(I wrote this last night and scheduled it for morning)

Back up into the hundreds again today, I can’t keep up with the watering.  We have had one rain that I can remember since the beginning of June other than a few sprinkle showers (the kind that stops before it hardly starts).  I have flower plants that are dying much earlier than they normally do – even the ones that are supposed to be good in droughts like the Black Eyed Susan’s and Purple Cone-flowers.  I try to mainly water early in the morning or late in the evening.  I now have 4 soaker hoses scattered throughout the many flower beds and tonight I put one hose on a trickle by my dogwood tree for an hour or so and then the sprayer that gets a big area on to another area but turned down so it was mainly getting flowers not the yard.  If the flowers that I sprayed tonight do not look good tomorrow I will give up on them – they are normally sturdy plants and should come back next year – the kind you can’t kill if you try

Today I did not get done with everything I said I was going to do on my post this morning.  I did not quilt I really should have and at 10 PM I do not feel like it now, I’m almost ready to go to bed.

I did sew the backing together for both “Pave the Way” and the “Wedding Signature” quilt.  Tomorrow I will get the small quilt basted – most likely with pins. This one is ready for the living room floor tomorrow to get pinned.

This is the backing for the wedding quilt, I didn’t have a piece wide enough for it either and I got that taken care of today.

I went through all of my batiks looking for pieces that will be put into the Joseph’s Coat quilt that I will be hand piecing soon.  I think this will give me enough for a queen size combined with the light color background.  I broke down and ordered some light color batik for the background from the Fabric Shack – I was going to use a white that I had but I would rather not mix two different types of fabric for this quilt – the the light batik will work better when using other batiks.

I did get some worksheets done up so I can decide on color placement for the Joseph’s Coat, I had to cut and paste a bit and make copies but it worked – I have about 10 copies now to use and decide color – this will be a queen size at least;

My friend Regina (no blog)I told you all last week o r so had won one of the $100 prizes in the candy bar boxes from the Fat Quarter Shop – well she got her winnings in the mail today – she sent me photos from her phone so they are not real clear but here is what she got.  If I remember what she said right all of her goodies was packed into a tote bag and some small things were in it as well.  Just look at all of this and drool right along with me, sampler box of 2 1/2 inch squares, that big big bundle of fat quarters, a jelly roll – can’t tell if that other one is a honey bun or if it is two jelly rolls, and is that some candy bars in the back?  If she gets on here she will have to leave us a comment and tell us what all she got.

Congratulations Regina – what a great bundle of prizes!!

Well I got off to a start – I had to redo blocks though as they didn’t measure up to the 6 1/2 inches that they should be – finished size is 6 inches.  Anyone else having a problem with that?  I accurately cut – double checked.  I drew on (hand piecing) a scant 1/4” seam allowance and both blocks were too small.  Second time around I cut all my outside pieces a little larger than they should be like I did with my Dear Jane quilts and that worked for me.  I square up when I am done and both were just a little too large then but after squaring up they were ok.

These are the first two blocks.  I had not looked at the chart in the book for layout before I selected to start with #1 and #2.  I think I am going to look at the chart and start with the left corner and work from there putting aside these two blocks until I need them.  I would like to put the rows together as I work as I did with Dear Jane.  The first two blocks as you can see have a lot of blue but they are not next to each other in the quilt – I did not intend for a blue/yellow pattern – the other blocks will be more variety of color.

I have to water plants almost every day right now so they don’t dry up.  The yard is so large I can’t get everything at once.  We have not had rain for close to 3 weeks now.  Some of my plants:

I had to move these two flower baskets to the shade of the porch – I had them hanging in an area where the sun is strong in the afternoon and it proved to be too hot and strong, they are perking back up now.

Some purple coneflowers, more are near by, these are surrounded by Black Eyed Susan’s that aren’t open yet – soon thought.

Hollyhocks and lilies.  This is the second year for the hollyhocks – first year flowering, hopefully I will get more next year.  I will let these seed themselves.

I’m not sure how fast I will be doing the Farmers Wife quilt, I need to get busy on other quilts too, so off and on I imagine.  I will show progress as it grows

I have my patchwork quilt all spray basted together and ready to work on sometime this week so it is off of the design wall finally.  Thank you to everyone who gave me their helpful hints on how to machine quilt – I will need it here it is ready to go.

