To-Do-Tuesday: June 30, 2020

Good morning!  I can scarcely believe it is the last day of June!

Today is To-Do-Tuesday and we post goals of things we hope to accomplish in the coming week.  Please visit our hostess-with- the-mostess, Roseanne at Home Sewn By Us for more inspiring posts!

A given during these months is spending a lot of time in the garden.  This morning I will weed again and do more deadheading.  It's warm and humid and my time in the garden and the attic (sewing room) is limited due to the heat.  Fortunately I have other projects downstairs I can work on.

Last week's goal was to make four patches for Nora and Ariana's I-Spy quilts: Done!

But then I found an old scrap project--2.5 inch scraps from novelty fabrics:

So I decided to piece those together too.  All 140 blocks because I am a lunatic 😁

This week I hope to finish sashing Nora and Ariana's tops and that has already begun!

Every time I think I have used up most of the novelty fabric, I find more projects! It's not unlike "the trouble with tribbles" or a circus car with a multitude of clowns coming out of the vehicle.   I somehow managed to pack a lot of kid's projects in two small drawers and I'm hesitant to even look at the bulk of what is left in the magic drawers.

The other project I have is binding the Plus quilt.  Good downstairs project to work on.

Have a safe and happy day and a wonderful Fourth of July!

I Like Thursdays: June 25, 2020

Good morning!  Today is "I like Thursday" and time to fill the internet with positive posts.  For more inspiration, visit LeeAnna and all our blogging friends here!

I like that I'm healing although still unable to walk Scout.  My husband is doing a good job keeping her exercised!  

We desperately need a good rain but we are managing to keep the garden going.  The peppers are beginning to flower!

And the plum tomatoes are setting fruit!

I like that I finished Owen's quilt top.  Owen is my great nephew (wow, I am getting old!).  I love some of the prints on this quilt.  The teddy bear fabric came from my friend Kim who periodically donates leftover novelty fabric to me.

I think that some of this fabric came from the free table our guild set up when we were meeting in person!  Love this dog fabric! 

My friend and neighbor Nancy recently hung a wreath on her porch that she made years ago.  It's made from bandanas!

In the garden, good things are always happening.  I'm grateful for soaker hoses to keep the garden hydrated.

 

Last year, we had a real problem with hydrangeas blooming.  Happily the warm winter has meant there is a bevy of blooms happening!  These blue hydrangeas all derived from one cutting that my Nana Betty (Mom's mom) gave me.  She had gotten a cutting from my Nana Elsie (Dad's mom) and they are my lovely Nana flowers!  I have bushes of them all through the garden now.

I hope you are staying cool and healthy!  I'm off to the sewing room to do some more piecing.  Have a wonderful day!

To-Do-Tuesday: June 23, 2020

It's To-Do-Tuesday!  Today we share our list of things we hope to accomplish and share them at Roseanne's linky party!  Join here for more inspiration here.

Despite a sprained ankle, wrist, and assorted bumps and bruises, I managed to get done cutting my 4 inch novelty patches!  It was made easier by tutorial I saw online--apologies because I can't remember the quilter's name but she had a great idea for cutting fabric:

Yup, a hand weight!  I placed it on the ruler and could cut fabric without putting pressure on my left wrist!  Not only could I cut the patches, I could sew the four patches together and managed to put together Owen's top:

Mom suggested using this fabric for the sashing.  Her perspective was that it would show less dirt.

For this week, I'm hoping to get four patches assembled for two more I-spy quilts!  They will both be sashed in pink.  I'm keeping my to-do-list short as I also have a massive watering campaign going on in the garden and I'm still a bit gimpy.

Hope you have a wonderful day!

I Like Thursday: June 18, 2020

Good morning!   Today is "I like Thursday" and for more positive energy and blog posts, visit LeeAnna! 

I like my husband.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, I sprained my ankle and wrist and he's been covering the dog walking.  Speaking of injuries, this is the first morning since I fell that I didn't have to take advil first thing in the morning so the healing process is beginning!

