Unity QA Progress

I've slowed down a little on making progress on my Unity quilt.  This is a quilt along with the amazing Bonnie Hunter.  I challenged myself to make six more blocks today (for a total of eight) of  Part 7 and attached the column to the right side of the quilt.

Although I am still playing with scrappy neutrals, I paid attention to where the light/dark HST pieces landed.  I also used pastels in the corners of each block in Part 7.  I'm hoping a pattern shows when I get all four sections attached. 

It's a beautiful 86 degrees at 10:30 am today in Ohio.  Owen's elearning assignments are getting lighter.  His last day of "school" is 5/28.  Looks like we will get to play outside today and add more water to our pool (Club Med.)  Have a great day!

Cleaning Out the Flowerbed Again & Club Med

I made a lot of progress on cleaning out the flowerbed again.  This is what it looked like at the end of
last summer.


This is how it looked at the end of March, 2020.



Here it is after Memorial Day weekend, 2020.

I still have some fine-tuning of pulling the weeds.  I need to keep in mind where some of the perennials are growing so if I keep up with it next year I'll know which ones to split earlier in the Spring.

And yes, SOMEONE is still stacking things in front of the flowerbed making it hard for me to get in there where the rocks aren't steep.  I got a little tired and sore by the time I reached the east end.  Can't wait until those peony plants bloom!

I'll be able to enjoy viewing the flowerbed from Club Med our little pool.  We decided to stay with the same pool again this year.  It's kinda small for us and the water only comes up to Owen's waist or so now.  It will be a great place to cool off and splash. 

Even though it was in the mid 80's on Memorial Day, 2020, the water coming in from the hose is BRRRRR cold!  We call this our Polar Bear Club photo.    I get elected to press down the glued seam once the water is this high.

My husband reinforced the seams with a vinyl sealant.  He says he was the first into the pool.

Camera Roll This Week

My little garden is progressing.  I hope to get outside and move more perennials to the chicken yard today.  It's nice to finally see some green there.  They are busy digging bugs and worms from the garden and the divots I have been leaving while I plant.  It's a beautiful, sunny, 82 degree Ohio day!

These are my two favorite photos from this weekend (so far).  My husband's old dirt bike started after only two kicks.  He was so proud.  This thing is still a pretty powerful bike.  He was trying to get our son to ride his go kart up this hill because it was "fun".  I stayed on the ground with the 4-wheeler.

Owen did go up on the dirt hill one time.  He was not a fan.  He likes the paths that I mowed for him in the field with the extra bumps made by my husband's pan.  Owen especially likes spinning out in the driveway gravel.

He did get up the hill one time.  He drifted off the side and didn't want to go back up there.  

Here's one of his favorite spin out spots.  If I'm following him he knows he's out of my sight on the curve and gives it the gas.  ;)

Here's a bunch of the plants that I decided to move.  It doesn't look like much now, but I moved more than 60 plants.  Some are in wired areas so that they can get a better start before the flock starts to nibble at them.  The mustard seeds are coming up under one of the crates.  No squash or pumpkins under the others yet.  For the most part they are leaving the crates alone.

Because they ate the ferns in the above photo quickly, I moved a few into the kennel area coop.  This a coop where I keep young chicks if I have them.  The bottom is reinforced with a finer chicken wire and they can't run through the fence.  I don't have any chicks right now.  I continue to wait for one of my chickens to be broody, but right now nobody really wants to sit on eggs.

My husband had to work on the brakes of the old black dually.  This used to be his race-car pulling truck.  Owen learned the fine art of being the helper for bleeding the brakes.  It used to be my job, but I passed the torch.

Here he is in the cab.  He LOVES this kind of stuff!

Here's Wiggles my rooster.  He's such a gentle/tame rooster.  His spurs are about 4" long. 

Below is a pic of my "organic pest control" system.  There's a one minute-ish video on YouTube here.  My trick is that I run the rototiller between the rows of where things are planted.  They love fresh-tilled areas where shiny bugs and worms are exposed.  They flock to the area and dine.  The ducks are smarter and not afraid of the rototiller.  They are close behind me when I am turning over dirt.  The chickens don't like the noise as much and don't get the freshly turned bugs, but like to scratch for them after the tiller is turned off.

It was in the 80's yesterday.  It was hot.  Today more plant moving and flower bed weeding is in store.  Maybe I'll take a few more progress pictures.  I think I'll plant more seeds later in the week.  I need to do that when the chickens and ducks are still in their coops.  If they see my planting seeds they go behind me and pick them out.  Little stinkers -- some of the seeds are treated and I don't want them to get sick also.

Here's our "hot" selfie...  I have a feeling this is how my hair will be for the rest of the summer. Memorial Day is usually reserved for setting up our above ground pool.  We have really outgrown it.  It comes a little above my waist.  We are going to try to make it last one more season.  It will be a good place to cool off and "lounge" during our STAYCATION this year.  We are still staying at home.

Barn Panel Quilt

Happy Memorial Day!  Summer is finally here.

