To-Do-Tuesday: August 18, 2020

It's To-Do-Tuesday and many of us bloggers like to list goals that we hope to accomplish during the next week.  This party is hosted by our friend Roseanne at Home Sewn By Us.  Be sure to visit her blog and the other bloggers that participate.

The weather broke and I spent more time working in the garden than sewing.  Last week I filled 5 garbage cans with weeds and I have another 3 full this week.  It had just been too hot to do any work in the garden and I'm grateful for the few days of tolerable temperatures.  

In a weird turn-about, I actually finished a goal from two weeks ago and finished Block 3 of my embroidered quilt.  I am now working on Block 4.

Last Week's Goal:

1-Get more and better sleep:  It's a battle but I am making an effort to get better rest, even if it means taking a nap.  Almost everyone I spoke to last week is having similar sleep problems.  It's the pandemic and a lot of stressful news.  Sleep is important if we are going to stay healthy and for me, it means sewing better so I don't have to undo what I've stitched.  How are your sleep patterns these days?

2-Prepare tops for the quilter:  Done!  

3-Complete scrap quilt blocks:  Half-Done!

Next week's goals:

1-Take tops to the quilter.

2-Complete more of the scrap quilt blocks.

3-Work on Block 4 of the embroidered quilt.

The goals are simple.  Life is busy these days so I get done what I get done.

Have a safe and happy day!

I like Thursdays: August 13, 2020

Good morning!  It's "I like Thursday" and time to post positive posts!  Please visit LeeAnna for more inspirational posts!

Yesterday morning I went out to pick up the newspaper in my bathrobe and saw about 6 hummingbirds flitting around our peegee hydrangea tree!  I couldn't get a photo of them.  I knew that once I went into the house I would have spooked them.  Sometimes it's just nice to sit tight and enjoy nature anyway!

Happy the dog came to visit Scout last week and that made her day.  The two dogs get along so well and Happy's name is truly fitting.  He's a happy and carefree dog and he never seems to want to leave our garden!

My niece Christina has taken up sewing and it is wonderful!  I'm sending her a box of fabric.  I picked up a bunch of different things for her when I cleaned the sewing room!

I love this combination of magenta butterfly bush flowers and russian sage.  It's not a great photo but I will say it pleases me whenever I see it!

I like 8 lbs. of Cayenne Pepper.  YES EIGHT POUNDS!  It was bad enough when the squirrels were eating our tomatoes but we have a groundhog that enters our garden (day and night) and does some real damage.  My brother (who lives down the street) has lost his entire crop of tomatoes and my neighbor next door isn't doing well either.  I'm entertaining my neighbors and friends with our war on groundhogs and I read that Cayenne repels groundhogs or squirrels.  So I ordered the peppper in bulk.  I've used up one 4 lb container so far but that is because I gave jars of it to my neighbors and family.  It's only if it rains or the pepper gets wet (tomatoes do require watering) that the groundhogs return.

I can't have a groundhog in my garden because I know Scout will go after it and I don't want her hurt.  She does a really good job of letting me know when we had intruders in the garden and yesterday showed me a new entrance the groundhog used (I peppered the old entrance).  

Good dog!

Have a safe and happy day!

To-Do-Tuesday: August 11, 2020

Well it's time for To-Do-Tuesday and post goals that we hope to achieve in the coming week.  Sponsored by our dear friend Roseanne, be sure to visit her and the other participants for inspiration!

It was a bust of a week for me.  I don't think I've wrapped my head around everything yet and joke that I have pandemic brain.  Did you ever have one of those weeks?  First there was the Isaias and the flooding and the wet basement.  The heat was and is awful and was best summarized by our local weather report:

And then of course, my husband got sent out again to another Covid spiking state.  It's been a lot of stress.

I had three goals last week and achieved only one:

1.  Clean the sewing room!  Done!!!

2. Finish the blocks for the scrap  quilt:  Not done and what was done has to be ripped out as I sewed the wrong side of the block, nice eh?  It was a ripping kind of week.  I worked on block 3 of my embroidered quilt and had to rip stitches out of that one too.

