Category: Home and Yard

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Some X & + Progress and Some Home Grown Stuff

It was good to have a weekend and I did enjoy it. Sheep herding with Rico Saturday morning. A wonderful lunch with friends in the afternoon. And a Sunday full of pickleball. But back to work today. Then another long weekend coming up since my workplace celebrates Juneteenth, a federal holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. You can read about Juneteenth here.

I didn’t get any sewing at all done on the weekend. And I’m ok with that. But I did hit my sewing room after our evening walk tonight and got a little bit done. I trimmed and sewed one more row of the X & + blocks and then sewed the two completed rows together.

It’s really fun to see all the Xs come together in the corners and see the secondary patterns emerge. I’m so glad I decided to deal with a little wonkiness in these blocks and not add sashing.

I love this more each time I look at it. The color combos are not something you see every day. And those little green triangles are magnificent! And the turquoise dots make me smile.

Look at this!

Despite being careful in pinning my blocks together, I seem to be destined to have the first seam every night be a little off.

OMG! That really bothers me. But not enough to rip it out and do it over again.

With the subsequent blocks I was more careful in pinning the seams and got a better result although not perfect. Oh well. Better luck next time.

One of the best parts of my weekend was my first strawberry harvest for the season. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten this many strawberries in one picking.

And they were sooooo good! I just wish I could get better production. It would be great to get enough for my breakfast a couple days a week. But I don’t come anywhere near that.

I also noticed yesterday that I actually have some tomatoes on my plants. This seems a little earlier than normal. Maybe I’ll have ripe tomatoes in early July. That would be so wonderful!

And for my lunch today I picked a gorgeous bunch of lettuce. I ate it in a sandwich with some sharp cheddar cheese on good wheat toast. It was wonderful!

It’s so cool to go out into the yard and pick food! But I’d hate to have to survive on my meagre harvests!

On our walk tonight I was reminded of Wanda at the Exuberant Color blog and her post a few weeks ago about the golden hour.

The low evening sun was shining through the tall Douglas fir trees and lighting this little red tree on fire.

And this next photo doesn’t do this scene justice…. but I was walking on the shaded trail that we walk every day and it was like a tunnel… and to the west where it opened onto a round-about was bright sunlight.

I count myself fortunate every day that this lovely trail is so close to my house. It’s wonderful to have an easy opportunity to feel like I’m away from population.

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A Lovely Long Weekend… And a Bit of Sewing

It was a nice long holiday weekend. It all started Saturday morning with two hours of pickleball. It was a really gorgeous day and it was a great way to start the weekend. I really don’t remember what I did Saturday afternoon. I’m sure I took my boys for a nice long walk but the rest is a blur.

I had to get to bed REALLY early because I needed to be on the road at 4:30 am Sunday for Rico’s sheep herding trial.

I did manage to finish the binding on my NY Beauty wall hanging. I’m pretty happy with how this came together and I’m really glad to have it done. It’s been a lot of years in process.

Sewing on that binding was much easier than I thought it would be. Makes me feel not quite so horrified about the six quilts that will come back to me soon needing binding finished.

Since I had to be up at 3:30 Sunday morning I took some Advil PM at around 8:00 Saturday night and found myself ready to go to bed around 10:30. I was pretty groggy when my alarm went off Sunday morning, But I got out of bed and got moving. We were on the road at 4:30. I was surprised the sky was as light as it was.

I’m happy to say that getting up that early was totally worth it because Rico was a very good boy at the herding trial. He got scores in three of his four runs. That basically means that we didn’t make any mistakes that disqualified us. In sheep herding you start out with a certain number of points for each element of the run. then they deduct points for the parts you don’t do correctly.

Here’s the score sheet for the novice class. Rico had his regular run, and then a non compete run (basically an exhibition run).

This is a trial that allows training in the ring, so that’s really the reason I go. And I really wanted to see Rico do some nice outruns in this trial. it’s where he’s struggled in the last couple of trials. And he gave me beautiful outruns all day. In his first run he lost 7 points on the outrun. On his second run he only lost three points!

Here’s the score sheet for his ranch class. His second run featured a perfect outrun and lift. Those zeros are a very good thing! They mean he did such a lovely job they couldn’t take any points from him!

I was so happy with how he did. Definitely worth the trip. And we started so early that we were on the road home at 10 am!

You can learn all about sheep herding trials at this Wikipedia page.

