Watermelon!

I was super excited when I saw a cute golf ball sized watermelon growing in my garden. But can you imagine the excitement when I bent over to pull a couple of weeds and found two melons this size?

Moving It Forward Monday -- July OMG Wings of Spring Complete

I finally finished my Wings of Spring quilt.  Many of these blocks were won in the Block Lotto back on 3/31/29.  I miss the Block Lotto.

I quilted it with an all-over big, freehand stipple.  It was some mindless quilting.  It's super soft.  The back is a repurposed sheet with some orphan blocks across it to make it long enough.   I went out of my comfort zone and used a solid red binding.  I really like it.

This is what the back looks like...



It was my OMG (one monthly goal) to complete this quilt in July.  Woohoo!  I'm done.  I'm linking up this finish at the finish linky party at Elm Street Quilts.

Slow Sunday UNstitching

This week I am working on some slow UNstitching.  I'm just not happy about how the back of this #Spidersewalong quilt looks.  I am not using my stitch regulator on my longarm.  The stitches have little knots on the back here and there (mostly where I start and stop).  I am happy with the ruler work, but it just needs to be undone.  I have have of it unpicked already.

In other news I'm excited to announce that SIX chicks hatched!  Yesterday there were four that hatched.  This morning I visited the coop and Blondie the brood hen would not budge from the nest to let me see the chicks.  I offered her a marigold and she was just slightly amused with it.  I gave her some crumbles mixed with chick feed and she just started talking.  One by one chicks came hopping out from under her wings and she quickly showed them how to eat.  I watched in awe as she taught them scraping her beak side to side.

You can see five chicks here clearly.  The sixth one is the same color as her and is hiding by her left wing.  Blondie also drank a quick drink of water that I set in front of her.  She's still trying to hatch the two remaining eggs.  She's pretty serious about it, so we shall see.  She's hungry and eating.  I added a little water to the edge of the food bowl and she immediately ate the moist food vs. the dry food.

The broody duck broke all of her eggs.  That experiment didn't work.  Ducks are too rough on the weaker chicken eggs.  Duck egg shells are much more durable.

My garden is doing great.  I watched Wiggles (the rooster) knock off a tomato and roll it to the edge of the garden yesterday (downhill).  He clucked and clucked and wanted to show off to all the girls as to what he had found.  They at most of it, of course.  I don't see too many tomatoes pecked on the vine right now.  I'll keep a close eye on that.  They will be way more interested in them once they start to get ripe.  At that point they will have to stay in their fenced in area.

I'll definitely have to keep a close eye on keeping them secure for a week or two.  I noticed Cooper (the mama cat that hangs out near the coop often) is very interested in the birdhouse on the chicken fence.  She doesn't really seem to bother the chickens.  The kittens like to sneak up on them and jump on them from time to time, but Wiggles the rooster doesn't let any harm take place.  Every once in a while there are some with feathers missing, but not harmed.  I think Cooper takes the kittens to the chicken yard for hunting practice.

Here's my yummy harvest today:  5 weird shaped eggplants, 5 green tomatoes (because the chickens have been pecking at them a bit and I'll try to ripen these in the sun on the picnic table), a cucumber, and a green pepper.  YUM!

Kathy's Quilts is the place where the Slow Sunday Stitching group meets each week.  I wish I had more fun hand work to show, but this is it...  Most of my hand is a green thumb.  :)

WIP Wednesday 7.22.2020

Here we are at Wednesday again.  Here's my report:

I finished the longarm work on this quilt and returned it to my friend yesterday.  She was happy.  She gave me another family quilt to longarm.  It has embroidered names and birthdays in Christmas colors.  I didn't have time for a photo.  I hope to get that on the frame after the Spider quilt.  I did add it to my never-shortening list of WIPS.

I longarm quilted it using my Circle Lord giant template board called Ribbles.  I'm not a huge fan of this design, but she gave me a high loft polyester batting and it just needed a bigger design.

It made a nice design on the back.  The backing again was a gently used polyester flat sheet.

I loaded my #Spidersewalong quilt onto the longarm frame and started quilting lines for the spider web.  I'm not so sure if I'm going to continue with the spider web quilting.  I'm not a fan at this point.  I saw another participant in the sewalong used straight line vertical quilting and it was really cute.

I need to think about it some more.

