I finished the quilting this evening – tomorrow afternoon I will get the binding cut and get the sewing machine out. I think I might put a little wider binding on than I normally use – I am using the red and a wider binding will almost look like another skinny border.
this is about the width I am thinking of – it is just sitting next to it right now. I have to measure the quilt first, square it up and measure the red to see what I have, I know I have enough, I just don’t know for what width.
The Hostas are coming up.
A couple clematis buds are ready to open on one plant – now we are having another rain this evening – I hope it doesn’t knock it off.
The buds on this one are smaller so they will be ok.
3 pink azalea bushes that now look like one giant bush! So far the rain has knocked these buds off, they are just opening the last couple of days so maybe they will be ok. This rain should stop in a couple hours.
I finished one border of the applique for Pineapple Square today! progress -
And some quilting last night and this morning when I got home from the fitness center on Star Crazy -
Other than this we have been making some progress on a project that we started yesterday outside. When we get horrible heavy rain we get a lot of water flow from the road that comes downhill to us – right through part of our property to a low laying area that gets very soggy and stays that way for days on end. I should say we are at the top of the ridge – so all water continues on downhill from us. But we have low sections in the yard where the water collects. We decided to do what we do a lot of times and that is use what is handy and free – rocks!! Arkansas grows rock I swear – we have so much rock it is unbelievable. I have so many flower beds and they are all built with rock we dug up in the woods and different sections of the land where they seem to just pop up out of the ground.
Our weekend project – a low rock wall to divert water we want it to flow on the side that you can’t see.
This side – Mike put water in it to see if the flow would be right and it will be. He also dug a trench in front of it there and piled up dirt in front of those rocks to make a bit of a dam. We hope it works. We really need to make it higher and depth wider – but it is a start. We will test it out over the next two days – heavy rain expected through Wednesday! We do a lot of our projects like this – use what is here on the land for free – just have to use our muscle! Well I admit to using the lawnmower with the wagon attached to it to haul the rock!! But I did pick up 6 – quarter loads in that wagon yesterday 
what a work out.
The dogwood tree in full bloom – you see that wood pile over to the left in the photo – that is where we have a river of water running from the top of the road all the way through this whole area – the house is higher and to the right.
The Red Bud Tree getting leaves on it already, those buds well all be falling off over the next week I bet. A lot of those brown dead leaves on the ground – washed in from the last storm.
It is such a nice day outside that I have been out almost all day – of course now the allergies are kicking up and I have a “rough” throat and drippy nose 
All that pollen you know. I planted two short rows of potatoes today in my raised bed. I don’t know how they will do as that area is not in the sun as much as it used to be. I will have to have Mike construct a new raised bed one of these day in another location. The rose bushes have leaves on the them. I see some clematis buds. I did walk over to where the other red bud tree is to see if it has buds on it this year and it does! Hard to see it in this photo though – no leaves on it but a little bit of buds here and there.
Leaves tend to drop pretty late in the fall off of our big tree in the center of the yard and I never get around to cleaning them up in the fall – rather that is almost always a spring project – here is a big pile and there was an even bigger pile far over in the yard.
Mike got the stubborn lawn mower started today after having a charger on it for the past 24 hours and now it looks like this – It will be all green before you know it. The wild violets spread rapidly and are coming back to life. Before you know it the leaves will be on all the trees.
More daffodils – I have about 4 varieties and the earliest are already finished. I have another kind that is ready to burst open any day now and they have the most lovely scent – I always have a vase full of them when they open.
And the azaleas are beginning to open – I didn’t notice them yesterday – it is like they opened over night.
The white will be opening any day
And the red
Now that I am caught up on outside work (well not caught up – I never get caught up it is such a big yard) I have been doing a little applique – I took the pineapple square wall hanging outside to the porch and got part of a vine and one leaf finished – wow I’ll be finished at no time at all at this rate 
I also did about a half an hour on Star Crazy while I was taking a break.
It was just too nice of a day not to take advantage of it. What have you been up to today?
Today I will probably be working on two – going back and forth from one to the other. Star Crazy for hand quilting and Joseph’s Coat for hand piecing. Why don’t you head on over to Judy at Patchwork Times to see what everyone else is working on.
Looking at Joseph’s Coat from this angle makes it look like there is more to do on this row than it actually is for some reason.
From this angle it looks like there is less to do I think 
I think I better keep thinking of this angle.
Star Crazy – I will continue where I left off on this one, the yellow/blue star and continue on from there.