Here’s Rico watching another dog work the sheep.

He was a good boy and waited patiently for his turn.

Bender got to join us for a nice field run before we hit the road for home.

I was so tired when I got home that about all I could manage to do was a little grocery shopping for my Memorial Day pot luck dinner. I also got my pork tenderloin and chicken thighs in their marinades and in the fridge.

I went and played pickleball again on Monday morning and had a blast! My knee is feeling so much better… thanks to the power of ice and CBD oil!

I had a wonderful time with my friends at our Memorial Day pot luck dinner. The food was good and it was really fun to see friends!

My yard looks pretty perfect right now and we were comfortable outdoors the entire time.

I got up early again today and played 3.5 hours of pickleball! The last four or five games were the best. A lot of people had left and I got on a court with three men and we had a bunch of really fun and competitive games. None of us wanted to go home!

But once I did get home I grabbed some lunch and then headed out to a nice, big garden center West of me.

It’s a beautiful place and it’s huge!

I bought two red grasses and a lavender plant. And I quickly got them planted when I got home…

I also planted a couple of hostas that I bought last week.

After dinner I took the boys for a nice three mile walk. The weather was so perfect! It was really an amazing day.

Then I hit my sewing room to work on the Wensleydale quilt top. I sewed together four more rows of bocks, and sewed the six rows that were done into sets of two rows each.

So just four more rows that need to be sewn together.

And I’m pinning pretty carefully to make sure these blocks all come together nicely. It’s working well so far and I’m liking what I see.

I’m a little anxious to get this quilt off my design wall so I can decide what to do with my Japanese X#+ quilt.

Back to work for a few days. I had planned to take Friday off as well, but I’m not sure that will happen. I’d like to make it happen!

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Back to My Indigo Wensleydale

My weather app told me that we were expecting a round of thunder storms to rumble through this evening and throughout most of the night, with the possibility of flooding in some areas. But the whole thing fell apart and I didn’t get more than a few sprinkles. Rico was very relieved that there would be no thunder.

So we headed out for a walk once we felt confident that we weren’t going to get stuck in a downpour. We got to see a gorgeous sunset as we walked. And it just got better and better.

The first glimpse I got of it was when we got to the park just three blocks from my house.

My house is about 300 yards on the other side of those trees.

About a quarter mile from this spot, the sunset was at its best.

It’s such a treat to have our walk include a gorgeous view of a fiery sky.

When I got home it was a little after 9:00. I messed around, put a load of laundry in the machine, and finally hit my sewing room at 10 pm. For me, the night is young at 10 pm!!

The first thing I did was make two more of the selvedge blocks. I’m really loving how these look.

I have some ideas of additional pieces to make to add up to a bag, but I need to be careful because I have a limited amount of these selvedges.

With all those nasty backings and bindings I’ve been working on I’ve been itching to get back to the final ten blocks for my Wensleydale quilt. So I took a few minutes and cut the remaining light batiks I need for five of the blocks.

Then I made up the last five kits for these blocks.

I hope to be able to get a couple of these blocks sewn tomorrow night.

I love the evenings this time of year. I’ve tried to make a comfy place to hang out on my patio and I just love it. I recently purchased some LED solar lights that screw onto the top of a Mason jar. Then I ordered some metal stakes to hang them in my planters. You can see them in this photo. they have a little string of LED multi colored lights bunched up on the inside.

Here’s a quilt video tour I made tonight.

We still have our little house guest, Jefe, here for a couple more days. He’s been fun to have around and he’s really easy. It’s been a long time since I had an old dog in the house and it’s really interesting to deal with a dog who is almost completely blind and very deaf.

He really does an amazing job of making his way around my half-acre yard. He’s developed his own path and finds his way all the way to the back of the yard and then back to the patio without issue. He’s even discovered the dogs’ wading pool and thinks it’s the best place to get a drink.

He’s been sleeping a lot the last couple days. I think all the activity an excitement has worn him out.

I’m sorry to report that I’m a little disappointed in my boys again this year. Once again they completely forgot Mother’s Day.

I’m looking at my calendar and planning a nice long weekend in the next few weeks. Every day I take off reminds me that I need more!

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Lucky 13 — Just 13 More Wensleydale Blocks to Go!

What a crazy weather day. The sun was shining when I got up this morning. The rest of the day included downpours, ice balls, rain, rain and more rain, moments of sunshine, and a high of about 45 degrees. I had to check the calendar to confirm that it really is April 20 as I type after midnight. I wore a parka and gloves for our evening walk!

