Sunday Sundry 5-21-23

It's been awhile since I did a Sunday Sundry post, a smorgasbord of this and that.  I have been sewing, too, so let's start with what I'm currently working on.

This four-patch quilt is coming along nicely.  It started with a pull of some fat quarter remnants and similar scraps I've accumulated over time.  These muted colors don't typically resonate with me when I'm fabric shopping, but somehow, by gift or thrift, I've ended up with enough of them such that they can all now live their best life together in a quilt.  I'm happy to do the honors.

When I saw this pattern on Mary Quilts, I decided it would work well for this project.  It's called Four Patches on the Diagonal. 

I actually have the top mostly together now except for the outer border, so you'll see it soon.  The more I work on it, the more I like it!

Happy Mail!

A few weeks ago, I got a happy mail package from The Joyful Quilter!  She sent me some nice John Deere themed fabric, as well as a couple bags chock full of blue and green scraps.  I was oohing and aahing over the green ones here.

I may be putting these to good use soon, as Jo's Country Junction is doing a YouTube tutorial series on a scrappy star block quilt she is calling Picadilly Circus.  It looks like fun!

Joyful also included a fun mug rug.  The happy colors make me smile! :)

Like Another Hole in the Head

I had my ears re-pierced a few weeks ago.  Yay!  Since I quit in-office work a dozen or so years ago and thus didn't wear earrings regularly, one of them had completely closed and the other needed way too much effort to shove a post through.  So I met my daughter at the tattoo and piercing salon and we made an afternoon of it, shopping and having lunch after the deed was done.

We even stopped at the thrift store and made a pretty good clothing haul.  Dear daughter spotted this colorful shirt on the rack and waved it as I was getting ready to check out, and I gave it an enthusiastic nod (under $4, I think it was).  It's a Lands End rash guard with UPF 50. 

I tried it on at home and it fit perfectly (always an iffy proposition with my long arms).  Having had my first skin check in February this year (and the scars to prove it; nothing cancerous, thankfully), I probably need to get serious about protecting my skin.

Suddenly Spring!

It took forever for spring to arrive—or feel like it was sticking around, anyway—but it finally seems to have made up its mind.  I planted flowers this past week, mostly in pots scattered here and there around the house.  

Lily of the Valley always reminds me of my grandma.  She had a patch of it in one of her gardens, but she also had some kind of scented powder that smelled like it.  

I did battle with it in the flower bed on the north side of my house, but it persists in finding a way through the cracks.  Ah, well.  I pinch off a sprig and inhale and am transported back to Grandma's house on Hubbard Street all those years ago.

Today was also my first bike ride of the season.  We did a respectable 15 miles with a couple rests stops along the way to give my knees a break.  The idea of an e-bike is looking better every year, but I'd like to keep pedaling under my own power as long as I can.  We tend to bike fairly flat trails so it's still doable for now. 

It was about as perfect a day for biking as there could be!

It's rhubarb season, and I picked a fresh batch a couple days ago.  Earlier this month, I used up the last of the frozen rhubarb and some mulberries from last summer in a rhubarb-berry crisp.  Delicious!

~Paulette

Out of the Weeds

It looks like I've let the weeds grow here on the blog over the last six weeks.  Hopefully not as bad as they've grown in real life in my dad's garden this summer.  They are ruling the world over there, let me tell you.  More about that in a bit, but for now I'm here with virtual hoe in hand to make amends for this neglected space on the Interweb. 

Working on machine applique.

Behind the hedges, so to speak, I've been doing a few things.  Finished a quilt, made a bag, fixed some "not-shoes" that my niece is going to wear for her wedding, and started a string quilt. 

Hobo bag commissioned by my niece.

Quilt finish - made from bonus Christmas fabric HSTs.

String-X quilt pieces, string pieced on phone book pages.

I've also been enjoying the summer in other ways—biking, walking, reading, etc.  

One of the many bike rides we've enjoyed.

I would add gardening, but that's been a bit of a failure, it seems.  Turns out gardens are a lot of work. Not just requiring outright sweaty labor, but consistency.  I'm not able to get over there daily and tend it, and I swear it knows.  It knows.  Nature knows the shopkeeper isn't minding the till(er). 

Dad has been the master gardener in the family through the years, until the present one.  But he's still laid up with his broken ankle from January and some healing complications from that.  So with the help of a couple other family members, we got his garden planted (in some pretty boggy soil), but the crops haven't done very well.  The radishes and parsnips washed out.  About a third of the onions came up, about a dozen beets are still thinking about it, and a handful of green bean plants are struggling to push out some pods.  The peppers, nada.  The tomatoes?  They may be okay eventually, barring an early frost.

Wildflowers (grown by Nature, not me)

The weeds, however, are THRIVING.

If you can't beat 'em - eat 'em?

After whacking at the thousandth specimen of one weed, in particular, I got curious about it.  So I asked Google what the heck it was and ultimately identified it as purslane.  That's not what Dad called it, but we won't go there.

Purslane

A little more investigating revealed it was edible.  Not only edible but very nutritious and supposedly good tasting.  Apparently, various cultures actually enjoy eating the stuff and even pay money for it!

And here it was in spades.  I won't go so far as to say manna from heaven, but Nature's gift, at any rate, or consolation prize.  A veritable and vegetative "participation trophy" for us amateurs.

You think you can grow peppers?  Not this year, lady.  But have some purslane.

So I ate it.  And it was good!

It tastes like baby spinach, only better.  Brighter tasting, a little lemony.  I chopped some up and sprinkled it in a salad.  I added it to soft tacos for a tasty crunch. 

