What am I doing today?  Hopefully working on all three projects!!  Head on over to Judy at Patchwork Times and see what everyone else is working on too.

First off work must continue on Star Crazy – final border – lets see how much of this quilt gets done this week – the end is near and I want to get it finished!

Joseph’s Coat – the row is sewed on – let the work on the circles begin!

A little more work on the scraps was done yesterday – I intend to add to this pile during the week.

Did you all have a good mothers day?  We had a nice fairly lazy day at home.  I helped Mike with a few things outside and worked on my quilts a little bit.  In the evening we lite a fire in the fire pit outside and enjoyed a glass of wine while watching a couple hummingbirds come to the feeder.

Don’t you just love these tiny little birds – love those beaks – reminds me of a needle.

The sun going down – looking out through the trees.

If we don’t get rain pretty soon we won’t be able to use our fire pit – it is very dry – we – in my little spot of Arkansas that is have had very little rain since the beginning of April.  It seems to be missing us – we barely had enough the other day to get the porch wet, I have been having to water my plants already!  I hope a burn ban doesn’t come into affect soon.  We have dry patches of grass – the hollyhocks were so dry this morning – I had forgotten them – the stalks of buds were drooping – I watered them and they perked back up but I shouldn’t have to water plants so much at this time of May.  No rain in the forecast for this week – please tell me we are not heading towards a drought.

Well I didn’t get done with much of any sewing today – so far!  Such good plans I made this morning – and then the sun is out and I’m outside – I appliqued a flower and that was it!!  I will try to quilt a little this evening.

Two sides of the applique are now done – two more borders to go.  The sides need the work still.

And from the applique flowers I went to look at the real ones in my yard Clematis

Azaleas in full bloom including the bees!

And butterflies on the red azalea – I managed to see two of them.

And I turned back to the pink ones and saw a butterfly there too.

Last spring I found a trillium in the yard right up by the azaleas and I have been looking for it again this year – I hadn’t seen it until today so I thought maybe it had died – only one but it came back.  How do they multiple?

And even though it is early – my plan this year seeing as I do believe we will be home all summer is to have some tomato plants and maybe some peppers and cucumbers – but I am going to plant them in containers.  My soil is poor, several of the tines on the tiller broke a couple years ago when we tried to till up some soil for a small garden – too many rock!  I stopped at Lowe’s this morning to get some tick killer (kills other annoying pests also) and I picked up a 5 gallon bucket and had Mike drill some draining holes in the bottom of it – and I planted a nice size tomato plant!!  I know– a little early – but it is in a container – I can move it to the house if I have to   A little jump on spring.

I made an appointment to get my hair cut – I intended to do it tomorrow but she was available today so I did that and that cut in on some of my plans – then I stopped at Sonic on the way home and enjoyed a Cherry Limeade on the porch while I appliqued my flower – you can see relaxing was about all I had on my mind today –

There is always tomorrow – maybe I will get some work done then?  I don’t know – the swing might be calling to me after I get those tick pellets spread all over the yard!!

Did your Monday go as planned!

I machine sewed the binding onto the Farmer’s Wife this afternoon and I will work on the hand stitching tomorrow at our quilt group that meets once a month (there are several quilt groups that I sometimes join in once a month).

Instead of making the binding 3/8th of an inch wide I decided to make it a 1/2 inch instead.  That does make it look more like an additional border in a way.  I just have 3 binding clips folding it over right now to show –

This morning at the weekly quilt group I brought my box of triangles to hand piece (remember I quit doing it the English Paper Piecing method) – it is moving along slowly – I don’t know at this point how big this quilt will be.  I have not been able to maintain my interest in it for some reason.  I some how think this hand piecing project might end up being a machine piecing project instead or maybe I just need to work on it more than once a week to get motivated!!

Only problem with that is all these already started projects to continue making.  One day I need to get the Red and Green Applique out and get busy on that final border as well.  One day, one day, one day – too many things going on!!

I get side tracked too easily.  I have not worked on Joseph’s Coat in a week at least because I was busy finishing up Farmer’s Wife – which will be finished this weekend!!  Hallelujah a finish in another day!!

So currently in progress:

Pineapple Square Wall Hanging – applique left to do

Joseph’s Coat – a lot of piecing left to do

Star Crazy – a lot of quilting left to do!