As I dropped off this quilt my friend had another quilt waiting for me to quilt.  I'm not sure which design I will quilt on this quilt yet.  I need to let it sit there while I am working on quilting my Ohio quilt so I can vision one of my edge-to-edge designs on it.

I'm really getting my use out of the large table that was in front of a lawyer's office with a "free" sign on it.  It's definitely used, but works GREAT for my purposes.  Quilts don't hang on the floor anymore like they did when I used my six foot folding table.  It makes it easier to cut from a roll of batting as well.

I told my friend that we were using my "curbside service" feature now.  I leave her quilt on the designated lawn chair in her garage.  She leaves payment and another quilt for me.  I surprised her with a fresh dozen of eggs from my chickens.  Can't wait until my garden produces and she will get surprises then as well.  :)  We have become good friends over the past few years.

Slow Sunday Stitching -- Kinda

I don't have any "hand" work to show from this week, but I did make it all the way to the top of this sew-to-go bag quilt on the longarm this week.

This quilt has cities names hand embroidered throughout the quilt.  I remember sitting and stitching some of them while I subbed in science class.  I remember the student that taught me how to use Snap Chat that day.  I wonder where she is.  I think about the teacher that I filled in for the day.  Her life has drastically changed since then.  Memories are sewn into our quilts.

Linking up at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching.

RSC30 -- XL

It's a late Saturday post.  I didn't get much time to play with green scraps this week.  Today I put together this quilt back for my SSSSQ quilt (designed by Kevin the Quilter.) 

I used many green undesirable  available scraps that were in large chunks.

I don't know the process others use to make piece backs, but mine goes like this.  I actually make the bed.  LOL.  Then I put the quilt that I am making the back for on the bed.  (See the pink/green SSSSQ?  Then I start placing big chunks on it row by row.  I pick up the pieces that I want to use and take them to the sewing machine in the other room.  I sew on that strip.  You'd be surprised how many of the scraps I use that actually match up length-wise.  It's a fun process.  I try to not make it stressful.  These are fabrics that are from my green scrap bin.  Most of them wouldn't be enough to make a big quilt.  I picked out some that I wasn't totally fond of (wether the greens clashed or not) and sewed them together and ripped off the piece that was too long here or there and then pieced a small piece to make it the right size here or there.  Finally a quilt back is made.

It's a gorgeous Ohio day here!  It's 75 degrees and sunny.  I got a late start sewing today because I had to be a hunter, gatherer, forager go to Walmart and TSC to pick up our grocery order and get food for the chickens and cats because.  I was soooooo close to hitting the jackpot on Clorox wipes in my Amazon cart today, but while adding things to the cart to get free shipping (I'm too thrifty to be a Amazon Prime member).  The wipes went out of stock while I added two things to my cart.  Someday I'm going to get them!  I just don't get how businesses are supposed to open up if they can't get the products they need to disinfect everything.  I've been using a bleach mixture in a spray bottle, but the wipes are so much easier to throw in the trucks to keep next to our little "toucher".  I'll keep searching...

In other news, TODAY my husband finally found the missing keys to the RV.  We had two sets.  He hid one "just in case" we lost the other set while on vacation.  He hid them so good he forgot where they were...  He lost the other set (I still they they are at work where he has not returned--and probably won't.)  I'm still okay on that decision too!  I was so happy when he sent this picture to my phone.  I knew exactly what it was without an explanation.

Things are starting to open back up here in Ohio.  We are still very cautious.  I am still in that 9% of people that doesn't have a resolution to our very ancient unemployment system.  I do know that I now qualify and that they are working on it.  Woohoo.  There is a light at the end of this big tunnel.

I took our son out and let him pick carry-out food (that I thought was safe) yesterday to celebrate the end of the school year.  He is done with all of his academics.  All of his grades have been posted.  His last day of school is 5/28, but there are no more assignments.  They are just doing fun things online for the rest of the year.  We celebrated him getting ALL A's!!!  He really worked hard for this.  We did it! 

I'm linking up with Angela of SoScrappy for the RSC20.  Check out the linky party and ANGELA's SUPER CUTE PILLOWS here.

Ohio Quilt is on the Frame

Finally.  I loaded my Ohio quilt onto the frame.  It is my one main goal (OMG) for May.  I should have time to finish it by the end of the month. 

I found a big piece of Amish country quilt quality fabric for the back.  I had enough to make a one-fabric back.  I remember buying this at a fabric garage sale a few summers ago.  I knew it would be a quilt back someday.  It's super soft like high-quality fabric is.  The lady that had the garage sale said her husband said she had too much "stuff".  She was selling her awesome quilting stuff and CANDLES...  I'm not a candle fan.  All of her fabric smelled like candles.  This fabric still smells like vanilla candles...

I'm happy to quilt the bright colors.  I am using my Circle Lord giant template board (15" Baptist Fan).  Now that I am using the template the way it was intended I LOVE this design.  I have put off using this template for so long.  I have quilted with it upside down for years and had trouble lining it up.  I finally did a customer quilt a couple of weeks ago and figured it out by accident.  You can read about it here.