Macro Monday

It's been a while since I posted anything to Macro Monday.  The weather hasn't exactly been conducive to getting out on my belly to shoot those tiny little things.  Today, however, the iris are particularly beautiful.  There are still more colors coming, but I really love this apricot colored one.

For more Macro Monday, visit Lisa's Chaos.

Serene Sunday

Mike and I haven't done anything more stressful than getting out of bed this morning.  It's been nice just to laze around doing what we want when we want to.  It's not as if we are such stress-ridden people on our best days, but the past week was stressful with all that needed to get done for our floor exercises.  

It's been quite a while since I've had a quiet enough morning to work on embroidery, and I have really missed it.  I never feel as if the day gets off to a very good start if I don't get to do some hand work first.  It occurs to me that it doesn't really have anything to do with the hand work; rather, a day too busy for hand work is a day too busy.  Period.  So to make up for lost time, I spent quite a bit of time with my little Quilting Snow Lady this morning.  Here's what I have so far:

The last time I wrote about her, I was considering giving her a little kitty like the other Quilting Snow Lady had.  The vote was unanimous, and so I added a kitty on the left side.  From now on, I'll make sure there's a kitty in every block.  And I'm going to link this post to Slow Sunday Stitching (emphasis on the slow).

After that, I suited up and went outside to take care of a few things.  I filled the bird feeders, and then went into the greenhouse to check things out in there.  Tomorrow I'm going to repot some more tomatoes.  The largest ones are ready to go into their largest pots of the season, while the one small one remaining in a tiny pot, needs to go into a medium-sized pot for now.  The remaining tomatoes already in medium-sized pots will be ready for larger pots in a week or two as well.  I'm so happy with how they have perked up.  Several are blooming now.

Also, I gave up and replanted the red leaf lettuce (for the second time, now).  Only one of the seeds germinated.  I'm suspicious that when I planted the other seeds, they may not have actually stayed in the soil. The seeds are so tiny that I use the moistened tip of a bamboo skewer to pick them up.  The very first seed planted was the only one that germinated, and it think it's possible that the others stuck to the skewer and that I just didn't realize it.  This time, I made sure they stayed in the dirt where they belonged.  This has been the most challenging year for the red leaf lettuce, which is our favorite, of course.  The butterhead is ready for  picking now, and so I'm going to make sure we have some nice green salads on next week's menu.

After that, I took some pictures of the iris that have opened.  There are still some colors that have yet to bloom, and a yellow one, in particular, that I've never seen before.  It must have been planted with the original group, but for some reason, has been hiding its light under the proverbial bushel.  Maybe tomorrow it will open completely and I can show it to you.  For now, here's a peek at a couple of them.

My favorite changes all the time, but if I were put under the lights, given sodium pentothal, and forced to choose, I think I would say this next one is my favorite.

However, I'm very partial to this one as well.

And this one.

And check out these chive blossoms!  They were next on my agenda.

I only picked about one quarter of them, and that was plenty to make a batch of chive blossom vinegar.

I like to cut off the green stems, although I don't think you really need to.  Then I wash them really well and put them in an air tight container.  Then I pour white vinegar over them, just enough so that they are all submerged in the vinegar.

Pretty huh?

Now they just need to sit for two weeks.  Then I'll strain the blossoms out of them, and I'll have the most wonderfully fragrant chive vinegar.  By then, it will have turned a lovely shade of pink.  (I looked in on it just before I sat down to write this post, and the vinegar was already turning pink.)  I love it in vinaigrettes, but it makes a nice gift too.  When two weeks are up, I'll show you how pretty it is.

After that, I finished quilting and binding the Divine Promises quilt.  

This is the largest quilt I've ever quilted on a domestic sewing machine.  It's about 45 x 47 inches.  (I know some of you have been brave enough to do much larger quilts, but this is the biggest one I've done to date.)  I'm thrilled with how well the new sewing machine is working for this application.  It does beautiful free motion quilting, and that was why I wanted it.

I stippled the embroidered blocks,

added a little flare in a few places,

and then did a meandering heart, flower, loop design over the borders and sashings.  

Here's how the back looks, pieced with the leftover fabric from the front.

All that's left now is to hand sew the binding, and it will be finished!