Triangles – hand piecing – or will it go to machine piecing?

2 small quilts waiting in line to be quilted

2 large quilts waiting in line to be quilted

Red and Green Applique – border to be appliqued

Ideas for about 20 more in my head!!

Will I find the time?  Who knows – I will try to finish at least one more before I start a new quilt top!!  What is waiting in line for you to work on?

Progress!  I am almost finished with the quilting on Farmer’s Wife.  Three more quilting sections to do on the white areas and then on to the border.  The section in the hoop to be worked on today and then the two sections to the left where the pins are.  The border is small so I am thinking possible a straight line of stitching in the red near the seam line and then one or two rows of straight lines on the black.  I will decide then if I need any more stitching in the white areas as they all just have the big flower on it and that is it.  Normally I do more stitching but I am putting in so much on the Star Crazy quilt I thought I would stay very simple on this one.

Rain started late yesterday morning and continued on off and on all day and night – it is continuing this morning too but it supposed to start to slack off later this afternoon.  Thank goodness – more standing water in the yard and the yard will be soggy for a week or more at this rate.  The trees are getting green though with all the  warm weather and the rain.  I think we need to build another dam in this area of the yard though!  We need to guide all that water drainage over to the ditch too!

One day we will have this place just as we want it!

Thank you everyone for the comments for Regina, I know she appreciated it.

I don’t know about you but I think excessive packaging is such a waste!  I order a 2 quart replacement lid for a pot.  I had accidently dropped it about 10 days ago and the handle came off – it is a pot I use a lot so I ordered a replacement.

Keep in mind this is a 2 quart lid – I could have fit a king size batting in this box, which was a box within a box wrapped in bubble wrap – I’m glad the cover didn’t break but I think it was excessive!

Any how I just wanted to share

I was going to spend the day working on both quilting projects yesterday and make some progress – not!  I did hardly any sewing.  I hadn’t planned on taking down Christmas decorations yesterday but that is what we ended up doing.  We decided to reorganize our tv entertainment center which was made up of an old end table turned sideways and a big ottoman.  We had the tv on the wall and it didn’t swivel.

Off to Wal-Mart we went as we didn’t want anything really expensive – we just needed to organize it better!  We found what we wanted and then back home to put the Christmas things away (Me mainly – Mike carried the packed boxes to the work shop for storage)  so we could get it put together.  I say “WE” – I mean “Mike” put the unit together.   I watched now and then, and finally got a little quilting done while he was working on that.  Never finished yesterday but it will get done today.

So far this is what it looks like.  It is currently sitting almost in the middle of the living room.  All the items with wires still need to be put on the shelves.  And of course the wires need to be done up with some twisty things.   I need vacuum behind this space before we push the unit back up to the wall.  I want to fold some quilts and display them on the big ottoman which will be in the corner of the room and out of the way (we don’t use it).

It looks big in the center of the room, but actually it isn’t – just the photo I guess – it puts the tv up a little higher than we had it – I’m sure once it is moved to the spot it will be we will see that it actually takes up less room.  The old end table will go out to the work shop in storage.  I hope to have this space organized by the end of the day.

But first – I skipped exercising yesterday so I will go exercise this morning and a couple errands to run then back home and get busy.

I asked yesterday when do you take down your holiday decorations:  It sounds like a lot of people take their Christmas decorations down the day after Christmas, another bunch of you New Years Eve or day after New Years and some of you hang on to them for awhile into February!

Two projects going – I am going to try to work on both of them at some point today.  I finished the brown diagonal row last night for Joseph’s Coat.  I really need to press the whole back of the top that I have finished at this point.  It will be harder to do – the larger the top gets and I didn’t press after I attached the last row or two.  The brown row also needs to be pressed.  If I get to it I will start piecing to the body of the quilt.  I will take an updated photo when I get it attached.  Then it is on to the reds.  Head on over to Judy at Patchwork Times and see the other works in progress!

The Signature Quilt will have some stitches done today as well.  I would like to finish up this row of blocks I am working on.  It will be nice to give it one more crank down and work on the final border.  I got a lot done on this one the last two days.  I always get that way the closer I get to the final stitches – of course then I think if I would have just worked more steadily at it I would be done with it and on to another one!

