15 Minute Challenge, June 28th

15 Minute Challenge, June 21

First a big happy birthday to Brownie. Love ya little girl. Mind you, she's creeping up on thirty, but she's still my little girl.

Even though I didn't manage to get in 15 minutes some days this week, I think I at least did something quilt related each day. I didn't keep track though and really can't remember.

Last Wednesday, I flipped on the tv when I woke up and the weatherman said the wind we had been having (for weeks on end it seems) was going to let up that day but come back for the next six days. I was so happy because I had things to do in the garden that needed a day without wind, but when I opened the back door, the wind was blowing as usual, ten to fifteen miles per hour. I thought the weatherman really missed it - until Thursday when the wind was howling. It didn't let up at night either, and wind continued to howl through the weekend, gusting up to forty-five miles per hour. Working outside was miserable, so I did the minimum amount of watering and weeding, and on Friday mowed just enough to clip off the top of the tall weeds.

I spent all day Saturday and most of Sunday working on the Baby Bow Tie Quilt, and was making great progress until I picked up the remainder of the muslin to cut my inner border, and the last strip was a quarter of an inch shy of the 1-3/4 inch width needed. If I hadn't cut a strip for some practice blocks, I would have had enough. Argh! So off to the quilt store today in hopes they still carried the same muslin. They did. Whew! I'm not sure what I would have done if they didn't have it.

So here is my report as best I can remember.

Tuesday - Cut strips for bow tie blocks
Wednesday - Nothing
Thursday - Trimmed some HST's
Friday - Nothing
Saturday - Sewed bow tie blocks
Sunday - Sewed bow tie block together, cut 3 borders, and outer border strips
Monday - bought fabric

On the design floor is the Baby Bow Tie Quilt


After seeing the movie The Bucket List a few years ago, I thought of the few things I really wanted to get done before I kicked the bucket, and one of them was to make a baby quilt for each of my girls and for Hubby's niece and nephew and have them finished, boxed, and ready to gift so Hubby just had to get them out of the closet and give it to them. I got one made. So when I finished the top and backing for the Green and Yellow Baby Quilt last week, I decided to get in gear and get those four quilts done. This is number three. Brownie had picked out a specific pattern several years ago, so hers won't be made out of scraps.

I also bought quite a bit of fabric this week. Although most of it isn't for quilting, I still added it to the stash report and that hurt the bottom line. I want to learn to sew clothing for myself and bought some cheap fabric so I can practice on a couple of patterns before using good fabric. Over the next few weeks, I hope to have that fabric out of the stash, but for now, here are my new and not improved numbers.

Hope you all have a good week. Check out Kate's 15 Minute Challenge linky party at
Life in Pieces to see how others have taken up the challenge.

15 Minute Challenge, June 14th

Since it's unbelievably hot for the beginning of June, the weeds are also struggling to live, and that has made my morning gardening easier. Sure, I still have to drag the water hose all over the yard watering this spring's new plantings which are also struggling to live. My goal was to be out in the garden by 7 a.m. and in by 9 a.m. but I manage to putter around, pulling weeds here and there, moving rocks, setting pavestone, and I'm usually not in until at least 11 a.m. Still, I'm not as tired as I was and I've been able to get some sewing done in the afternoon and weekend.

So here is what I got done when I pushed myself to spend at least 15 minutes a day on my sewing.

Tuesday - Trimmed down white borders
Wednesday - Put on green side borders
Thursday - Finished green borders, top is done
Friday - Made back for the green & yellow quilt
Saturday - Trimmed HST blocks, cut strips for bow tie
Sunday - Sewed HST blocks & bow tie blocks
Monday - Trimmed HST blocks, washed new fabric

Hop on over to Kate's blog, Life in Pieces, to see how others are challenged to spend their 15 minutes a day.
We have almost all the onions in, and have gathered bush beans, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, and a few tomatoes. We battled squash bugs, and then the evil squash vine borer got one of my zucchini plants, and I gave up trying to grow squash organically and bought some Sevin spray just for them. The remaining squash plants are thriving, and the rest of the garden is still organic. I just hope the squash bugs don't move over to one of the organics next. If anyone knows how to grow squash organically, let me know. I do know now that radishes do not bother squash bugs in the slightest, even though they were recommended in my companion gardening book. I planted a circle of them around each squash plant, and still the squash bugs invaded. Hubby did surgery on a couple of the squash with borers and dug out the worms, but they kept coming. In years past we have drenched the soil with beneficial nematodes, but it's already too hot this year for that.

Design Floor Monday and Stash Buster Report

15 Minute Challenge, June 7th

I did pretty well this week, in that most days I did something that related to sewing, though I actually only turned on the sewing machine on one day. I took yesterday off as it was our anniversary and we celebrated by entertaining one of Hubby's customers.


Tues Trimmed HST blocks
Wed Buy, wash & iron fabric. After all that, didn't like the fabric with the quilt.
Thu Buy more fabric
Fri Wash fabric, iron, cut borders, sew on borders
Sat Cut out binding strips
Sun Cut out new border strips
Mon Take me out to the Ballgame!

To see what everyone else has done with their fifteen minutes, visit Kate at Life in Pieces.


And since every post looks better with a picture, I'll end this with a dragonfly that followed me around the garden this morning.


Marti

Design Floor Monday and Stash Buster Report 23

Not much progress on the design floor. After several trips to the store for border fabric, I finally decided to make the border white. But once the fabric was washed, dried, ironed, cut into 4.5 inch strips, and attached to the quilt - I didn't like it. I had already begun cutting the last of the green into 2 inch strips for the binding, and laid it alongside the white to see how it looked. I decided I would like the white if it weren't so wide and if the green was used as an outer border. I cut the rest of the green into 3 inch strips and barely have enough green to do the outer border. Now it's bigger than the average baby quilt, but so be it. Maybe the larger size will be a bonus somehow.

All that indecision resulted in 4 yards purchased, and only 1/4 yard used. Word to the wise, the pink fabric with the white stars bled like crazy.



Marti

Quilt Borders, the Bane of my Quilting World

I don't know why, but I struggle with borders more than anything. Last night I pulled out a UFO or WIP if you prefer, and then started trying out fabric from my stash for the border. I didn't like anything I had, and Hubby agreed that it needed a pink, a dusty pink to be exact.

So off to Walm*rt I went this morning after I finished my garden chores. I took a 4x4 square of the floral fabric with me so I could match the pink, and found the perfect match. At least it looked perfect in the store. Now that I have it home, I'm not that thrilled, and I pulled one of my pinks out again to have a comparison.

After yesterday when I stole someone's cart there, I wasn't sure I wanted to show my face at Walm*rt. Well, I didn't steal it on purpose! There was a lady and her cart in front of the tomatoes and I parked my cart beside her waiting for her to move. Then I noticed there were no plastic bags anywhere near the tomatoes, so I left the cart there & walked over to the far side of the produce section to get a bag, and I picked my tomatoes, put them in my cart, and left, with the lady still looking for the perfect tomato. I was halfway across the store when I heard "Ma'am?" "Ma'am?" and I turned around to see her following me. I had put my tomatoes in her cart instead of mine, never noticing that the contents were a bit different. I still don't know if she switched out our tomatoes before she gave my cart back. I may have bought her carefully selected tomatoes while she was stuck with my quickly grabbed ones.


Marti

My ordinary life