So that's about all I know for today.  Here's a gratuitous cat picture for you.  

Gracie...still camera shy after all these years.

Passing for Normal

The past couple of days have been fairly busy.  Thursday, the carpet was laid.  Smitty told you all about that.  I left Thursday afternoon while they carpet installers were here and met up with fellow blogger Judy R.  We had coffee at Starbucks and I gave her the bobbin clips that I had previously used as my bobbin storage system.  Since they won't work with the new, larger bobbins that my new machine takes, I passed the clips along to Judy.  It was great fun getting to meet in person.  Judy came bearing gifts, which surprised me completely.  As she put it, her gifts had a chocolate theme:

Yum.  And may I just say that the pincushion will last longer than the chocolate bar did.  (Thanks again, Judy!)

Friday morning I had breakfast with Erik, which is always a delight.  It's such fun to hear news from my kids about what they're doing.  Erik and Mae were heading off to Eugene for the weekend to see the Oregon State Beavers play three baseball games.  These are some important playoffs, and since their bitter rival, the University of Oregon Ducks, was also in the mix, it was going to be nothing less than a grudge match.  (Go Beavs!)  I had a few errands to run on Friday, but I was pretty tired from the week.  I suppose I did a fair amount of work both packing up and cleaning up, but I think the most tiresome aspect of any kind of domestic re-do is having strangers in the house.  Fortunately, I could hide in the sewing room most of the time, but it isn't the same as having the house to myself.

All of that to say that I took most of the day off on Friday.  I was suffering with a muscle spasm right between my shoulder blades.  It's sort of a chronic problem, generally made worse by stress, and I haven't had to deal with it for quite some time.  So I ended up taking some strong muscle relaxants and sleeping most of the afternoon on Friday.  Under the circumstances, it was probably the best thing I could have done.  It is still bothering me today (Saturday), but not as much as it was on Friday.

This morning we got up and had breakfast with Matthew, who came up to help move some of the heavier items back to where they belonged.  Matthew, being without a car for the time being, then drove my car back to his house.  With Mike at home, I won't need a car until Tuesday, and so Matthew might as well have some wheels.  With Matthew's help, we have things put pretty much back to normal.  I took a break for a while to give my shoulder a rest, and then I managed to get everything unpacked and put back in its place.  Despite my whining about the mess and the stress, I'm absolutely thrilled with how things are looking.  I wish we had done it a long time ago.  On the other hand, these sorts of things always involve a good period of time getting psyched up.  Do you agree?

So this afternoon, I managed to get some more quilting done on the Divine Promises quilt.  All the blocks are quilted now, and I'm doing a Loopy Daisy Heart meander around the sashings and the borders.  I'm following along with Melissa Corry's video called Loopy Daisy Heart Leaf.  This is how it's looking.  It's easier to see from the back.

I have the quilt more than three quarters done, and so I'm hoping to finish the quilting tomorrow and also to get the binding sewn on by machine.  I can do the hand sewing next week.

So that's about all that's going on for now.  Next Friday, Mike and I will celebrate our 38th wedding anniversary.  We decided it would be a good time to make our return trip to The Palouse.  You can read about the trip we took there last fall after the harvest by clicking right here.  We've been dying to go back in the spring to see it all dressed in greens.  Just the other day, I found this image that really whetted our appetites for a return trip.

(image credit:  Kevin McNeal)

So we'll be heading out on Friday morning, and returning Monday evening.  Looking forward to that.  

Tuesday I'm heading down to Salem with my quilting buddy Pat to pay a visit to one of my favorite quilt shops, Greenbaum's Quilted Forest.  I need a few fabrics for my May NewFO project, and I get a birthday discount all during the month of May.  It seems like a perfect time to make the trip down. 

What's on your agenda for the weekend? 

Carpet Camo

Good Morning!  Smitty here with some very impurrtant things to tail you.

Some Mans have been here this week, and they sure made a mess of things.  They refurrbished our floors, and they laid down this new stuff called carpet...which is a lot like fur, only for the floor.  Cool, huh?

It feels so soft and nice on my feets.  And I love this color...it looks just like my own furs!  

Gracie doesn't like it.  She says it smells of Evil Mans, and she's mad that it doesn't have more patches of orange in it.

