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.

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.

Yes we are getting a little bit of snow here on the north-western edge of central Arkansas, not unheard of at this time of year and doubtful we will get much but it is pretty to look at.  We turned on the outside lights to look at it a little bit.  Night time here so not a great photo, I will take a better one in the morning if we get much over night.

I spent the last several hours hand piecing Joseph’s Coat.  A ways more to go on this diagonal row but progress.

I also spent a little bit of time today hand quilting the table runner.  The checkerboard area is finished and I have one end of the flowers outlined stitched.

The checkerboard

I didn’t get any baking started today.  I thought about making the Christmas cake but didn’t get around to it.  I think I’m afraid if I start baking so early in December I will be eating too much and then baking more – I might need to wait until closer to Christmas!

What is your favorite holiday recipe? Cookies, cake, candy or a main dish you have to make at Christmas time?  If you have a link post it with your comment, I would love see how it is made.

In between the rain yesterday I got my camera out to take some photos of our fall trees and also my re-arranged pumpkin/flowers.  We had a cold chilly rain all day – made it much more like fall weather I guess.  The leaves fell naturally around my flowers – no work there – until it is time to clean them up that is.

My small dogwood

My big tree in the front yard is starting to turn yellow already in the week since we got home – the one next to it always turns red and is not uncommon for that one to be completely bare by the beginning of November.  The yellow on the other hand at times is still holding onto it’s leaves the first week of December – I don’t know – I think this year it will loose them by Thanksgiving.

Another angle of the dogwood – the orange color tree is a persimmon.

The back of the child’s quilt that I started quilting this week.

And the front of it.  A lot left to work on but a good start.  I will be working more on this one this morning at the quilt group.

Although yesterday was a high of about 64 at midnight by the middle of the day it was staying steady at 48 degrees and a cold rain all day.  We did need it as the summer and early fall has been very dry.  Today though the sun is supposed to be out and nice – I might need to take a walk before I head home from quilt group.

What a wonderful day we are having.  It is in the mid 80’s and it is 2 in the afternoon.  A nice breeze on the porch is keeping me from bringing my sewing outside.  But I have my kindle and a glass of Iced Raspberry Green Tea.  What more do I need?  Well I realized I hadn’t done a blog post today so I thought I would do a short one.  I brought my laptop out to the porch to keep on enjoying the day and took a few photos and had Mike take one of me doing what I am doing out here on the porch most of the day – reading.  I have done a few chores like cut the grass while Mike was taking care of some brush.  I picked up some fallen branches from some of the storms we had last week – small ones that had been dead mainly = just hadn’t fallen out of the trees yet.

Me enjoying my porch and the deep shade that I have on it.

Mike enjoying some down time with his kindle as well.  Looks like I need to clean up that storage box that holds the chair cushions when they are not in use.  I tend to stick cleaning products and bug products on there and forget to put them away.

The deep shade of the front yard – the trees are still green despite the drought we had this summer and the hot temperatures – we didn’t loose any grass for the lawn – we just have very little of it!

The shade plants survived mainly I suppose because I watered them every couple of days through the heat wave.  I don’t know what they would look like otherwise.  My ferns can barely be seen in this photo though.  They started out really well this spring but then by the heat wave and lack of rain they started to die back.  I ended up cutting them back last month and hoped they would come back on their own and they are now.  Mainly what is around the tree and running alongside of the railroad tie bed is “monkey grass” I don’t know what the actual name is but that is what we call it.  It gets purple spikes of flowers on it at this time of year and then it turns to purple berries in the fall.

And now I am going to get back to reading and maybe later today if the breeze dies down I will get some work on Joseph’s Coat done – otherwise it will wait until evening.

Hope you all are having a good lazy Sunday.

I had one Farmer’s Wife block that I had started yesterday and hadn’t finished at group so I went ahead and finished that one before working on any other quilting yesterday – this is number 18, I thought it was 20 but I checked and I didn’t have that many done.  Kind of an odd arrangement of the colors – but it goes with how the photo in the book was.

I have all the rows sewed together for the Joseph’s Coat to the point I am now and I added another section diagonally of the next shade of Orange – those are just stuck up there ready to sew.  I now see though that before I get any more of the shades of orange prepped for the printer I need to spread the fabric over the table next to the design wall and see which will go next as I think I got them out of order after what is already up on the wall.