It's been an amazing season for roses.  Before I fell, I was really enjoying walks in the neighborhood.  The air smelled of roses and peonies and it was such a wonderful fragrance!

I like pretty sunsets.  Here is last night's show:

I like some of the new shows on HGTV particularly "House Hunters:  Comedians on Couches" which is hilarious!

I like rainy days and hopefully we will get some rain during the next few days.

I don't have much else to report because I've been resting.  Have a great day and stay safe!

Virtual Lehigh Valley Quilt Study Group

 Good morning how are you?  For those of you who aren't aware of my passion for antique and vintage quilts let me explain what a quilt study meeting entails.  Members meet and bring along their old quilt treasures so that the group can learn and study the pieces.  It's a wonderful way to study textile history and our group, about 15 years old now, meets every other month for "show and tell" meetings.  Alternative months there is a group that studies books about quilt history which folks read and discuss.

Because of the pandemic, we aren't meeting right now so I thought I would post some photos of some of my quilts and encourage members to email me a photo of their quilts as well.  I hope you all enjoy!

The above quilt I found locally.  It is a signature quilt and the pattern is favored among Pennsylvania quilters.  This particular quilt is in tough shape; it appears to be from prior to the Civil War.  I am guessing this not only because of the fabrics on the piece but because I researched many of the names and some of the folks passed away before 1860.  The county that it was from was in the coal regions, mainly Northumberland and Franklin Counties.  The block is referred to as an "album block".

This is an unusual sunbonnet quilt top.  I've seen about a half dozen of these through the years but never found a published pattern.  I SWEAR I saw a similar figure on a feed sack quilt but do you think I could find that photograph now?  I did however, find images of feedsacks from the "Sunbonnet Sue Company" like this one--the sack is right under the man's face:

This turn of the century quilt top has some wonderful embroidery!

And it is dated: 1908.

A vintage summer spread (no batting) that is tied.  This is what we refer to as a "quilt kit"; customers bought pre-stamped blocks, embroidered the blocks and made them into a quilt .  The kits were published in 1937 and described the puppy's day.

I found this interesting post (here) from a guild who had a member share some vintage baby quilts that you may like to study.  

Enjoy!

To-Do-Tuesday: June 16, 2020

 It's To-Do Tuesday and many of us like to join with Roseanne in writing our sewing goals for the week!

I'm happy to report that my envelope I-spy quilt top is finished!  I'm just finishing tops for now and I'll worry about having them completed later when our life is a bit more normal.

My next big project was cutting novelty fabrics into 4 inch squares for donation quilts.  I've gotten pretty far:

I'm going to make some tops for friends' grandkids and the rest will be donation quilts.  I like to make four patches out of the squares and then sash them.  My buddy Beth has two grandkids already and I'm going to share the squares with her so she has a good stash of I-spy patches as well.  

This week for my to-do list, I'm only going to try to organize the blocks I have already cut.  I took a fall yesterday while walking the dog and have a sprained ankle, wrist, and various other bruises.  It's a bummer because the weather is great but I'm grateful the ankle isn't broken.  It's a big job just organizing the patches so I'll be glad to get done with that.

I hope you are having a great week and check out the projects at Roseanne's blog!  Stay safe!

I Like Thursdays: June 11, 2020

Good morning!  Today is "I like Thursday" and a chance to share any positive energy on the internet.  Check out more posts at LeeAnna's!

I'm grateful it's raining (or supposed to rain again) this morning.  I'm physically achy from intensive gardening.  Here at the ol' Poodle Cottage, I've been on a new mission which we refer to as Hosta Manana.  The hostas have taken over the back gardens, even worse they burn terribly in the summer sun since we removed our willow tree last year.  So I put about a dozen in the shadier part of our front yard.  Then I gave a bunch of hostas and shade lovers to my neighbor who built a shade garden in her yard:

I gave a bunch to my Mom and planted them in her deck box:

Then my brother said, "Don't throw them out!  We'll use them at our place or another place at Mom's!"  Not sure he expected this many:

Another neighbor said she sure could use some so I gave her two buckets and some really large green ones.  AND WE STILL ARE OVERRUN WITH THEM!  But having more negative space in the garden is sure gratifying!  I like it!