Now at the same time I was working on this quilt I was also working on the big center square for the Red and Green applique – I finished it.  Now the blocks are all up on my design wall so I could decide placement – I need to square all the blocks up, check measurements ect before I cut the red fabric for the sashing.

The red batik for the sashing – washed several times!

The hydrangeas opening up for lovely color.

Lilies and Roses, the yucca flowers are finished already over in this area and I didn’t get a photo of them all in bloom – that happened when I was in Wisconsin and then stormy weather blew them all off.

Flower baskets

Ferns

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.  I haven’t heard back from my winner of the giveaway and it is a holiday weekend here – she might be away from home and no computer available.  If I do not hear from her by say Wednesday I will get another winner drawn.

I thought I would post a couple more photos from the gardens and then move on to other things I have gotten a little quilting done in the living room watching some NCIS this evening.  Earlier today I got some embroidery done in between laundry loads and grocery shopping.  I do have some of the Red and Green glue basted in place and still need to make some bias stems.  I will put together a tutorial on how I use my Clover Bias Stem maker and post that either late Sunday or Monday.

A Grackle – these birds seem to be every where in Texas – they make quite the noise.

People enjoying themselves out at the gardens – lots of families, lots of picnics.

Garden Music:

Koi:

The Toad Garden – one in each corner shooting water at each other

A more formal garden area:

Grackles splashing in the water:

More of the pretty tulips & daffodils

pretty pansies and violas used in between beds and bulbs to fill in.

And this is it from the gardens – on to quilting tomorrow!

Love this time of year! I was outside cleaning out flower beds once again – no I don’t think I will ever get done  — we have too big of a yard!!

Crocuses:

Hydrangea leaves budding out – only on the very bottom of the plant – maybe it is warmest there? on the branches are buds but none open.

This one still needs to be cleaned out, but there are iris’s and lilies.  Clematis to climb up the trellis’s – I put the trellis’s up last year but the plant’s weren’t doing well, lets see how they do this year.

The Cherry Wreath – all of the berries are glued in place and I will work on the applique tomorrow evening at the quilt group.  The stems of the berries will be embroidered from the wreath circle to the berries in chain stitch – two chains per berry.

I have 9 rows of the 25 rows on the Going In Circles quilt so I am getting close to half way – maybe in another week or so depending on how much time I put into it.  I am trying to steadily work on it so that I can get it finished and another quilt on the frame by middle of summer – I am thinking the 2nd Dear Jane quilt “Insanity Revisited” will be next on – hopefully end of summer.

Someone asked did I have a photo (and more information about the quilt) Going In Circles quilt before I put it on the frame – yes- if you go to this post I have more photos. This photo below is when all of the applique was glue basted and I still needed to do the stitching but it looks the same as it does now.  I just had to fold it slightly in the middle to get the photo as I didn’t have enough room! Yes the quilt is my own design and no I do not have a pattern for it.  I kind of made it up as I went.  All of the circles are made using my tutorial method here and all circles and vines and corner patchwork are stitched down by hand.  It is 100 inches by 100 inches.

Tomorrow night is our quilt group meeting that meets once a month I’ll bring my camera and see if there are any quilts displayed for photos.

Design Wall Monday – head on over to Judy at Patchwork Times and see what everyone is working on.

My design wall Monday is my 11th Red and Green Applique block.  The 11th out of the 12 this size needed.

I changed this block.  I was going to do the “ruching” for the big flowers – but – I tried – I didn’t conquer the technique and decided to not ruin this block by attempting it any longer!! LOL  I picked the one flower off that I was trying to do as this quilt is intended to be used which means it will be washed.  If I had continued to try the ruching method I feel that when washing this quilt these flowers would eventually start to fray as I couldn’t get all the raw edges to stay under.  This method will be something to practice on in the future.  Instead I decided to just do regular applique flowers and will put some French Knots in the centers for added dimension.

The block – several of the large flowers still need to be appliqued in place, they are just glue basted now. I wanted to get started on the embroidery in this block.  I have two large flowers to finish and then the embroidery in the centers of the large flowers.