Getting the colors in order will be a weekend job I think.  I doubt I will get to it today. We decided to go see the Planet of  Apes movie that is out.  We will do that this afternoon and maybe go shopping again.  I can see if I can find a new set of dishes seeing as I have already looked here and didn’t have anything pop out at me.  Conway has more shops so many more choices to see.  Dishes are not actually a high priority as I do have some so I can take my time until I find something I really like – which might be today or next year who knows.

We had another rainy, thunder, lighten night but we didn’t loose our power so that was good.  We are getting caught up on our rain and it I soaking in the ground good.  They took us off of the burn ban area and moved us from high fire warning area to medium I believe.  The grass is growing and will need to be cut – but it is too wet to do it today – maybe tomorrow?

Have a good weekend everyone!

Our drought and heat wave have broke the last several days.  For the 3rd morning in a row we have waken up to rain and cloudy cool skies.  It is so nice waking up to find it is 68 degrees outside instead of 82.  I think we have gotten a total of close to 3 inches of rain over the last 3 2 and a half days.  Slowly it is soaking into the dry earth and the grass is turning green again and growing of course – the lawn mower will need to come back out this weekend making it maybe only the 4th time or so to cut grass this entire spring/summer!! A record of low cutting for sure.

But with the rain and cooler weather I have not been sitting on the porch too much the last couple of days because of the rain.  I have been getting some sewing done.

First the bed ruffle with the new quilt-slightly out of focus, sorry about that.  I do not have a large room and trying to back up to get the photo – well not my best.

I have been quilting on my nieces quilt – just simple, nothing fancy – this is not a fancy quilt so simple stitch goes with it fine.

More pieces ready for Joseph’s Coat after I get caught up with the sewing today of the pieces already on the design wall.

I got the bottom two rows sewed together yesterday and some of the next color that I had put on the wall  yesterday.  Today I will continue to work on what is on the wall and get those rows sewed together as well and then lay out the color waiting – it is close to the same color but a little darker.

After all the dry weather we have had this summer this wet deck looks just fine to me – we sure do need it and so far we have been getting light slow rain so it is soaking into the ground and not running off.

I have four blocks for the Farmer’s Wife quilt that I have selected fabric for and I want to get those blocks prepped and ready to sew.  I will bring the blocks with me to sewing tomorrow so I can work on it.  I tried taking some of Joseph’s Coat with me last week to work on – but that didn’t work out – I really need to keep it on the design wall and only take a little off the wall at a time to work on or it gets kind of unorganized quickly!!

Hope you all have a good day.

Here it is another hot day in central Arkansas.  Here it is 1:34 in the afternoon and it is already 100.4!!!  It actually started out at 82 and it is to be in the 100’s all week – better get used to it huh.  Well I guess I am used to staying in the house with the blinds pulled on the sunny sides of the house.

I quilted on Going In Circles for awhile this morning.  And I finished one of the Rizzoli & Isles books that I had loaded on my Kindle – this one was called “ The Surgeon” it is the first book of the series – (I had actually read the newest in the series last week) I thought I better start from the beginning and so I have 3 of the oldest loaded.  In this first one The Surgeon – Isles is not in it – I guess she starts in the second book. I will soon find out, I will be moving to the couch and reading in a little bit.

This much left to do.

Then I thought it was time to take a break from quilting and from reading and thought I would get my nieces wedding signature quilt loaded on the 3 roller.  I’m happy to say it went on the frame easily – it helps that it is about a twin size – no where near as large as Going in Circles was on the frame.  This one should be done by the end of the year – I hope I haven’t named this quilt yet – Maybe something like “Love in the Fall” “Fall in Love”  maybe something along those lines.

Another angle, you can see from this photo just how much smaller it is than Going In Circles was on the frame.

The thread I am going to use is one that I used on another quilt earlier this year – King Tut #921, a very colorful thread and I have almost 2 full spools of it still –plenty to use on this one and will still have left over thread for another quilt down the road.  I think the photo on the link shows way more blue than is actually in it.  The colors are all very evenly spaced out and you have orange, blue, green, red, purple, yellow – just about all the primary colors I think.