Also, my mom cleared everything off of all the furrniture, so I can go on a walkabout without breaking anything.

Usually she squirts me with a squirt gun when I walk here, but today...no purroblemo!

These toy mousies think they blend in with the carpet too.  But I can see them with my supurr secret cat-ray vision.

Come to me, Mousie.  You cannot escape my lightning fast paws.

They don't have as much speed as the outside mousies.  They need a little kick start.

Oh, it's okay, Mousie.  It won't hurt a bit when I rip your stuffing out.  I'll be gentle.

Here.  Let me clean your furrs a little bit.  Then we'll play.

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Plain and Simple Amish Sampler

Thank you for viewing my entry to the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  I'm so glad you stopped by!  For this entry, I want to show you my Amish sampler called Plain and Simple.  My ancestry is Amish, and this quilt pattern was one of the first I bought when I learned to quilt.  It was my desire to honor my Amish ancestry, and particularly my grandmother, who was a gifted quilter.  All of her quilts were pieced and quilted by hand.  If you are interested in reading more about my family history and about Amish quilts in general, you can read this earlier blog post.  For now, here is my quilt, finished just a few months ago:

When I chose the fabrics, I wanted to make this a traditional Amish quilt, and so I used Kona solids and a special Amish black fabric.  The black is a pure black and the fabric is densely woven so that it has a slight sheen to it.  

It was quilted by a very talented long arm quilter named Erin Davis of Wilsonville, Oregon.  Erin has quilted many quilts for me, and I knew she was especially good with traditional designs.  Erin's quilting did not disappoint.  It is all done free hand.  She used a grid in some areas.

Medallions in others.

And some lovely feathering with cross-hatching.

This next image shows the outer border, and this picture was taken before the quilt was bound.  Erin recommended a black batting so that there would be no problems with the batting showing through or bearding.

The pattern I used suggested a deep olive green for the back, but I really wanted to use this pretty royal blue.  Here is how the quilt looks from the back, where the quilting really shines.

And here is the complete back.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing my quilt.  Thanks for stopping by!  To return to the Blogger's Quilt Festival, just click on the button at the top of this post.

Blogger's Quilt Festival: A Kitten's Tale

Thank you for viewing my entry to the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  I'm so glad you stopped by!  For this entry, I'm showing you my combination embroidery/applique quilt, A Kitten's Tale.  

This quilt was a block-of-the-month from the pattern by the very talented Lynette Anderson, who uses her own cat and dog as her models.

In fact, they are standing on Lynette's version of her quilt in this image.  Cute, huh?

The following images will show you each block individually.  It was such fun to make this quilt.  Lynette's critters are so adorable that it made her pattern a delight to work on.  Here is the happy family:

This next block was the first of the series.  I hadn't yet dedicated myself to hand embroidery, and so this one was free motion machine embroidered on my domestic sewing machine.  After doing this block, I decided to get into the swing of hand embroidery and the rest of the blocks on the quilt are all embroidered by hand.  Those of you who read my blog regularly know that where embroidery is concerned I've never looked back.

Quilt Along with Kitty:

Forever friends (is this adorable, or what?):

Home Sweet Home (looks a lot like my house):

Welcome friends:

Here's another block that looks a lot like my house.  Kitty is pretty comfortable on that pile of quilts:

Kitten in the tree:

The last blocks were the top and bottom inner borders.  This was my first experience with yo-yo's, and these are about the size of a dime.  I ended up making 74 yo-yo's in all.  

It was quite a learning project to work on this quilt.  It was my first experience with yo-yo's and my first experience with raw-edged applique.  It was also one of the first hand-embroidered quilts that I completed.

I was fortunate to already have a perfect backing fabric in my stash, although I only had half as much as I needed.  I was able to purchase the additional yardage I needed and the back turned out just as cute as the front.

This quilt was quilted by a very talented long arm quilter named Tami Ortega.  Tami broke my heart when she left the business a couple of years ago.  I asked her to quilt paw prints and hearts on it, but otherwise left the design up to her.  It was quilted free hand on her long arm machine, and I think she did a great job on it.  Her quilting is the reason this is one of my favorite quilts ever.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing my quilt.  Thanks for stopping by!  To return to the Blogger's Quilt Festival, just click on the button at the top of this post.