RSC26 -- Pink Tulips

I utilized my time this week to go back and catch up on a pink project I worked on earlier this year.

The pattern is Tulip Table Runner --a pattern by Amy Chappeli from Ameroonie Designs.

I pulled out the pastels from my Bit Con quilt (Bonnie Hunter pattern).  I got those sewn together.  

I cut all the rest of the pieces needed of the green stems and leaves and background fabric while at the shop with my truck last week. 

Several of you mentioned having trouble growing tulips due to the fact that animals would dig up the bulbs to eat them.  I had that problem in the past.  To resolve it I learned that when I planted the bulbs to dig out more and put a 10" square piece of wire mesh above it that had about 1" gaps in it.  The gaps let the tulip shoots grow up through it.  The rest of the mesh makes it to hard for the varmint to get to it and it moves on to eating another one of my delicious plants...

My strawberry planter is growing beautifully even with all the dry weather we have had.  Cucumbers are starting to climb around the pool ladder rungs in the back of the planter.

My tomatoes in the raised beds are not doing so great just yet.  I just got the hose out to them this week to make sure they get watered on a more regular basis.

My purple things (I think they are Bellflowers) are beautiful.  We had a very brief hard rain late last night.  They were knocked down a bit but stood back up after I took the photo.

I have been having trouble planting zucchini from seed ever since 2020.  Finally I got two plants to grow from the free seeds from the library in this old, cracked kettle.  This is the kettle that my grandparents used when we butchered and for making apple butter.  The weird cement face was part of an art pot that I bought in the gift shop in our county disabilities building.  It had a planter with it and when planted was supposed to resemble the plant being hair.  The terra cotta pot broke off the first week I had it planted.  I stuck it in this kettle for fun.  The large zucchini plant seems to be doubling by the day in the hot weather.

I finally planted my dried out marigold plants yesterday.  When I moved the graduation sign Candy the cat must have thought that would be a good way to still be in the shade.  I decided to allow the one volunteer tomato plant to continue to grow in this bed.  Usually this little bed is where I plant tomatoes.  This year the flowers growing around the edge came up again.  I didn't know that they were perennials.

I'm linking up at Angela's blog, SoScrappy, for the RSC26

Bit Con Mindless Strip Piecing

I sewed ALL the strips that was in the craft box into pieces to be cut for the Bit Con UFO that was sitting on the shelf.  I thought I would use it as a leader/ender project.  Look closely in the photo--yes, that IS an empty box!

Bit Con is a Bonnie Hunter pattern. I have no idea how many strips or yards of fabric scraps were used.  I do know that these fabrics mostly came out of the multi-colored bin.  I sort my scraps by color.  Stay tuned for tons and tons of cutting.

 

Wednesday UFO Squirrel -- Bit Con!

I was working on cutting border pieces for the tulip table runner that I was working on yesterday. 

An old squirrel jumped out in front of me this early morning.   Little pieces were appearing.

I reached for the bin to put the extra strips away... but wait... I could use this as a leader/ender project and just move it along.  It's really neat and self-contained on the shelf.  I got it out and started stitching pieces together between current project pieces:

Bitcoin Double Sized Quilt-- have cut strips in multi-colored fabrics (fabrics that are more than one color and don't fit into a specific color family bin for sorting purposes.) I have several strips sewn together in another strip bin.  This is a pattern designed by Bonnie Hunter.

Don't you just love it when you fall in love all over with a UFO?

Weather forecast here in our part of Ohio today is some rain (hopefully God will water my plants that need some steady, gentle rain.) Then I'm sure it will get quite warm and muggy in the mid-upper 80's.  Seems like a good day to clean my closet, sew, and play in the pool with the kid.  Happy Wednesday.

Arranging Tulips

 I started playing with these blocks again this week.

The pattern is Tulip Table Runner --a pattern by Amy Chappeli from Ameroonie Designs.

I cut all the rest of the pieces needed of the green stems and leaves and background fabric while at the shop with my truck last week.  Time to get it moving along.