I posted about my garden progress here and here.  I think the baby eggplants are adorable.  They should be ready to pick by this time next week or sooner.



My broody hen, Blondie, is still sitting on her clutch of eggs!  It could get exciting this weekend!



I'm not caught up with the group on the Linen & Threads SAL, but I'm still stitching.



I made a back for this vintage looking quilt.  I've had it in my posession for quite some time.  It's time to move it along.  I'm probably not going to get to stitching to too many dark blue scraps for the RSC.

I currently have 60 on-going projects on my list.  They are separated into stages.

Pieces Need to be Cut & Sewn

 1.  Cheddar Jack cat pattern from 

 2.  Digging up Bones (Owen's dinosaur quilt)

 3.  Rock Island Campfire Quilt

 4.  Picadilly Circle

 5.  ...And Sew On BOM at Quiet Play (one block to go)

 6.  Go Four It!  Scrappy 4-patches started as leader/ender, June 2017

 7.  Patriotic Folk Animals (from Americana Quilts Book) 8/8/19

 8.  Leah Day Building Blocks QA

 9.  Jelly Roll Rug

10.  Classic Meets Modern BOM

11.  Veggie Patch from Katie Mae Quilts

12.  Mod Mod QA (from Block Lotto, circles w/lines)

13.  Owl's Well That Ends Well (RSC19 project started 1/26/19)

14.  Kevin the Quilter's Sapphire Stars Mystery (started Summer 2017) I can't find it!!!

15.  Temperature QA (changing this project to a table topper)

16.  Kite Girl (RSC14)

17.  Amish Country BOM (from Lynn, Johnna's mom)

18.  Cabins at the Lake (from Fons  Porter Magazine) only one house block complete.)

19.  2.5" Scraps from Dani -- making "cracker" blocks

20.  Sand Castles -- Bonnie Hunter string quilt started January, 2019 -- an RSC project

21.  Little Houses (3.5" blocks)

22.  Pumpkins & the Beanstalk (a 2nd quilt)

23.  Dresser Scarf (My Grandma's WIP from the 1970's found 1/1/20

24.  Linen & Threads Mystery SAL, Started 1/1/20 for my sew-to-go-bag

25.  Slabs with White Rectangle (RSC14 started -- needs blocks each month)

26.  Bonnie Hunter Box Kite class from March 2017

27.  Unity Quilt Along with Bonnie Hunter (started 4/1/2020)

28.  Orange, pink, grey kite blocks 2015

29.  Maroon Sampler Quilt

30.  Gypsy Wife QA started in August 2017

31.  Kathleen Tracy's 2019 Mystery Quilt Facebook QA started in March, 2019

32.  2016 Plus Blocks (from left over pieces of Soul Searching Blocks

33.  RSC16 Folk Art Birds

34.  Waffle Blocks (August 2019 -- RSC19)

Blocks Still Need to be Made

 1.  Bluepatch Mystery Quilt

 2.  Scrap Crystals (RSC15)

 3.  We Can Do It Skill Builder Sampler

 4.  Drunkard's Path Variation quilt

 5.  Finding Nemo Scrappy Trip quilt 

Blocks Are Made But Need to be Sewn Together (and/or Some Sashing)

 1.  Block Swap Adventure Orange/Yellow Sampler (2011-2012)

 2.  Cruise blocks won from Libby

 3.  Orange/Blue Fish Blocks That I Won

 4.  Split Stars (blocks won from the Block Lotto, October, 2012)

 5.  African Violet baby quilt (Block Lotto inspired)

 6.  Tall Fly (blocks won from Block Lotto; October 2012)

 7.  Fortune Teller (RSC14)

 8.  Sonja's Windows string quilt

 9.  Block Swap Adventure (2013) Churn Dash Blcoks

10.  Tula Pink's City Sampler 100 Modern Quilt Blocks 5/17/17 QA

11.  Flower Baskets (blue and white with some applique) Block Lotto win 10/1/18

12. Pre-printed cross stitch pillow sham (May 2018)

13.  Bonnie Hunter Garden Party (started 3.18.17)

14.  Cathy's CRAZY BY DESIGN Dot Dot Dash Bag, Won April, 2018

Quilt Back Needs to be Made (Tops are Done)

1.  Card Trick (pink and blue)

2.  Hunter Green Star Quilt

3.  Good Fortune -- A Bonnie Hunter Mystery started Thanksgiving weekend, 2018

4.  Soul Searching -- Julianne sent it to me on 8/29/19

Ready to Longarm

1.  Bubble Gum Pink & Navy Quilt

2.  Charolette's Christmas Color family Quilt

3.  #SpiderSewalong quilt from Instagram (on the frame)

I'm linking up at Quilt Fabrication for Midweek Makers.  Check out all of the fun projects!

