pine tree – the next photo on the right shows the top of a pine tree gone – the top in mangled up in a area below that is so full of brush that I couldn’t quite see the top of the tree! The photo on the left is a maple tree that came down – it was kind of crowded where it was at so it was not a big loss. This photo on the right are branches and the top of the sweet gum tree, as the top of the tree came off it took several of the lower branches off of it as well.
But we consider ourselves lucky after driving around the neighborhood and seeing all the tree damage at a house about a mile away from us. Look at all the trees they lost in their front yard – it doesn’t look like the house was damaged – lucky for them. This photo on the left is of that house and trees (not ours – this is about a mile east of us)
Our power is out and the road going into the nearest house was blocked off as of last night because of the downed power lines in the top photo. We have not ventured out this morning to see if the road is open and will check that out later. We do have a generator going to run the refrigerator and a few other things in the house and will continue to do that until the power comes back on.
Our neighbors lost a tree in the front yard. We went over to speak to them discussing the storm damage last night. Weird but the carport that I saw lifting up in the parking lot that I had pulled into to get off the road — that carport landed on their daughters car! Sounds like it might have totalled the car. I had know that our neighbor had a small shop in that shopping center but she had closed her business recently. I had not known that her daughter had bought the business and opened under a different name and that is why her car was there.
I’m glad I left the parking lot when I did as I was very close to where that carport landed!
If you follow this link you will find Ranette is having a give away of a set of Moda Bake Shop Honey Buns. Run on over and look at her blog and get in on the drawing!
I didn’t have anything to post yesterday. I have been busy tracing out the pattern pieces and beginning to cut them out for the last block for the Christmas Baltimore Album. When I have everything glue basted in place I will post a photo of the block – hopefully later this weekend.
I have been extremely lazy with my quilting and sewing and have not accomplished much on my Dear Jane quilts recently. I will try to take another photo of what I have done soon and get an update posted. Mainly my husband and I have been working outside on the front area that we decided needed an update. The flower bed was dismantled, and a new deck is taking shape. We do the work ourselves. I have just finished putting some rock back in place that had to be moved while we were working. More to do but maybe we will be done with it by the end of next week if the weather cooperates. After the new part is added on then the old porch needs to be cleaned up – getting very green in places from wet weather over the years.
Finally I am getting some little green tomatoes growing. I had about given up. We had so much rain the beginning of May that I thought it had ruined them. Thankfully we haven’t had near as much since then and more sun – that is helping a lot.
I had a problem receiving comments for the last day or two but it is fixed hubby tells me so if you tried to leave one and couldn’t you should be able to now.
I have the “‘Berry Christmas” block finished (upper left corner block in photo). One more block to go and then the border. This next block shouldn’t be difficult. It has a little of some of the other designs so have already practiced! It has Christmas cactus, and the leaves that went with that one (see the block in the lower left part of the photo) and more poinsettia’s are the center flowers in this next block but they are white. Here is a photo of the blocks completed in the line up that they well be. Here is a link to the quilt if you want to see the pattern and what the overall look is. Apple Blossom Quilts
At first I thought I didn’t like the white flowers in the center block but then looked at the pattern again and remembered that there are white flowers in the border so it all ties together nicely.
They have a lot of nice patterns, but a little pricey, I really wanted this one so bought it but normally I wouldn’t spend that much on a pattern.
The next block is called “Circle of Cactus“. I will get started with the pattern tonight. Lot’s of prep work like usual – maybe I will get to the applique next week!
My husband takes so many photo’s you wouldn’t believe it unless you are a camera buff also. Here is a link to all the photo’s that have been edited that he took at the Smokey Mountains when we were on our trip last month. I know I had put some of them on here in my blog but I didn’t put them all on it. http://cw-chronicles.com/hawcreekoutdoors/Tennessee/great_smoky_mountains/index.html if you want to take a couple minutes to look, sit back and relax and just keep clicking on the “next” button.
I decided that I agreed with the majority and like block #2 the best with the berries only in the greenery. I have all of the berries glue basted down and now the stitching will begin. That will not take long and then I can get started on the final block before the bigger border work needs to be done. It is moving along nicely but this quilt top will be hand quilted as all my quilts are so it will not be ready this Christmas but will be for next year. I’m working on too many things right now to get it quilted.
It is back to getting humid here in Arkansas and kind of warm too. We are lucky out here up on our ridge and with the many trees we have for shade that it isn’t as hot as it is in town – our high was only 84 today! I’m sure that will change soon.
Thank you all that commented and gave your suggestions for what to do with the berries for this block. I had pretty much already decided on block #2 and when I saw so many of you agreeing with me I knew that was the look I wanted.