I like Ladybugs...I mean who doesn't?

  

We had a high heat and humidity the last two days and I actually got some sewing in and finished my envelope quilt top.  I was going to put a border on this one but my husband said it was already busy enough and he was absolutely right.  It's an I-spy sort of quilt with different novelty fabrics inside the envelopes.  

We like Otis.  He is a Weimaraner 1 year old that lives next door to my mom.  Since he was a baby, we've given him snacks at the rod iron fence that separate the properties.  Now he cries for snacks when he sees us outside.  He also cries to play with Scout but she doesn't want any part of him.  She played with him until he got too big and boisterous for her taste.  

My brother (the one we call Uncle Bacony) decided to plant some of the already referenced hostas along the property line.  Otis laid with him as he worked along the fence.  Then Otis tried to help him and literally was biting and pulling weeds along the fence line too.  Then Otis' family called him to come in the house.  About an hour later, Lisa (Otis' Mom) came out and asked my brother if he could see through the one window in her house.  My brother couldn't.  Otis loves Uncle Bacony so much that he had climbed up on the dining room table to watch my brother through the window.  Now that's love!

Have a safe and happy day!

To-Do-List: June 9, 2020

I can actually participate in Roseanne's "To-Do-Tuesdays" this week!   I suspect I will be doing afternoon postings throughout much of the summer.  Mornings belong in the garden when the weather is cooler and that's where I've been the last few days.  

On hotter days, I water different sections of the garden in the morning. When I am done in the garden, I can only be in the (attic) sewing room until 1 or 2 p.m. because it gets oppressive.

 Anyway all this to tell you I didn't sew last week.

I'm only giving myself one project for the week and that is to finish work on my envelope quilt top.  I had made most of the blocks a few years ago and found the pattern in the book, Patchwork Please! by Ayumi Takahashi.  I really like this book and have another project that I want to return to in a few weeks.

So join Roseanne here!  Have a great day!

Recipe share

We all seem to be looking for new recipes these days.  Like most of you, I'm tired of cooking and washing dishes.  This week I found a recipe at allrecipes.com that we liked.  It's called Chardonnay Chicken Symphony and I had everything in my pantry except the mushrooms.  Brad really enjoyed this one but I would suggest you increase the sauce (I doubled mine because Brad likes sauce on his starch and added a wee bit of corn starch) and we served it with rice.

Also and not least of all, it was easy and fast to prepare!  I didn't take a photo of ours but here is the link if you wish to check it out.

Bon Apetit!

I Like Thursday: June 4, 2020

Good Morning!  How are you doing?  We are all fine! Today is "I Like Thursday" and time to post some positive blessings on the internet.

I like my Mom's azalea (above).  It is unusual and almost looks like fake flowers.  I think I actually liked this last year too!

I finished another quilt top.  This one is probably going to be a donation quilt.  I ended up going to a straight block in a block pattern only because it meant my fabric would go farther.

I call it, "Miss Scout goes to Paris!"

Miss Scout went to Paris to visit one day--

She barked at French dogs and drank Café Au Lait!

My suffrage garden in the front yard is just about done.  It has signs about suffrage and lots of yellow and purple and white flowers.  Many of the flowers are just about to bloom, we finally got some warm weather!

And I like the statue my husband bought me two years ago, just for this garden:

I saw a lady at the park who was walking her cat and giving her the complete cat adventure experience.  She fascinated Scout and me!

That's it for this week!  Scout and I need to go for a walk.

Check in with LeeAnna for more positive posts!

Have a safe and happy day!