Closer to the Finish & More Garden Pics

I got my friend’s quilt all the way to the last row.  It should be done and returned to her this week.

I also took a few more photos of the fun stuff in my garden. It seems I spend so much time there these days. 

Below you can see that the acorn squash is seriously utilizing an old repurposed swimming pool ladder. There is also an ornamental purple bean stalk growing up the ladder. I got the bean seeds from the friend that owns the quilt on the frame in this post. The bean should grow to the top of the ladder. I wasn’t expecting my acorn squash to do this well when I planted it. There are only two plants here!

Below you can see one of the tomato plants utilizing the repurposed tv tower that I cut up with the torch when Owen was in pre-school. I can’t believe that was about 8 or 9 years ago. These tomato cages should last a very long time. They are not perfect or uniform because I cut them so that the cross supports could be utilized, but boy do they do the job paired with a few fabric scrap strings.  You can see the difference in height compared to the ones behind it in the next row. This plant has a lot of blossoms coming. I planted my tomatoes in Mid May. They are a little behind my friends’ harvests. I like to wait so that I don’t have to worry about this frosts that we sometimes have in May. 

Below is a young zucchini plant. Hopefully it continues to thrive and will produce zucchini in a week or two. I’m excited to try seasoned zucchini chips in the food dehydrator this summer. I put my hand in there for a size comparison. Blossoms are down in there. 

And yes, you can tell by my fingers that they are somewhat swollen.  The heat and humidity does a number on my hands and feet.  I have been watering and watering my garden almost every day.  Sometimes it's twice a day.  You can see how dry the ground is around this plant.  My garden is on a slight slope.  But look at all these tender leaves.  Hopefully the rabbit doesn't notice them.  Shhhh.

The Broody Hen and Duck Report

Blondie is still really serious about the eggs in her nest. I did notice she was off her nest twice this week to go to the bathroom and get a quick drink. Look at her being all serious and all. 

She had visitors checking in on her from the brooder. 

Maisy the Duck is down to one chicken egg in the nest (the blue one.). I’m leaving another egg in there just because. She started with five but is down to one viable chance of a chick. There seems to be a lot of sharing and fighting for nest space in this nesting box even though they have plenty of nesting boxes from which to choose. 

This grey hen (below) is a Sapphire Blue Plymouth Rock (I’m pretty sure.). She laid the light egg. 

Maisy the Duck saw I was giving out ramen noodles (cooked) as treats today. She took a quick dip in the pool and returned to the nest. 

Fancy (above) noticed the kittens didn’t eat all of the cat food. She eats it very quietly so that the others don’t hear her. Guess she doesn’t want to share. She lays the bluish/green egg. 

Baby Eggplants!

This isn't the greatest photo, but aren't these baby eggplants adorable???

There are TONS of little eggplants and blossoms growing.  I am going to try to make eggplant bacon.

Because I didn't leave home for over a month, I ordered seeds on eBay.  I got some weird cucumbers growing...  Not sure what to expect with these.  The swimming pool ladder is working out perfectly!

Above are my Wildcat watermelons.  I call them that because they are the seed packet that we got with our groceries that the local school gave out once a week.  We planted them the same day we got them and the vines are really spreading out.  I'm glad I gave them a lot of extra room.

Above you can see the baby birdhouse gourds starting to form.  I used to think these plants were cool and fun.  We could drill a hole in them, and run them through the bleach water process.  Then we sent a bunch of them in the flower boxes and made them look like a bunch of ghosts sitting on the fence...  Then we started to throw them away.  When my husband would plow we would have more and more birdhouse gourds grow the following year.  Then I started to till them under and get rid of the plants and only keep a few.

All of a sudden I found that if I broke one open while it was still moist inside that the chickens LOVED them and would eat the insides.  It's a FREE treat for them.  I planted mounds of them here and there so that I can feed them to the chickens.  

My husband taught Owen how to ride my old 4-wheeler.  Owen did so awesome that we didn't even move our vehicles out of the way.  Great job, Owen!!!