But even with all that, we had this too.

That’s sort of magical.

The good news is that the forecast tells me we will have a day of 80 degrees with sun in about a week. I can hardly believe it’s true!

After our evening walk I headed down the hall to my sewing room to dig in and make a few more Wensleydale blocks. I was having so much fun seeing these new fabrics come together that I made four blocks!

I keep saying it, but one of my favorite things about this quilt is that every block is completely different! It also makes It more fun to make… I don’t thrive on making the same block over and over.

Here’s all four blocks.

This means that I’ve made a total of 47 blocks! It’s hard to believe I’ve made so many of these. I timed myself the other night and it takes about a half hour to sew a block. By the time I finish the final 13 blocks, I’ll have 30 hours of sewing time in these blocks. That doesn’t really seem that bad.

I’ve been noticing the last few days that I’m getting little flaps of fabric folded over when I sew my lines on the paper templates. I’ve also been seeing pins getting stuck on the edge of the sewing machine bed as I sew. I finally realized tonight that the legs on my extension table had adjusted themselves and my table was too low. The bed of the sewing machine was sitting up above the top of the extension table about a quarter inch.

So as I was sliding my paper template with the fabric on the back under the needle, it was catching on the edge of the machine and getting folded over.

My extension table has little legs that are easily adjusted by turning the little feet. I’m guessing they’ve lowered over time from all the vibrations.

I took a few minutes and adjusted this before the last block I sewed tonight.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner. I’ve never had issues with the fabric folding over when I’ve paper pieced in the past. That last block went together so smoothly!

Oh, and that extension table? It’s an amazing thing. They are custom made to fit your machine. Really a fantastic thing if you don’t have a sewing table that your machine sits down into.

I’ve had mine for years and I just love it. One of the best purchases I’ve made. This is where I got it. They even make them for Singer Featherweights!

Something I noticed in a drawer of my sewing table tonight was this block of styrofoam I have where I put all my broken needle and pins. I’ve been sticking sharp stuff into this for quite a few years. It’s a great way to keep all those sharp items away from fingers.

I even use this to store different needles that are still good for use. I just write on the block what the needle is and then stick the needle in.

Now I’m gonna sit back and remove some more paper from blocks as I watch some late night TV.

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Twelve Kits and a Mess of Paper

My budget has been submitted! It was due on Friday, but a last minute critical thing we had to handle took up my entire day on Thursday so I got an extension on getting this wrapped up. It feels good to have it done and I’m looking forward to working on something else.

I stepped away from work today right at 5;00, hurried and grabbed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and headed out to play pickleball. I played from 6:00 – 9:00… and there were few enough people there that I played the entire three hours. I’m really happy to say that I’m getting better and better! It was really a fun night.

By the time I got home it was around 9:30 and I was tired and it was raining. Big surprise there. So my boys didn’t get an evening walk. But they settled in nicely and have been snoozing since then.

I hit my sewing room for a few minutes to cut some KFC fabric strips for the centers of my next twelve Wensleydale quilt blocks.

Oh, yum!

I cut enough for twelve more blocks and combined two fabrics for each block.

Then I pulled out the indigo batiks I cut the other night and put together a dozen kits for the next set of blocks.

After three hours of pickleball, that’s all I had energy for. So I headed for the sofa. And sitting on my coffee table were the 18 blocks that still needed the paper removed. So I sat down in front of the TV, pulled up a pickleball tournament on YouTube and cracked away.

I got the paper removed from ten of these blocks and iced my foot at the same time.

This felt like a good accomplish this evening. I don’t have much to give after all my physical activity.

I just love looking at the back of the blocks.

I have a little more spring to report. The flowering pear trees in my back yard are in full bloom and they are beautiful.

I have these trees all over my yard.

More blooming things are showing up around the neighborhood. The magnolias are looking good!

Those blooms are as big as my hand!

My lawn is finally greening up. I don’t think my front lawn has ever looked this good.

Bender met a new friend on our afternoon walk today.

This never happens.

Oh my god… I’m so tired! G’night!

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Too Tired to Finish

I’m so close to having this Aboriginal Frankenbag done, but I’m just too tired to do the final finishing. All I have left to do is sew in the lining and top stitch the top of the bag. The handles are from the darker faux leather I purchased.