3.  Prepare some tops for the machine quilter, also not done.  So next week's goals are:

1- Get more and better sleep, it may help my sewing!

2- Prepare tops for the quilter

3-Complete the scrap quilt blocks.

It seems like most of the country is just wilting with heat waves right now.  Stay cool and safe and have a great week!

I Like Thursday: August 6, 2020

Well it's Thursday and today me and my blogging buddies fill our corner of the internet with positive posts!  Our hostess is LeeAnna, be sure to check out other blogs for inspiration!

I'm grateful that my friends and family made it through Isaias safely.  We had a lot of flooding and most of our surrounding roads had to be closed off.  The flooding was worse than Superstorm Sandy and although we had high winds for a while the winds didn't do as much damage as Sandy had.  Water rescues had to be done in our neighborhood and down the hill where my brother lived, he saw parked cars getting swept up in the flood. It will be a while until many of our roads are open.  

The lake is usually a few feet behind the trees in the foreground.

We only lost power, had flooding in the basement, and I still can't face cleaning up the garden.  But it could have been so much worse.

Caught in the act!

  We now have a groundhog coming into the garden to eat our tomatoes.  He did a lot of damage to my flowers and tomatoes.  These photos of our wildlife are entertaining us and our neighbors; the neighbors think my ongoing war with the groundhog is hilarious.  This week I scattered garlic cloves around the tomatoes.   Apparently garlic is supposed to repel groundhogs as well as vampires.  Judging by last night's visitor, I would say that garlic doesn't repel Pepe La Pew:

I like a clean sewing room.

Until the flooding of the basement began and we lost power, I spent time cleaning up the sewing room.  I finished yesterday morning.  

 

I don't have much else to report this week.  I'm just grateful that we have had another safe and healthy week.

Have a safe and happy day!

To-Do-Tuesday: August 4, 2020

Good morning!  I hope you are all safe if you are along the East Coast and dealing with Hurricane Isaias!  Today is "To-Do-Tuesday" and time to post goals for the next week!  It is hosted by Roseanne and be sure to visit her blog for more inspiration!

I did so-so with my goals for last week, mostly because I got side tracked.

1-Finish block 3 of the embroidered quilt:  Not done.  I've had to change the drawing a few times and that has held me up.

2-Finish the beach quilt top:  Done!    

3-Finish Lavender Sachets:  Not done.  This is an outdoor project and it was just too humid this past week.  I got some of the flowers off the stem yesterday when it was cooler but it's not as far as I would have liked.

And that brings me to next week's goals:

I got sidetracked because as I worked on the beach quilt, I saved all the scraps 2.5 inches or bigger.  

So instead of finishing the rest of my goals, I just started making 4 patches. 

I call making a scrap quilt immediately after a finished project, "good to the last drop quilts".  I just can't embrace cleaning up the scraps and finding a place for those pieces.  I wasn't sure what to do with these but then I remembered a similar piece made by Sarah at "Confessions of a Fabric Addict" after she finished a Christmas quilt (see here).  So I'm going with that layout, partly because I can use up more fat quarters for the frames.

Next week's goals:

1- Clean up the sewing room.  It's time.  I finished about 5 tops this past month and it's needed.  I can't function well in a disorderly workspace.  Hopefully I will finish that today or tomorrow.

2-Finish the four patch blocks (above).

3-Prepare some more tops for the quilter.

Have a safe and happy day!

Quilt Fever

I was reading the news feed on my tablet yesterday when this story appeared.  It's about a new documentary about quilting (actually about Paducah) and it's hilarious to see how others perceive quilters.    Here's the link.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/slow-down-and-bask-in-quilt-fever-and-the-charmingly-weird-academy-awards-of-quilting

But of course I was curious and wanted to see the film.  It was free on PBS so here it is.  The film is called Quilt Fever and I have to admit, I got choked up watching it.   It also won some awards! Anyway, enjoy it!  It's only 16 minutes long.

Here's the link.

https://www.pbs.org/filmfestival/films/quilt-fever

Enjoy and have a safe and happy day!