On the Frame

I loaded my friend’s quilt onto my longarm frame.

For this quilt she gave me a high loft polyester batting. I’m quilting it using my Circle Lord giant template board called Ribbles. 

Slow Sunday Stitching

It's not much, but I did get just a few stitches done on my Linen & Thread SAL.  Some is better than none!  Marching forward..

I'm linking up at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

Scrap Saturday -- Dark Blue -- RSC20

I decided to pull out an old WIP with dark blue in it for the RSC20.  I put together a pink backing for this quilt.  It will make a nice charity quilt for someone.  I'm not sure when I'll get in on the frame.



It can now be moved to the to-be-longarmed pile.  Woohoo.

Our school system has come out with a re-start for the 2020 - 2021 school year.  Either we're "ALL IN"  and our son goes to school five days a week with the new "safety" guidelines.  Or we keep him home for remote learning.  Decisions to be made...  I'll have time to think about it while I'm longarming today. 

I'm linking up at Angela's Blog, SoScrappy, for the RSC20.  Check out all the fun!

WIP Wednesday 7.15.20

Wednesday is here already!  I was productive this week.  Here's what happened:

I finished the quilt top for my #SpiderSewalong on Instagram.  To me this quilt was one big quilt block with some big pieces thrown around it.  Lindsay @ penandpaperpatterns designed it.  Owen has already claimed it as his "chair quilt".  He has requested I add a "tag".  He loves silky tags.  It's a sensory/comfort thing.  Of course I'll add a tag or two at the top.  I've been saving them.

I finally got a few stitches done in my Linen & Threads stitch along during an oil change.

I finished longarm quilting an Egyptian Eye pattern on a friend's quilt.

She gave me ANOTHER quilt to longarm when I dropped the above quilt off.  I'll probably refer this to Charolette's Charm quilt and add it to my list.  I have to add to the back to make it long enough so that I can use my template boards.  I'm not sure how to quilt this one yet.  It hasn't spoke to me.  I may step out of my comfort zone and try a pantograph instead of a template board.

Maisy the duck is still sitting on eggs.  She has two left that have not broken.  Duck egg shells are much harder than chicken egg shells.  I have had a duck egg fall from table top height and hit the hard floor and not break.

Here's what her nest looks like when she is not sitting on it.  You could say she is "feathering the nest".  It keeps the eggs the right temperature for incubating while she leaves for a quick dip in the kiddie pool or to get a bite to eat.

  I marked the eggs with a Sharpie marker so that I can tell which eggs need to stay in the nest when I gather eggs.  There were four other eggs in the nest.  I can't leave them in there because she will leave the nest to tend what hatches.  The eggs she is sitting on have to be put in there the same day.

As for Blondie, the brood hen, she will win any staring contest around.  She continues to patiently sit on the eggs.  I have only had evidence that she has gotten off the nest three different times in the past eleven days.  I have even opened up the brooder part of the coop to let the air circulate.  Her "friends" can visit her through the screen (there's another door that they can walk up a ramp and visit).  Every other day or so I pull some fresh spearmint and stand it up in the corner of the coop.  Aromatherapy for Blondie!  It smells so good for a chicken coop.  Next year I need to plant some lavender.  Hens are supposed to love lavender.  

My garden is doing AWESOME!!!  Look at the gorgeous eggplant blossoms!  I also planted a few more things in my garden this week for later crops.

Linda  told me about a cool app called PictureThis.  The first seven days is a free trial period.  After that it is $29.99/year though iTunes.  I downloaded it for my phone.  I simply take a photo of the plant I am trying to identify and it gives me all kinds of info on it.  It's a super fun app!  Thanks, Linda!  I'm going to keep it for at least six days.  I may go the full year.  I'm saving all that money on gas because we're not going many places...  Might as well splurge on something.

The yucca plant that I transplanted from a root BLOOMED this year!!!  This is exciting!  The app helped me identify the tall weeds behind the yucca and ornamental grass as Hollow joe-pye weed.  I planted it in the chicken yard on purpose to get some growth -- any growth -- so that the chickens and ducks have something to nibble on and scratch around and find bugs.  I just kept planting perennials at random to experiment what would grow there and what the flock would devour.  Turns out they don't really like things that are rough such as iris, ornamental grass, sedum, yucca, or Hollow joe-pye weed.  They love hostas, lily of the valley, cora bells, mustard plants, and birdhouse gourds.

