Before I write anything else I need to tell you that Judy over at the Green Fairy is having a give away. I signed up for her give away and said I would mention it on my blog and didn’t want to forget. You might want to check her out, she is giving quite a few fantastic prizes. She is also traveling to Romania soon on a mission trip. She will be bringing quilts to give away to people in need and is also trying to raise money to feed people while she is there. Check her site out. Besides having lovely prizes she sells fabric and things too.
I have had a productive day – although at the same time it was a lazy day if you know what I mean. First photo – I made an Italian Cream Cake today. It calls for 3 layers with a yummy, fattening frosting of course. I went ahead and made all 3 layers, but then I cut them all in half and froze 3 of the pieces – this will be cake for another day. We have half of a 3 layer cake — which for 2 people who love cake that is more than enough. I probably should have only made a quarter of a cake but that gets more difficult. I got this recipe off of the Pioneer Woman Cooks page. She sure does post good recipes. If you follow the link it will take you to the recipe. I have not made a cake in such a long time that when I saw her recipe I gave in to temptation!
I made progress on the border of the Christmas Baltimore Album and have two of the flowers done! Progress!
Click on the photo’s to enlarge as usual.
I’m wondering if others have the same problem I am having with my hummingbird feeders lately — Bees! they won’t go away, I have never had bumblebees at the feeders that I can recall and there are getting to be more of them everyday. Is there a way to make them go away – I assume I 
shouldn’t spray the area with insect spray as the hummingbirds might be harmed – they are so little. Also the bees of course are good for the flowers. Anyone else have this problem? In these photos you can even see them flying in below the feeder. So far they have not come close to us.
Two nuthatches have taken up residence on the tree next to the porch. They travel up and down the tree – at times upside down, and peck at bugs all day – I do not see the bugs, but I guess they are there!
Now that my husband has found out for sure that he is a contract worker again and 
started a six month job as of yesterday. Now I can start putting some more plants out on the deck and porch for decoration. I had held off on doing so because if we were traveling I didn’t want all the plants to have to be on automatic water system. Here are two baskets of flowers that I got the other day. I have a 3 tier plant stand off to the corner there and haven’t gotten anything for it, I might do that tomorrow after I meet two of my friends in the morning at the local bookstore/coffee shop to look at quilt magazines. We haven’t done that for awhile and thought we would do that instead of meeting to sew.
This area full of Black Eyed Susan, Purple Coneflowers and Tiger Lilies are next to this area of the porch. I spend a bit of my day outside. I have a work basket that I place my applique work in, the telephone, a book, the camera — and I bring out an icy drink and I am set for awhile until the heat drives me in! I have a radio out there and also listen to the birds, squirrels and the bees.
I did make sure that I went and got some exercise first thing this morning!! I have been bad and have gotten out of the exercise habit lately. I always get out of my routine when we take a long trip like we did in May. Then when we got home we had clean up from that storm and then started work on enlarging the deck – through the change in routine I started to skip the fitness center a couple times a week which lead to all week – to all month!! I am making a promise to myself to get back to the healthy life style (and of course I made the cake to prove to myself that I can have my cake and exercise too 
)
Several blogger buddies of mine have posted links to two ladies who decided they wanted to see a parade of quilts – your first quilt that you made and the last quilt that you made. Go to either of these links to see what it is about. Simplify and LaVieEnRosie
I no longer have my first quilt or second, third whatever. I’m not sure how many I had made before I started to keep track of quilts and the history of them. I didn’t know about doing that for quilting. I am self taught and learned the “rules” along the way. The oldest quilt that I have a photo of I believe is the Lone Star quilt that I made for my daughter Melanie in 1991. I only have this one photo. Like I say this was not the first but I no I had not made much more than baby quilts before this and the few large quilts I made were poorly done. This quilt was made with cheap fabric, was not pulled tight enough when quilted, and I remember the center of the star puffed up a lot in the very middle and had to be really quilted to hold it down It is hand quilted by me and I actually did the binding with all the colors of the star, I didn’t know not 
everyone does that at times.
My last quilt that I finished is one of my own design, ( I believe I finished it in April) some of it is hand pieced, some needle turn applique and a little was machine pieced. It is all hand quilted. “Walking the Primrose Path” I have come a long way in the 18 years in between quilts and I have made over 75 quilts since then, at least 30 to 35 of those have been queen size – all are hand quilted by me.
I don’t know if this means I have too much time on my hands or what! LOL I do no that I enjoy quilting very much and have come along way with my quilting. I still have never taken a class and remain self taught.
This is the last evening for the give away. I will accept all comments through the evening and in the morning when I wake up it is closed. I will then set out to put everyone’s name in the cap – some of you one time, some of you two times if you left a comment on your blog. The winner will be announced on Saturday – come back and check – I will send an e mail to the two winners.
Go to my daughters blog From Scratch and you will see how we spent our day yesterday. She has included photo’s from yesterday’s adventure and old family photo’s plus the recipes that we used.
by Karen on July 7, 2009
in family
I wasn’t going to blog this evening. I am tired. I left the house about 9 this morning and drove to North Little Rock to 
spend the day with my daughter. Melanie has been growing some cucumbers and wanted pickles. She had never made them so wanted a mom/daughter day – “show me how to make pickles mommy” LOL, ok not quite those words but kind of I had the canner, the jars, the lids, the recipe — she had the cucumbers, spices & vinegar. Kind of an even trade. When I arrived we first went to the river market area as the farmer’s market is held there. We checked to see if they had some small cucumbers to add to hers – they didn’t and turned out we didn’t need them. But they did have tomatoes and we got some to try our hand at ketchup – I had never made that but thought why not give it a try. I left most of the pickles with her but I did bring home 3 jars and a jar of ketchup. We only got 2 pints out of the tomatoes so we split it.