I made it this far yesterday.

Hourglass Crib Quilt on the Frame

 This little leftover hourglass block crib quilt is on the frame.

I made the crumb hourglass blocks to use up fabrics from another project.  It's a little out of my comfort zone color-wise.  I don't think they are good colors for a baby quilt.  Hopefully it will be just someone's thing.

If you see frog eyes staring at you at the bottom of the quilt, you're not seeing things.  I'm using a fleece that I most likely won't use for anything else as the batting.  The fabrics are dark enough that it won't show through.  I actually finished the quilting of this quilt on Sunday.  It's soft and I can't see the fleece batting when I hold it up to the light.  Next to bind it.

Slow Sunday Stitching

I did move my hoop over a bit to outline another shape IN THE SAME BLOCK that I was working on last week.  I stitched on this block about an hour at the car dealership and and two hours at magnet fishing.  Boy this hand stitching is taking a long time with the stab and jab method.  

 

I switched to a longer needle and ordered some different ones on eBay.  I'm going to try making the stitches from the top.  Either way, I am still enjoying the relaxing stitching therapy as I sew.  The important part to me is that it is relaxing.  I love the improvement I'm making on nicer stitches.

I'm still stitching on this row!!!  I knew this would be a long-term project.  When I finish the current block in the top photo I will be 25 percent done with the hand quilting.  

I really liked Kathy's diagram at Kathy's Quilts about how we start new projects and and finish them once in a while.  During one of my last school days while our son was home and I was still working, he sent me this diagram of some of his summer plans.  It makes me happy that he has a lot of creative plans.  some that make me giggle are "listen to the family" and "don't be mad".  "Lisen to mom" and "Love Family" are on his list.  "Organize cards and stuff"-- thank you AGAIN for the cards that you sent him he just LOVES them!!!

I'm linking up with Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching here. Can you believe it's the end of May?

 

Kitting for the Day

Today is my major maintenance scheduled for my 2004 Dodge Ram.  I will patiently wait with it for about three hours.  I am taking two projects with me to pass the time.  Hopefully I'll get there early enough to get the little cubby area that faces the wall like a desk.

The maintenance is sort of expensive but worth it.  For Christmas in 2024 my transmission gave it up.  The shop that handled my Forever Warranty has to replace the transmission FOR FREE because I kept up on all the service of the truck.  You can read about that in the blog post.

I need to cut the leaves and stems and background fabrics for six tulips that I made last month.

The other project I will take with me is my hand quilted crib quilt.  I don't need the cubby area to work on this project.

A fun thing that our son and I are doing this summer is T-Mobile Tuesday deals.  He is LOVING exploring new places for CHEAP lunches and getting deals like swag from T-Mobile.  Here he is eating his lunch that we got for $3.99 - $4.59 each (he had the "premium" mac & cheese vs. the steamed broccoli.

It's a great lesson on how to download the app, how to access the deal on Tuesdays on the T-Mobile app, how to pay with the app.  There's a lot of following directions and entering data like name, e-mail, address...  Food is his love language.  Might as well utilize it to teach.  He learns soooo much faster when he is really interested in the topic.  He's even getting good at remembering passwords and/or saving them.  Sometimes it's me that needs a little of his help (or at least I act like it so that he has to help me). Teehee.

T-Mobile didn't used to work very good in our area, but a new tower was installed less than 20 minutes away.  We were told that we would not be able to access our AT&T landline after 6/30.  Spring break was a great time for us to switch.  The price averages out the same, but when we utilize all the freebies (like Netflix, Hulu, Paramount Plus, and the food/movie/event stuff...) It works for us.  If you are thinking about switching, give them my name and I think we BOTH get a savings!

Ours is a little more expensive due to our remote area and our son needed a personal hotspot to utilize his laptop in the garage and on the road.  We are very happy with not losing service and a lot less buffering on the things we are streaming.

My husband was working out of town yesterday.  We finished the evening with eight wings from Pizza Hut for $1 each.  Luckily it was right on the way home and pick-up was a breeze.