Yesterday morning I was sitting at my computer checking mail and glanced out of the window as I often do only this time I spotted the moon still visible – pretty!  Photo taken through the window so not clear – I was just surprised to see the moon so clear as it was light out – about 7:30 AM I think.

Also noticed a squirrel – so many around here – only this one was climbing up the corner of the house!  Then it turned to look back down at the bird feeder – I really thought for awhile that he was going to take a flying leap and try to land on the feeder – but he turned back around and headed to the roof of the house – didn’t see him come back down – squirrels are all over the place here.  This photo was taken through the same window about an hour or so later in the day, I’m surprised it turned out so clear!

Oh well I am off to the dentist for a check up and cleaning and then to the fitness center for a work out – hope to get busy on the quilts this afternoon – but it might be evening at this rate – I need to start baking cookies as well!

A little more to do in the laundry room and all will be done.  It is amazing how much re-organizing needs to be done sometimes when you get something new.  My re-organizing overflowed into the kitchen as well.  Now I need to still bring some things out to the workshop for storage and then of course remember that the rarely if ever used items are out there for when I do need them!

The washing machine – so many selections – my old one had a little dial and that was about it. Yes it is already in use.  The dryer waiting patiently to be put to work.  This one has a lot of selections on it also compared to the old one.  (the new models are Whirlpool Cabrio) An overall view of this small functional room, the broom and duster need hooks up on the wall to attach them to so they are out of the way a little better.

The other side

This room is a little odd with the rock in the corners – it was at one time a tiny back porch/stoop area that was enclosed in and added to the house for a laundry room – we finished it off somewhat as what was there when we first moved in was really horrible – it looked like an old back stoop, dark outside paneling was on the walls and very poor light – it had a door closing it off to the kitchen, but there was no heat in it so we opened it up and put the wood paneling in there to match the rest of the house – and a better light.

I got more work done on the signature quilt last night and gave it another crank – getting nearer and nearer to finishing it!

All of the Christmas decorations are done!  Only thing left if we want to is to put up outside lights.  We do not do a dramatic display outside, just run lights along the front of the house.  It is a little chilly today though so might wait a day or two until it warms up a little.

The tree  – we got this skinny pre-lite tree last year – it doesn’t take up near the room and it went up pretty darn fast.

A set of religious nesting dolls that were made in Russia

Xmas in the dining area.

On the coffee table

Between the living room and the kitchen

Nativity on the fireplace (will be moved if we need a fire ) Grandpa John Marlow made this nativity stable back in 1953.

I don’t have a lot of anything up any more.  A little here and there.  Now I need to start thinking of Christmas baking.  I don’t do a lot of that any more.  I do have a new cake recipe I want to try that I found on the King Arthur Flour site.  It is called “Grammy A’s Mocha Cake”  – not your grandmothers fruit cake it says – which I hate candied fruit but I like fruit cake with dried fruit & nuts instead and this has a plus of chocolate.  I’ll let you all no what I think of it.

Done with my pumpkins!  Done with my apples – now I can get back to quilting and piecing.  I got 3 more quarts of pumpkin from the second one plus about one more cup that I will use in some pumpkin pancakes or bread this weekend.

Not a bad amount from 2 decorative pumpkins – they did double duty – decorated my porch for awhile and now enjoyed by us in bread, cupcakes, pies, just to name a few of the delicious items I will be baking this winter.  6 quarts in all.  I will be tired of pumpkin by summer!  So glad to be done with fall canning and freezing.  I don’t do this every year – just if I feel like it.

This is the old food mill I use – does anyone have a recommendation for a better one and one that is easier to use – wow did my arm get tired out cranking this one through two large pumpkins.  It is hard to hold it steady over a bowl.   I don’t mind spending a bit for one that will be easier to use than this – I just haven’t really searched for one.

Other than my battle with the pumpkin Mike was having his battle over replacing a ceiling fan in the dining area.  The fan didn’t work well and never circulated air well and then the other day the light quit working as well.  It was time to replace it.

The mess on the floor.

Half way done.

The new fan with 4 lights!  Much better light and I can tell that the fan will give off a lot more air next summer.