Double Finish

I think my buffet is probably the best dressed piece of furniture in our home!  Anyway, the parade of runners that I have made over the past year for it is over...at least for awhile.  These are the last two that are in the plans as I now have a nice collection of 6 long runners that fit this baby!  The first one up is a runner of hexagons.  These are nice and large, and went together quickly after I learned that I can actually glue baste them to my paper templates.  Yay!  :)

I machine quilted in blue thread every third hexagon to keep it held together, but not too many to make it any busier than it already is.   I didn't follow a pattern for this one, just sewed them together to make a long runner.

The next one I actually stitched together in February at our quilt guild retreat.  I am not sure where I saw the original wreath-like block, but I had a sketch of it in my notebook and 5 of them in a row made a nice sized runner.  I hand quilted around the exterior and interior parts of the wreath and then wrapped up the binding in April.  It is going to be so nice to pull this one out after Thanksgiving and have it done and ready to display!

Thanks for stopping by!

If you have been following along with our adoption, the paperwork is done!  The home study is completed and our profile has been approved and we are getting it all printed off and ready for the book.  We are in fundraising mode (and hoping that it comes to an end quickly!)

The Thirty-One Party has been extended through the 30th of May, so if you want to buy yourself a cute bag and support our adoption, please click right here!  Thank you!   :)

Linking up!

How I get things done

I always get comments about how productive I am and do I ever sleep.  Well folks, this is why I get done what I get done:

My mighty helper.  :)  (Sorry about the blurriness...it was nap time) Timothy is usually down for a two hour nap that I capitalize on every day to get sewing projects done, laundry done, and cleaning done.   I don't attempt to sew or cut while he is awake...it just doesn't happen.  He also goes to bed at 7 pm and I am married to a pastor, which means that a couple of days a week, he is working, either on his laptop or out visiting.  I have learned to get quite a lot done.  Look what I did today:

A new pillow for the guest bed with the leftover scraps!  :)  Here is the tutorial that I followed (in case you want to make one too).

Giant Star

Giant Vintage Star Quilt

68" x 68"

Pattern and Inspiration from Jeni Baker

This quilt has been a couple of summers in the making as I have been searching garage sales and rummage centers for vintage sheets.  I bought 2 yards of tan for the outside and used half of a yard for the binding.  I quilted it on my friend Sonya's long arm...she was kind enough to show me how it works and help me along the way.  I am totally investing in a long arm machine in the future!  (Think long term, years down the road investing)  :)  

Sorry about the pictures, but it is South Dakota, so naturally the wind is blowing and it is the best I can do.  I was seriously thinking about lying on the ground and taking a picture of the quilt flapping above me because it was horizontal most of the time it was attached to the clothesline.  

This quilt came together really quickly, thanks to the big pieces, but was a pain to quilt initially.  I spray basted it (aka use temporary fabric adhesive) instead of using pins and it was fine until I was 80% through the quilting (about 4 hours of work), turned it over and realized there were major issues on the back.  I spent another 4 hours ripping all of the quilting out and that is when Sonya invited me over to use her machine.  It took us 2 hours to get it on the frame and quilted.  Amazing!  

I am looking forward to washing and drying it later today...it is going to be so soft and crinkly!  It is going with us tomorrow for Jake's ordination in Bloomfield, Nebraska.  He and his lovely wife, Sarah, and their two beautiful daughters are moving into their parsonage and community from Yankton.  I hope it enjoys lots of picnics, snuggles, and blanket forts in its future.  Congrats Jake (and Sarah because you were there through all of the schooling too)!  :)

My little helper 

The back is this awesome sheet that had a gradation to the flowers!  Shall we talk flowers while I have my camera outside?

We probably have a dozen lilac bushes that we have planted since moving here two summers ago and our first one bloomed this year!

The asparagus is coming in nicely (along with the dandelions) as well as our rhubarb.  I have strawberries in the large pot up there because I heard they were invasive.

We can only handle so many invasions at a time.  The picture above is a pretty common site: raspberries in the lawn.  They are popping up everywhere!  :)  Oh what we will deal with for a couple of weeks of sweet raspberries, right in our own yard.

The dandelions and weeds of all kind are also invading from all corners of the yard.  However, we found a diy solution that works!  

Fill your spray bottle with vinegar almost to the top, add 2 T. of salt, and a small squeeze of dawn dish soap.  (the real proportion is 1 gallon of vinegar, 1 c. salt, and a large squeeze of soap...I estimated for my size of spray bottle)  Shake it up and spray away!  The weeds above were totally toast about 2 hours after I sprayed them yesterday.  I call that powerful.  

You do need to be careful though, because it could ruin the soil for future plants, so we are using it to just kill off the stuff in the sidewalks and in places where we don't foresee anything needing to be grown.  I feel so much more comfortable using it with Timothy around instead of the chemical stuff.  I may use it eventually in the flowerbeds on particularly pesky weeds, but will be careful just to get the leaves of the weed and not the soil and my flowers nearby.    

We got our first thunderstorm of the season last night and expect more over the next several days.  We need the rain badly, so they are welcomed (hail, damaging winds, and tornados, however, are uninvited).  Some of the seeds are popping in the garden, so an update will come when we dry out here later in the week and get the lawn mowed.

2013 Canning Season

has begun!  :)

7 half-pints and 2 pints of vanilla infused strawberry jam.  YUM! 

Recipe is here if you want to make some too!