I like to have a nice finish at the top of the bag… even sewing, nice pressing, and even top stitching. If you go to all the trouble of making a nice bag and then make a mess of the final piece that is the most visible, all the care is for naught. I’m so tired from a stressful week of work that I decided to stop at this point and finish it up tomorrow night when I’m more fresh.

Here’s the back of this bag:

That’s the lining under the bag. I just love that print! This fabric is left over from a backing I made for my Social Distancing quilt. That blog post shows the lining. This one shows the quilt top.

I just love these Aboriginal fabrics. The designs are so intricate and free form, and the colors are amazing. I might have to keep this one. But then I say that with every one I make!

Look at some of the fun little details in these fabrics.

I switched up the quilting on this one a little. I still did the match stick quilting at the top of the bag because I like the structure it brings. But I did the body of the bag with straight line quilting, spaced about 3.8 inch apart.

Tomorrow (Friday) is Bender’s eighth birthday! I can’t believe that I’m already seeing his face turn white. He felt very special today as he was the only dog who got to go with me on our two walks. Rico tweaked his back at our agility lesson last night and had to stay home by himself. He was not happy about this situation! I will cook a peanut butter, carrot and honey birthday cake for him tomorrow night. Rico will get some too.

Facebook fed me this memory of my Parson Russell Terriers Forrest (left) and Skeeter yesterday. Look how cute they were! This photo was taken shortly before Bender was born. We were anxiously waiting for news that a boy border collie was born and would be on his way to us!

I lost my magnificent Forrest about 3.5 years ago when he was 14.5 years old. I loved that dog like I’ll never love another dog. Skeeter is living with a friend of mine on Vashon Island, Washington. She has a pretty amazing life and is thriving.

I went out this afternoon to check on my apple tree and was happy to see some really healthy looking buds.

This tree can be really hit and miss on how much fruit it produces. Two summers ago I was buried in apples. I just couldn’t keep up. I was making a batch of apple sauce and a dehydrator full of apple slices every evening and still couldn’t keep up. Last year I barely had any apples.

I had my yard guy prune this tree way back a few weeks ago. But he left me a couple branches that are the ones that usually bear the most fruit. So I’m hopeful that I’ll have a reasonable amount of apples this year.

Look at the amazing weather we have coming up. It would normally be raining at this time of year. I actually had to water a portion of my lawn this afternoon.

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One More KFC Scrappy and Reader Makes

I finished putting this Frankenbag together tonight. And I like it a lot more than I thought I was going to.

I think the black and white jumble, crease, and the swirly background fabric help these crazy fabrics make sense.

Here’s the other side of the bag.

And I love the black and white crease lining on this bag. I think it works much nicer than a bold print would have.

And that pocket made out of jumble. Well, it’s kind of fabulous!

Two of my blog readers made bags from my Frankenbag Tutorial and sent me photos of what they made. It was really fun to get to see them. I asked them if I could share them here and they were on board!

Poppy MacLean made this one that includes what looks like stack and whack KFC orphan blocks and some fun checkerboard piecing on the other side. I love all the color on this one! Those pops of orange are pretty fabulous!

Sharon Osborne also made one from KFC scraps. She included a really fun paper pieced plant in a pot, with lots of orphan nine patches. That green jumble is really bold and I love it!

Here’s the back with some great little nine patches.

Sharon’s paper pieced plant reminded me of a book I purchased a few months ago that features some similar blocks.

She’s gotten all kinds of creative juices flowing for me! You will probably see a little potted plant in a bag very soon.

I’m thinking my next bag will include some border collie and sheep fabrics surrounded by a variety of black and white fabrics.

The crumb piecing will be made from the various black and white fabrics and the accent blocks will use the border collie and sheep fabrics. Haven’t decided yet what those blocks will be. I made some zipper pouches out of these fabrics a few years ago.

I have a lot of black and white fabrics. They are some of my favorites.

I celebrated my 11th anniversary of starting work at Oregon Public Broadcasting today. My job there is heading up the membership fundraising team. I’m so lucky to work with a group of really amazing people. I can’t believe how fortunate I am.

This job was the reason I picked up my life and moved to Portland from Salt Lake City. I’d had my eye on this job for quite a few years and when I got a call asking if I’d ever considered a move to Oregon, I jumped on it. I’ve never regretted the move. I can’t believe it’s been 11 years.