Oh well, time to go read!

Another hot, hot day – heat warnings in effect.  At 12 noon it was already 95 degrees.  I do believe out here on the ridge and in the shade we might get up to 100 for the second time this summer – we have been “lucky” and mainly stay around 95 not much difference once it gets to 95 in my opinion.

I was outside for a couple hours this morning – around 8:30 and I was reading a new book that I had put on my Kindle the other day.  This has been a reading summer for me.  With the heat being so bad there is not much gardening to be done so I have been reading and sewing with a few bouts of housework in between.

The author I am stuck on right now is Tess Gerritsen.  She is the author of “Rizzoli & Isles” which has been made into a tv series on TNT with it just having started two weeks ago I think – unless this is new to me but not new at all?  I like the books (series), I have watched the show two times now and it is ok but not as good as the books – the usual way it seems to be.

I have gotten more quilting done on “Going in Circles” – almost to the half way point on the final border – sorry, that one isn’t real clear is it.

This is how much is left to do, I will keep working on it all week.  I still hope to be done at the end of the week.

I have been hand piecing Joseph’s Coat as well – it is coming along nicely – slow but nice   What I have up there for the bottom row is finished – more to come of course but for what is up there is what I am talking about -

I have a partial round in the living room ready to work on for the second row

I think I had mentioned right after I got the background fabric that I was going to need more of it as I hadn’t ordered enough, I got on line right away and ordered more but they only had a couple yards left and sent me what they had and after several phone calls to them – them letting me know what they had and didn’t have I decided to order another shade from them of the same thing.  I figure with this being a rainbow quilt a rainbow background would go with the design.  But when I got the fabric it was darker than I wanted a lot darker!!  I knew they had nothing else and I had already done some searches so knew I was stuck with what I had and to work with it.  I decided to bleach the new background to get it closer to what I already had – I wish I would have had a before and after photo but I didn’t think of it at the time.

I don’t think you can really see in this photo but the piece on the right is my original piece  – a little shade of light green — the one on the left is bleached and now has a hint of blue in it – it is lighter now that what I had wanted.  I think I might try a green tea dye to see if I can get it a little closer to what I want.  It doesn’t have to be exact and I’m sure I won’t be able to get it exactly – but I just want it a little closer.  I’ll let you all know what I end up with!!  About half of the quilt going on the diagonal – corner to corner will be the first shade that I got and the second half of the quilt will have the newer shade – I think it will work out well even if I can’t get the green tea dye to do it much darker.

Hot summer days bring the Hummingbirds out to the feeders – it took them awhile to come back but several weeks ago we finally had them back.

I will get back to the Farmer’s Wife and the border for the Red & Green Applique quilt one day – but just not right now

And the title of this post tells it all.  That is what I did yesterday -

Cutting – I got my layer cut into 2 1/2 by 10 inch strips.  This is for the project I will take along when we travel this fall.  I need to cut out the half square triangles for it still.  Maybe later today.  I do not think this project took more than 15 minutes – cutting layer cakes and other precuts are so easy!

Quilting – on Going In Circles – making progress, I got done with the corner and on to the wavy edges – I have had some ask do I have any quilting tips and how do I quilt things so fast.  Well I normally only quilt fast on small quilts as we all know by now I have been quilting on this queen size since last October at least.  As you can see I took it off the frame and pin basted this border, I used a hoop in the corners but have found it easier to disregard the hoop for now.  I hold the fabric to keep it smooth in my left hand while I stitch with the right hand.  I use a running stitch which is what most people use for hand quilting.  If you use a hoop don’t keep it stretched tight, do that at first to make sure all the wrinkles are out the back but then loosen it up – your needle goes though faster and easier if it is loosen – my opinion.

Hand Piecing on Joseph’s Coat.   A little progress, I want to get all of these pieces on the wall pieced before I go to the next colors.  The pieces pieced are the ones that have the background color in them.

Other than doing laundry and exercise these are the projects that I will continue to work on today.  The weather just isn’t pleasant this summer and I have done very little outside work, the weather remains the same – the mid to high 90’s with it reaching in the 100’s in town.  I enjoy an hour or so on the porch in the morning and very late evening reading – other than that it is too hot for me to enjoy the summer this year.