I Like Thursdays: July 30, 2020

Good morning and how are you today!  It's Thursday and that means "I like Thursdays" and time to fill the internet with positive energy.  Visit our hostess LeeAnna for more positive posts!

"Operation Peppermint" appears to be working and my husband is home in time to eat our fresh tomatoes!  I did bolster our 'mater defense as well.   I sacrifice one and put it on the wall near the trees where the squirrels live.  They did eat an entire tomato in two days and now I gave them another fresh one.  As my husband said, "we sacrifice a few for the many."  I'm also picking them before they turn red.

The butterflies have returned!  I also have Luna and Monarch butterflies but for whatever reason, I can't download the photos right now.  

We also have a teeny weeny baby bunny in our garden.  I saw him in the front yard but he has made his way to the backyard now.  He looks bigger on this photo than he is (or maybe this is Mama bunny). I hope the wee thing makes it without the ferrel cats or foxes getting it.  I've been spotting it in the yard for about a week--and Miss Scout only realized yesterday  there was a bunny around.  We won't let her chase it and Scout is being a good girl.

I like this meme:

I hope so.

I like Piecework magazine.  

I subscribed to it when the pandemic broke out and received my first issue this month.  It has lovely stories about all kinds of sewing/hand crafts and I read it from cover to cover!

On TV, I like the new HGTV show, "Build Me Up!"  It's an uplifting show and the designer Orlando Soria is sweet and amusing.  Tomorrow we finally get a gardening show on HGTV!  Yippee!

Well I am going to NOT water the garden today and work in the sewing room.  Have yourself a safe and happy day!

To-Do-Tuesday: July 28, 2020

Good morning!  To-Do-Tuesday is sponsored by Roseanne at Home Sewn By Us and a chance to post weekly goals!  Join our friends and Roseanne here for more inspiration!

I'm still doing a lot of watering and gardening so I've been keeping my goals minimal but achievable.  Last week's goals were:

1-Finish assembling the blocks for a picnic or beach quilt:  Done!

I managed to make all the blocks last week (80 total).  It's now been determined this is a beach quilt, mostly because I was inspired by this block in the charm pack:

2- Finish Block 2 of the embroidered blocks:  Done!  

For next week I have three goals:

1- Finish Block 3 of the embroidered blocks

2-Assemble the Beach Quilt blocks into rows and hopefully into a top.

3-Make sachets:  I harvested lavender from my garden and dried it for sachets.  

Hope you have a safe and productive week too!

Stay well and have a great day!

I Like Thursday: July 23, 2020

Good Morning!  It's "I Like Thursday" and a day to fill the internet with positive energy and thoughts!  Visit our hostess LeeAnna for more positive posts from bloggers!

Scout says hi!  

I love this girl and she is my constant companion!

We are getting rain today!  It was a dry week but still we harvested the first peppers of the season!

And then there are the squirrels...they've been harvesting our tomatoes as soon as they start turning color:

And even when they are green:

"Operation Peppermint" has now commenced.  I read that squirrels don't like the smell of peppermint and to put cottonballs doused with peppermint oil around your tomatoes:

So far so good. We'll see how long this repellant lasts.

At least the squirrels aren't eating my flowers!

Sometimes when I am watering, I just catch a glimpse of something that makes me happy.  It can be sunlight and shadows on the plants or a combination of colors.  It is not sensational or dramatic but for those few moments, I am at peace.  I like that.

One of those things can be visitors to the garden.  On Sunday, we spied the first butterfly of the season!  I was getting anxious that we hadn't seen any yet so far this summer but after we saw the first one, it was like the floodgate opened and more appeared!  No photos of them yet though.

My niece Christina got a sewing machine and has taught herself to sew!  She's been talking to me about her projects and sent me some nice photos.  Isn't she doing a good job?!!!  Pillows, pet beds and toys and masks!  I'm really proud of her!

Of course this means I have to mail her fabric!!!

Hope you are having some moments of peace during this crazy time in our country.

Stay safe and have a good day!