When I celebrated my tenth anniversary last year, sitting alone in my guest room office, I never had any idea that I’d celebrate the next one in the same way. I’m hoping for good things to come and that I’ll be celebrating with friends and co-workers in person next year.

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day here in Portland. It was in the mid 60s and sunny. A truly glorious spring day. My yard guy came by to plant the trees he brought by a week or so ago. But before that he wanted to dig the bamboo out of the stock tanks on my patio so we could get a clear view to position my new trees. The tanks were terribly root bound and the bamboo removal turned out to be a huge job. Five hours later he had gotten out four clumps.

This is really tall bamboo. We had hoped it would grow and fill in to provide much needed shade to my patio on summer afternoons and evenings. But it failed to thrive so we’re abandoning that hope after several years. I will use the stock tanks as raised garden beds this summer. I’m looking forward to fresh lettuce throughout most of the summer.

A friend of mine will come and pick up the bamboo and plant it in her yard. She is also bringing me a clump of smaller bamboo that I’ll put in a pot on my patio. My yard guy will come back tomorrow and we’ll finalize the location for my new patio shade trees and he’ll get them in the ground.

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Cleaning Up This Mess

I haven’t felt great the last couple of days. I’m feeling the need for a vacation and I think I’m not drinking the water I need to be drinking. So I haven’t felt much like sewing .

I did get a little spurt of energy after our walk tonight and got into my sewing room and started cleaning up some of the mess that’s been driving me crazy.

I’ve needed to organize and put away fabric that I’ve purchased over the last few months. There was so much fabric stacked up on my sewing table that it was getting in the way of feeding fabric through my machine.

I also had stacks of the black and white fabrics I’ve purchased recently, as well as the new KFC fabrics that I’ve purchased in the last couple weeks that needed to be put away.

I started by cleaning out some drawers in the Ikea dresser that I use for fabric storage. I was able to free up the three smaller top drawers and got all of my black and white fabrics put away. This is all the new black and white fabrics I’ve bought recently, as well as the black and whites that I already had.

One of these drawers had a mess of batik scraps. One had Kaffe scraps. I can’t even remember what the third had in it. It feels so good to see all of this organized and put away!

I took all the new KFC fabrics and the stuff that was stacked on the sewing table and sorted it all out by color. This photo shows all that fabric plus the newest Kaffe fabrics that arrived today (my second order of the new stuff… because I just wanted more of it!).

I was able to clean out one large drawer in my dresser that will accommodate all these KFC fabrics. But in order to get all this organized and put away I need to combine it with the KFC fabric that’s already in the dresser.

So I’ll have to pull all of this out and then put all the fabric back in according to color, with a few exceptions. I keep all my spots and all my paperweight, Roman glass and millefiori in one place. I’m thinking I can get this done tomorrow night.

Maybe having this mess cleaned up a little will help motivate me to get back in there again!

We’ve had glorious weather the last few days. It definitely feels like spring here in Portland.

My yard guy has been here this week doing some serious pruning of my apple tree, which has gotten sort of out of hand. The yard feels so clean and neat with that tree trimmed up!

I also have him planting some new trees that will eventually provide some needed shade for my patio. Our previous attempt at using bamboo in galvanized steel tanks has not proven successful. The bamboo will come out and these tanks will be used as raised garden beds.

I’m hopeful and positive that these three new trees will provide some nice shade in a few years and make it so that I can use my patio on summer evenings.

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Not Very Exciting, But Very Productive

Spent some time in my sewing room this evening and really got a lot done.

I finished eight blocks for my Ice Storm quilt and started on the final four strip sets.

Then I sewed another row of the scrappy KFC trip quilt together and sewed the first two rows together.

Today I got one of the final two packages of black and white fabrics I purchased online. This was a big package of 20 pieces. The one I’m still waiting for has six pieces.

Here’s all the black and white fabrics I’ve purchased in the last few weeks.

There are some really fun fabrics in this stack. It will be fun to see how they work up in a quilt.

Amazingly, I’ve only duplicated one fabric in all the many pieces I’ve purchased recently. I think that’s pretty impressive!

We went for a sheep herding lesson this morning and we had a really productive hour on the sheep. It was such a gorgeous day and so fantastic to be outside after a rainy day yesterday.

After herding I took the boys for a five mile walk around Washington State University. There were a lot of people out walking on this beautiful day. Take a look at this sky!

They’re pretty worn out tonight. Bender is too pooped to play.