I didn't eat a ton of it—you never know when my touchy stomach will decide that everything must go—but I gave it a fair shot and enjoyed it, and it didn't cause me any grief.  So there's that.

What kind of adventures have you had this summer—gardening, gastronomic, or otherwise?

Sunday Sundry 7-9-17

I'm back home with my feet up after spending a couple hours on a beautiful bike trail earlier today.  Should really have some ice on my knees, but I guess that can wait a bit longer.

It was as close to perfect a summer day as there can be, and I'm glad we were able to get out and enjoy it.

We've had a good amount of rain so far this summer, and everything is looking lush and green.  The tiger lilies were in bloom along the trail.

Marsh asters and Queen Anne's lace.  Afterwards, we had a picnic by the river.  A very picturesque little spot.

I have a thing for water lilies.

Which is why I picked up a water lily art print at the thrift store last weekend.  It joins, on the wall, my other thrifted water lily print found a few years ago.

 These are signed and numbered prints and professionally framed.  I don't think either one cost me more than five bucks.  Wish I knew more about the artists. 

Last week's bike trail ride was cut short due to Norm getting a flat tire.  Since it was a holiday weekend, the bike shop was closed.

The thrift store, however, was not!  It had been a while since we went junkin', as I'm more of a mind to get rid of excess than accumulate it these days.  But I have a place or purpose for all of the things I brought home.

I've been needing a lasagna pan since my old stoneware one cracked last year and I had to toss it.  I found a large 13x10-inch (or thereabouts) Corning Ware baking dish that will do just fine.

Zippers are always handy to have in the stash.  I used up a lot of my supply when I was making gift zipper pouches last year.

The Love Letters book might not have been a necessity, but at 69 cents, it was worth it for the beautiful illustrations and words.  And that's my very first "barn quilt" for the porch, from a local store that had them on clearance for half off, can you believe it?  It's a 12-inch metal Thistle Bloom block.

I did get a quilt basted yesterday.  This one's from bonus half-square triangles from a Christmas quilt I made last fall from an Aspen Frost layer cake.

The flimsy has been done for a while but I wasn't in a mood to work on it until now.  My HSTs only went so far, so I added a wide border all the way around to get it to lap quilt size. The blue thing at the bottom of the picture is a foam gardening mat from the dollar store.  It's a knee saver!

Going Fourth

I hope those of you in the States are having a magnificent 4th of July! It's been a pretty low key holiday for us, and that's just fine.  We did do a little grilling at suppertime, since the weather was not just cooperative but spectacular.  After I get done with this post, I'm looking forward to taking a walk at sunset and enjoying the beautiful evening.

Are you a cloud watcher?  I sure am.  Is there a better word for someone who likes looking at the changing sky?  (No, not an airhead or space cadet, thanks brain.)  We live in a fairly level area but with some gently rolling hills.  My favorite walking route takes me up a couple small hills that are great vantage points for cloud watching or sky-gazing, and, in the fall, noticing the changing colors of foliage.  It's a highlight of my day, strolling along, feeling the breeze or the humidity, as the case may be, the warmth of the sun as it sinks toward the horizon.  Listening to an audiobook or sometimes just the birds...or barking dogs...or the highway...or the lawnmowers...or the Med-Flight helicopter...

Although I haven't blogged for a month, I have taken a lot of pictures.  In general, there hasn't been a whole lot of quilting and sewing, though there has been some.  There are plenty of other things to engage and distract me this time of year.  Here are a few of June's highlights—in alphabetical order, how about that.

Backing - Baking (with Beets!) - Biking - Bird-watching:

Family (Father's Day) - Flora:

Listening:


Mini-Making - Mural Marveling:

 

Planting - Picking:

Quilting:

Reading - Relaxing:

 Watching (Wrestling!):

Starts and Finishes

To begin with, the finish is my Quilt for Pulse.  It's done and ready to go to Orlando, as soon as I attach the label later today.

I really like how this quilt turned out with the made-fabric hearts, and hope it gives comfort to a family of the Pulse nightclub victims or a first responder, etc.  It was an honor to put my thoughts and energy into making it.

I used an almost pastel variegated quilting thread, which blended well.  Funny (and serendipitous) that I found it while rummaging through a different drawer than the thread drawers.  I was looking for a fresh rotary cutter blade, but found just the right thread instead.

 The back is pieced, and the binding is a diagonal stripe.

As far as the start, I am beginning a baby quilt that a friend commissioned for her new granddaughter born in May.  This is how the HST blocks look on the design wall at the moment.

I'm using the colors in the baby's room—lavender, navy, aqua, and gray—which I had a hard time imagining all together in a quilt, but it works! To get an idea before I started cutting fabric, I Googled "lavender navy aqua" and it seems like it's a thing.  As in there were a lot of images incorporating those colors for weddings, decor, etc.  So I was out of the loop, apparently—which shouldn't really be news, least of all to me!

Speaking of loops, we did a little bike loop this weekend which took us through some beautiful farmland.  Wisconsin has a lot of rolling hills, but this particular area where we biked is a pretty flat expanse. 

Along the way, we spotted a pair of sandhill cranes.  They blended in  with the landscape and we almost peddled right past, except that I noticed a little movement in my peripheral vision and turned to see what it was.  Can you find them?

Sandhill cranes have a unique rattling bugle call, but this pair was being "vewy, vewy quiet," as Elmer Fudd would say, and looked as though they were tiptoeing through the field.