I currently have 60 on-going projects on my list.  They are separated into stages.

Pieces Need to be Cut & Sewn

 1.  Cheddar Jack cat pattern from 

 2.  Digging up Bones (Owen's dinosaur quilt)

 3.  Rock Island Campfire Quilt

 4.  Picadilly Circle

 5.  ...And Sew On BOM at Quiet Play (one block to go)

 6.  Go Four It!  Scrappy 4-patches started as leader/ender, June 2017

 7.  Patriotic Folk Animals (from Americana Quilts Book) 8/8/19

 8.  Leah Day Building Blocks QA

 9.  Jelly Roll Rug

10.  Classic Meets Modern BOM

11.  Veggie Patch from Katie Mae Quilts

12.  Mod Mod QA (from Block Lotto, circles w/lines)

13.  Owl's Well That Ends Well (RSC19 project started 1/26/19)

14.  Kevin the Quilter's Sapphire Stars Mystery (started Summer 2017) I can't find it!!!

15.  Temperature QA (changing this project to a table topper)

16.  Kite Girl (RSC14)

17.  Amish Country BOM (from Lynn, Johnna's mom)

18.  Cabins at the Lake (from Fons  Porter Magazine) only one house block complete.)

19.  2.5" Scraps from Dani -- making "cracker" blocks

20.  Sand Castles -- Bonnie Hunter string quilt started January, 2019 -- an RSC project

21.  Little Houses (3.5" blocks)

22.  Pumpkins & the Beanstalk (a 2nd quilt)

23.  Dresser Scarf (My Grandma's WIP from the 1970's found 1/1/20

24.  Linen & Threads Mystery SAL, Started 1/1/20 for my sew-to-go-bag

25.  Slabs with White Rectangle (RSC14 started -- needs blocks each month)

26.  Bonnie Hunter Box Kite class from March 2017

27.  Unity Quilt Along with Bonnie Hunter (started 4/1/2020)

28.  Orange, pink, grey kite blocks 2015

29.  Maroon Sampler Quilt

30.  Gypsy Wife QA started in August 2017

31.  Kathleen Tracy's 2019 Mystery Quilt Facebook QA started in March, 2019

32.  2016 Plus Blocks (from left over pieces of Soul Searching Blocks

33.  RSC16 Folk Art Birds

34.  Waffle Blocks (August 2019 -- RSC19)

Blocks Still Need to be Made

 1.  Bluepatch Mystery Quilt

 2.  Scrap Crystals (RSC15)

 3.  We Can Do It Skill Builder Sampler

 4.  Drunkard's Path Variation quilt

 5.  Finding Nemo Scrappy Trip quilt 

Blocks Are Made But Need to be Sewn Together (and/or Some Sashing)

 1.  Block Swap Adventure Orange/Yellow Sampler (2011-2012)

 2.  Cruise blocks won from Libby

 3.  Orange/Blue Fish Blocks That I Won

 4.  Split Stars (blocks won from the Block Lotto, October, 2012)

 5.  African Violet baby quilt (Block Lotto inspired)

 6.  Tall Fly (blocks won from Block Lotto; October 2012)

 7.  Fortune Teller (RSC14)

 8.  Sonja's Windows string quilt

 9.  Block Swap Adventure (2013) Churn Dash Blcoks

10.  Tula Pink's City Sampler 100 Modern Quilt Blocks 5/17/17 QA

11.  Flower Baskets (blue and white with some applique) Block Lotto win 10/1/18

12. Pre-printed cross stitch pillow sham (May 2018)

13.  Bonnie Hunter Garden Party (started 3.18.17)

14.  Cathy's CRAZY BY DESIGN Dot Dot Dash Bag, Won April, 2018

Quilt Back Needs to be Made (Tops are Done)

1.  Card Trick (pink and blue)

2.  Hunter Green Star Quilt

3.  Good Fortune -- A Bonnie Hunter Mystery started Thanksgiving weekend, 2018

4.  Soul Searching -- Julianne sent it to me on 8/29/19

5.  #SpiderSewalong quilt from Instagram

Ready to Longarm

1.  Bubble Gum Pink & Navy Quilt

2.  Charolette's Charm Quilt

I'm linking up at Quilt Fabrication for Midweek Makers.  Check out all of the fun projects!