Design Wall Monday - June 24, 2019

Finally I was back at the sewing machine and have something to show you. I have been working away at completing the 100" x 100" broken dishes quilt.     Here at the cabin this week, I am taking long walks in the woods with Penny Lane, and sewing rows of blocks/columns/pieces of blocks.  Here are three pictures of this week's assembly line progress:

The first picture is of a few blocks laid out on an old metal school lunch tray.
Second picture is more newly made broken dishes blocks.  Third picture is a "design wall" of a rolled up rug, as the rubber backing helps hold the pieces in place until I sew them.  

I thought I had made all of the broken dishes blocks for this quilt, but now that I'm on the bottom 20" x 100" section, I found that I am short 28 red ones and 38 green ones.  But the good news is that I've made so many of them for this quilt, that making more is a breeze.  The end is near.

What are you going to post today?  I can't wait to look at all the pictures you post.  Thank you so much for participating in Design Wall Mondays.  All I ask is that you please link back to this particular post somewhere within your blog post. 

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Design Wall Monday - June 17, 2019

Hi bloggers!  Confession time:  Another non-quilting week for me.  I am finishing up the recipe books and loose recipes project, and it took me longer than I thought.

However, I am taking several projects to the cabin with me, to work on this summer, so I hope to be back in the swing of things soon.  Last Monday night Joan came over to sew with me, and I spent most of the night trying to get my featherweight to function.  Sewing machines are a joy when they are working, but are not when they are not, right?  I did enjoy seeing Joan and talking quilting with her.  It definitely got my quilting mojo back.

Saturday was our 56th anniversary.  We were married on June 15, 1963, and it doesn't seem possible that we've been married this long.  But it is true, and I feel so blessed.  We had a nice dinner yesterday with our son and part of his family to celebrate Father's Day and our anniversary.  It's hard to get his whole family together because the kids are grown up enough to all have jobs.

So instead of showing you quilting (that I didn't do this week), I thought I'd show you pictures of the beauty outside.  I have so enjoyed seeing everything come into flower around the yard.  Remember when I posted pictures of the ferns several weeks ago, when they had their "interrupted" part showing?  The picture is (Here)  

Well, look at the ferns now!  My view of them from inside the quilt room:

And a picture of the same ferns from the outside.  How they've grown!  You can barely see the "interrupted" part of their fronds now.

The Kousa Dogwood in the front yard:

And a closeup of it's beautiful blossoms:

Pinks, along the front sidewalk:

And coral bells, so dainty looking, by the flag pole:

"And next week we shall get back to our regularly scheduled programming", or  so I hope.   What have you been working on?  Do you have pictures of quilty things to show, or are you sidetracked by flowers?

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Design Wall Monday - June 10, 2019

Quilting?  I haven't finished a thing!  I am busy cleaning house, and rearranging the basement storage area, so the UFOs are going to be the next spring cleaning project.  Or maybe not,  I never know what cleaning project will get my attention next week.  But tonight my friend Joan Brink is coming over and we will be working on our broken dishes quilts.   She has made a lot of progress on hers - and mine.......well, I haven't worked on it since I was at a retreat in April.  So it will be good for me to return to working on it tonight.

This week I've spent organizing cookbooks and recipes.  They were stored away in boxes in a cupboard since we moved from Virginia, but I really wanted to look at them on a shelf.  I love to leaf through a recipe book.  So I bought a used bookcase, for $15, and put it up on the counter top in the laundry room, which is just off the kitchen.  

I had lots of recipes of my Mom's that I hadn't sorted through since we cleaned out her home, and a friend had asked me for her Plum Pudding recipe, which I knew was in there somewhere.  So after I got the bookcase installed, I shelved all the cookbooks, and am now organizing the newspaper clippings (both mine and Mom's) and purging some of them.   The oldest clipping was from a newspaper in 1942.   There are some old clippings that talk about rationing during the war.

It is so nice to see recipes in Mom's handwriting.  She had beautiful penmanship, and taught me good penmanship as well.  Our handwriting is similar, but I can tell hers from mine.  Some of the old recipes have no indication of oven temperature and time.....I guess I can google the recipe and add that information.  Even with all the recipes available on the Internet, it is a treat to me to make something that my Mom has made many years ago, and also see her handwriting on the card.

It is funny that with both her clippings and mine, most recipes are for cookies, pies, and desserts.   She taught me what was important!

Here is the stage my organizing project is in right now:

The stack in the foreground is the last of the piles to sort and purge.  I smile when I walk into the room, because soon I will know exactly where to find any recipe or book in my collection.  Also, I sent out the Plum Pudding recipe in the snail mail today to my friend.  

Spring weather has been super here in Michigan, and there are lots of wildflowers in our subdivision.  Here is a picture of a Wild Lupine I saw yesterday while out walking Miss Penny Lane.  

Isn't it beautiful?  I shall have to see if I can save some seeds from it this fall, and plant them in my garden.  It is also called "Sundial".  Does anyone know why it's called Sundial?

Linkup today to Design Wall Monday is happening.  I am looking forward to seeing your posts.  Please provide a link back to this particular blog post somewhere within your blog post.  Thanks!  I so appreciate all of you.  

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Design Wall Monday - June 3, 2019

We just got back from a trip to Texas to attend a Grandson's graduation.  We have two more grands graduating next year, and we just found out that one is graduating on a Thursday night, and the other one on the next night.....but one is in Texas and one is in Michigan.  We will see if we can attend both, with some quick airline flights between the two.

This week's airline trip was typical of airline travel in current times.  The flight to Texas was cancelled completely, and we flew the next day instead.  The rebooked flight had 3 segments instead of the original 2.  The flight home left Corpus Christi airport 2 hours late.....our connecting flight in Houston was also late, and instead of arriving back in Grand Rapids at 11:30 PM, as we had planned......we arrived home at 2:00 AM today.  It's a good thing we are retired and we don't have to get up in the morning and go to work!

We enjoyed our visit with our daughter and her family very much.  She and I sorted and fondled and reorganized her yarn collection.  So much fun for me.  She crochets beautifully, and can make just about anything with a crochet hook.  I came home with some yarn and a few of her creations.  

To show you that I am still quilting a little bit this week, I have the pink doll quilt almost finished.  Here is a picture before I add the top and bottom border (they are just placed there for the picture).

I keep saying "next week I will get more sewing in", but this time it could happen.  I am home all this week.  I have the Spring cleaning bug too, and am making progress there also.  It's all good!

Please post a picture of what you have been working on.  I so enjoy looking at all the beautiful work you are doing.  Just link back to this particular blog post somewhere within your blog post.  Thanks!

Please forgive me as I am not very good at replying to your nice comments on the blog.  I will try to do better.  I really do enjoy hearing from you!

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