Yesterday I got a little planting done and for my reward I was given two big insect bites of some sort on my head! I hate those little bugs. I’m never sure what they are – but they like me, almost every spring for several weeks I really have to watch it. They are tiny little black bugs with wings – almost like miniature flies. When they bite me they leave a red mark and a swelling almost immediately. Itches like crazy for about an hour or so then the itching stops and the mark remains for several days as does the swelling. They always aim for my head or neck.
So I didn’t get as much done outside as I wanted to and I know they will keep me from spending too much time outside now for a couple weeks – oh well pollen is heavy any how and not enjoyable.
I planted two strawberry pots for the porch – I will let you know how they grow, these were just the little cuttings with roots, nothing to show for now.
And two little bushes called Josee Lilac’s. Something like a variety of the lilacs you see grow more in the north than the south but they are supposed to work here – we will see – lilacs don’t grow well here our winters are too mild but I do love them. A little hard to see the bush, they are little, I have two of them. I need to put a little mulch around the base of the plant and will get to that quickly today before the bugs get me.
Yesterday we got mom moved and now maybe I can get back to my own routine and run back and visit once a month like I normally do. We got done faster than I had thought we would, there were 8 of us moving her – big families come in handy don’t they and that was just a small portion of us. We got the old apartment packed up and the new apartment organized. Mom seems happy with her new place, now she just has to figure out where everything is! We all know how that goes when we move or clean out. – no quilting was done yesterday so here are photos of the yard that I took on Tuesday.
Clematis are leaving out – I need to pick off those old brown leaves now that I know where the new growth is going to be.
Blue Hydrangea is budding out as well – this is my old plant over 20 years old – the newer once that I planted about 4 years ago have not taken off very well as of yet – still tiny and other than the first year have not had flowers on them 
I only have a few crocuses and they are blooming as well – one day I need to plant more.
This garden is still kind of sparse – I need to get more plants in it this year seeing as we will be home all summer so I can water as needed.
A variety of Vinca -
Irises growing but it will be awhile before these bloom – they are a late variety and everyone else’s irises seem to bloom several weeks before mine.
A couple hyacinths beginning to form buds and ground cover that stays green year round, I don’t remember the name of it.
Tulips and another variety of Vinca and ground cover – the tulips most likely will have no flowers, these are old bulbs. We had a hot summer and a warmer than average winter – normally here in this part of Arkansas tulips are treated as annuals and you have to plant the bulbs in the late fall to get flowers – now occasionally you see them come back year after year and I have no idea how they do it – mine rarely ever flower after the first season.
Now that we have mom moved I can get back into a good routine and try to get this yard cleaned up of all these fall leaves!
Quilt group meets tonight – maybe I will have a show and tell later this evening or tomorrow morning!
Another scheduled post. To get some exercise the other day I went back to working on clearing out the brush on the far side of the upper right side of the front of the property.
I started this last month with the intention of working on it almost every day – then the weather intervened, got too wet, then got too chilly – and then life just plain got in the way. I did some work on it yesterday – made progress too. In Arkansas we get so many trees growing – just way too many – too many prickly vines too. I need to get some of those long leather gloves that people use for trimming their roses.
Here is one view – this is my brush pile that Mike will need to help me move to where he burns things – it is too close to the trees here.
Here you can see a tangle of things growing thickly. I get my hedge clippers out and start cutting trees off at the bottom level to the ground if I can. I want to be able to take my riding lawnmower in through here in the summer time to keep it level to the ground. There is a dead tree in there on the ground also – half rotten but needs to be moved too.
That green thing in there is some kind of woody vine. It is thick and I am having to cut it in numerous pieces so I can get it out of there, it is wrapped around the dead tree and prickly vines are caught up in and around it.
When I get a lot of the over growth cleared out I would like to get this “ditch” cleared out also. It has filled in so much with pine needles over the years that it is no longer as deep as it once was. Also trees have grown in it and have blocked the path of the run of water from storms and so it flows out into the yard.
Another photo to show how thick the undergrowth is in places – can’t get the lawn mower in through here! Lots of poison ivy – I wear long pants, long sleeve shirts and gloves – Mike is allergic to the stuff – I have never had a reaction – but really I don’t know if I have just been lucky or what. I will continue to take all of my precaution’s and watch where I touch and what I wear.
From the porch looking out towards the area the above photos are taken at. Behind the row of shrubbery and cedar tress – those will stay for privacy – I just want to be able to keep the brush out.
(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!