Here is Melanie on the left working on the pickles.
I got home a little after 7 this evening! I spent some time approving all of the entries that came in today for the drawing - my god people – I have got over 70 of you to pick from and there is still tomorrow!!! That is way more than I ever thought would come on over to this. What fun it will be seeing who the two winners are on Saturday.
My daughter’s dog was feeling somewhat neglected during the day as we were too busy to play with her. Here is the dog
Patty on the couch and on the couch is a quilt I make Mel years ago and a wall hanging on her wall. She doesn’t quilt but she likes them! She will be posting about our 
day on her blog with photo’s – her DH took a bit of photo’s and I will have to wait until tomorrow to see what they are like. She will probably post later tonight or tomorrow.
I managed to get in a couple stitches on the “Insanity” quilt last night on the quilting frame but not enough to bother taking a photo of – maybe later in the week. This morning before I left I did work on the border a little more of the Christmas quilt. It is coming along!
I have been amazed at how many people have stopped by to comment and enter in the drawing. It continues until Wednesday night so comment by then if you want to be included. I have tried to visit everyone’s blog who has left a blog address for me and I have added many to my Google reader to see what you all have. I hope to make some new cyberspace friends from this! I love visiting blogs from the states and outside of the US also. For those that are not in English I use the Google translator and where sometimes it doesn’t really translate accurately I can usually figure out what you are writing about. If anyone knows of a better translator let me know and I will give it a try.
I have the first border part way done for the Christmas Baltimore Album – in this photo the greenery that is straight out is needle turn applique down. I have already put in at least 6 hours on this border – not counting the preparation work. I can see it will easily take 30 hours or more to do one border! When I get done with this red flower there is next a white flower that is larger in the center and then another red flower and the greenery as shown here. This red flower is not stitched down at present.
On Friday I met one of my Dear Jane quilting girlfriends and I got one of my blocks finished! I have not worked very steadily on “Insanity Revisited” and so I have not made a lot of progress recently. But I am glad I finished this block that has 39 pieces in it. It was actually quite easy as Dear Jane blocks go because it was all straight edge 
pieces – no curves or weird shapes. This block is G-10 Woven Meadow. I am half way done piecing the blocks for this quilt – this might sound good – but don’t forget all those border triangles left to do also! It will be another year and a half at this rate before I finish this top.
by Karen on July 4, 2009
in quilts
(edited July 11th — the give away is now closed and winners have been selected, thanks for participating)
I am always reading of other people having giveaways and I do not know why but I have never had one. I have been blogging for 2 years and 3 months and have had 332 blog entries. I guess it is time to have one.
The rules: leave me a comment on this blog post by Wednesday and tell me where you are from – this doesn’t mean your exact location just your country and/or state will do. That will give you one chance. You will have two chances if you mention the give away on your blog. The winners will be announced on Saturday next week on the 11th – one week from today. This give away is open to all readers no matter where you are from.
Make sure you if you do not have a blog that I have a way to get in touch with you – I will need your e mail address.
There will be two winners. Each winner will get a package of strong acrylic templates from Marti Michell - she is listed on my side bar and has wonderful products. Check out her site and see what all she has available. These templates are made strong enough so that you can use a rotary cutter to cut around them, no need to trace around them and cut with
scissors 
unless you want to. Marti and her husband were kind enough to send me quite a few of their products during the winter after I mentioned them on a blog post about the wonderful quilts that can be made from their drunkards path templates. They sent me a variety of products and I know I will never have enough time to use all of them so I am sharing. There just might be another product give away in the future!
These are the two different sets of templates that I am giving away – they have never been used although I have opened the packages to take a look at them. If you have a preference on which you would like to win tell me in your comment and I will try to make sure you get the one you want. Included with the package of the templates will also be a surprise gift from me.
The package on the left is the Drunkards Path pattern and it makes a 6 – 7 inch block. The pattern on the right is called Winding Ways and it makes a 8 1/2 inch block.
I hope you all are enjoying the 4th of July here in the United States and that the weather has been ok for you all. Here we have had some rain but I think the weather will clear up in time for the fireworks tonight. My husband and I have been planning on going over to the river park to see the show.
by Karen on July 3, 2009
in quilts
I wasn’t going to do a blog post tonight and I know I didn’t do one yesterday either and had two friends get on to me about
not writting! So I thought I better post something tonight. I have been busy starting to get pieces ready for the four borders of the Christmas quilt. I have one piece of green that I wanted to use for the leaves that go out from the center – I needed 4 long pieces for the right and 4 for the left. I ended up tracing them out on the fabric to make sure I had enough to use and ended up with a little leftover. Here is a photo of my messy sewing area this evening. You can see the cut outs of freezer paper for the leaves that spread out on the border – kind of like a snow flake – one piece. I need to cut these out still and cut the flowers out as well. I know I have enough fabric for the flowers – it was the green that I wanted enough of. It is a moda marble Xmas Green and I love it. I am so glad I had enough to use.
Besides working on this Mike picked me up 15 large bags of pine bark mulch for my flower beds and I worked all afternoon on that project. I got the very large bed done that is on the far side of the yard – it took 12 bags! I also got a smaller flower bed done and that one took 3 bags. I will need him to get me another 20 bags at this rate! I have a lot more that need mulching!
I am going to do a give away and will post this weekend of what will be given. I will show pictures of what will be given away and give the rules
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.