For the embroidery I am using 3 different colors – 2 strands of yellow and 1 strand each of two different reds.  I twist the threads together and put them on the needle for a variegated thread.  It works for the look I wanted.

This weekend I worked on all three of the quilts in progress.  Going In Circles is moving slowly but quilting is being done.  The quilt on the hoop – Geese in the Park got a little bit of quilting done on it this weekend but not much.

I spent a bit of time outside this weekend working on cleaning up flower beds.  I am not great about doing the work in the fall – mulching up all the fall leaves, trimming dead leaves off of the plants ect. and tend to do that more in the very early spring.  I think the problem is that in the fall I am tired of gardens after a long summer and ready to hibernate for the winter then by late winter I am so ready for spring that I need to have something to do outside before it is time to plant so that is when I like to clean out the flower beds. Only problem of course is that I have not being exercising regularly during the winter then I am over doing it and my muscle scream at me like they are doing now!

Because of how thick and long some of these plants are I pretty much just have to get in there on my hands and knees and start pulling dead leaves out that have gotten tangled up in the plants.  I raked all of the leaves out of the area so that when I run it over with the lawnmower they won’t all blow right back onto the plants.  I am not going to attach the mulch bag onto the mower but just chop these leaves up in tiny pieces and leave them on the yard.

all of this came out of the area shown above.  I do believe I have 4 more beds to do – all are large! why do I make all these beds? because we have a horrible yard – I mainly just do raised beds – our soil is horrible – very rocky.

Very dark day – looks like we might get rain today.

Hydrangea leaves are beginning to open.

Now it is time for me to get off of the computer and get back to the laundry and whatever work needs to be done today!

What all are you doing for your design wall Monday?

I haven’t blogged all weekend.  I have been busy but not excessively – I just didn’t feel like sitting at the computer other than checking e mail.  I have been working off and on, on the Bow Tie quilt and came to discover that although I thought I had all my pieces cut out I didn’t count right and I am 20 blocks short on the smaller bow tie blocks – darn now I have to start cutting all over again.  I thought I was finished with the smaller blocks and it didn’t look like enough, counted and sure enough I have 36 of those finished blocks not 56!!  The smaller version those pictured in the front are the ones that need more.  Right now I am making more of the big blocks seeing as I have enough of those pieces cut – I’m glad I had left over fabric still and enough to cut more pieces.

The pieces for the large blocks cut and ready to go complete with my sewing line marked on the small pieces (I can’t sew a straight line for anything and find if I mark my line for these type of pieces I do better.

I got another Red and Green Appliqué block ready to get started on – an easy one!  The stems are appliqued and I am now working on the leafs.

I mentioned my spider lilies awhile back and that they were coming up.  I had replanted last year after dividing the bulbs and couldn’t remember where all I had planted them.  I found these growing in with the ferns and then last week started to find others – a grand total of about 20 flowers I believe.  I do not like them all spread out though and think they will look better in one place though so as soon as the flowers start to fall off I am going to dig them all up and put them in one place for next year.

In this area some of them were underneath the hostas and I had to move them out from under the leaves so they could grow right – they need to be by themselves I do believe.  I have some growing in mostly shade others more in sun and they all came up at about the same time and growing the same so I don’t think it will matter where I put them.

I wide variety of things today – first the Dear Jane blocks for “Insanity Revisited”

Row 13, Block 8 why can I never get the lighting right LOL

Row 13, Block 9 made this one today the other one last night. Next one is so easy I just might make it tonight - a simple 9 patch - what was Jane thinking - maybe she got tired of the hard ones after all these many blocks that came before it?

From my nice big blue hydrangea bush - but they are forgetting they are supposed to be blue - the soil conditions have changed I do believe - last year I had a couple lilac color flowers on it, this year a couple more of a pink tone and about 1/3 of the flowers are lilac color - I love the mixture all coming off of the same bush!

a close up

Now on to the blueberries.  First thing – well almost first thing this morning I got the blueberries ready for the dehydrator and they have been in it ever since.  The book says 10 to 18 hours and it has been 12 hours and they are still going.  I have a feeling I might be up late tonight.  I do not want to go to bed with them still drying as I do not want them to be hard as rock when I wake up in the morning – hopefully they will be done in a couple more hours?  I was hoping it wouldn’t take that long!!

my dehydrator - 4 shelves and they are all full

what the shelves look like full

cheesecake - I cheated instead of completely making it from scratch, I had pie crust in the freezer left over from what I bought for Thanksgiving and thought I better use one of them, a refrigerator carton of cheesecake filling - but the blueberry topping is homemade!

Blueberry muffins -- I have been busy the last couple of days

I have been working on my Star Crazy BOM June blocks and will have them finished to show tomorrow but today I took more photos of the flowers as they are looking good right now.

This lilie is called a "Crinum". I don't know how many of you are firmiliar with it. In the south it was very popular in years gone by and I read that now you can rarely find them in nurserys and have to be special order. The best place to find them is in old estabished gardens. My gardening friend who died 5 years ago gave me about 10 of these bulbs. She had been cleaning out plants in an old yard - (same friend I got a lot of my plants from that I mentioned a month or so ago). When she found this plant while cleaning up the yard she started to dig it up and kept finding more and more of a bulb - it was huge. She finally had her husband come help her. When they got it all dug up she laid the back seat of her station wagon down and they managed to get it in the back of it somehow without damaging it - it was over 3 feet wide and weighed about 40 pounds. She drove to every nursery in town and showed it to them asking if anyone knew what it was. Finally someone recognized it. They told her about it and said it was safe to divide and replant and how to do so. She gave me about 10 or more pieces and I don't know how many other people got bits of it too. I planted them and left them alone for about 10 years. Last year I decided to redo the garden it was in and dug them all up and had close to 30 bulbs. Only problem with digging up and dividing this plant is that they usually do not flower well for the next year or two. This year they are coming back but not near as many flowers as they have had in the past.

Butterfly Weed. A reader - I don't remember who - identified this for me a couple weeks ago when I posted a photo of it first starting to bud out - it looks really pretty now and to think it was free and just flew in somehow and landed in my garden. I have 3 of these plants blooming this year.

another one

wild daisies - sunflowers - what ever you want to call them, they look a lot like black eyed susans but the leaves are different from them. These grow wild and I managed to scatter enough seeds that took and have taken over this area.

The purple coneflowers are starting to flower, I have a lot of them too scattered all over the place - all originated from one plant about 15 years ago that I started from seed.

No Dear Jane block today – I was bad and took a day off.  I will get back to them this weekend I am sure.  But today I was trying to finish the Star Crazy blocks due but only made 2 of the star blocks although last night I had brought a bunch of pieces that needed to be cut apart and now I need to trim all of those half square triangles (48 of them) and put aside until needed at the end of the year.  I also have one Irish Chain block to make this month – then they can be put aside and I will get back to work on other things.

I really and truly want to get finished with all of my Insanity Revisited blocks before the end of June and I’m going to try hard to do it.  19 more blocks to do.

Row 12, Block 7 - such a nice and easy block what a break after some of the ones done recently.

Now excuse the quality of the next couple photos – I was wandering the yard this morning and didn’t have my camera with me but I did have my new cell phone with me so I snapped some photos with it.

These purple flowers are from a plant called "Mimosa Pudica" some consider it a pest and others like it. I have seen them before but we never had them growing freely before on our land. These are growing in our wild garden area so for now they are welcome - I will see what they do and if they over take the area too much they will be banished!

I don't know the name for this wild flower (weed?) I like it though, we have three clusters of these orange flowers growing in the wild area also - I didn't plant them they just grew - does anyone know what they are? When they fully open I will take another photo - I need to get my wild flower book out and see if it is listed.

the lilies are starting to open - I have several varieties that are blooming now. This is in the wild garden also. When I was trimming out some of the trees that were growing in this area a couple weeks ago I found a new red bud tree growing - it actually wasn't new as it was already about 4 feet tall but it was spindly as it was so overwhelmed by all of the other trees growing in the area. I will need to stake it up as when I went over there today I noticed it has not popped up as I had hoped it would - the other trees had it bending to the ground which is why I had not noticed it previously. It is on the opposite side of the hill from these lilies.