I have a wee fondness for fabric...

and all sorts of other craft materials as well.

The scary part? This isn't all of it. Only about 2 small bags are yard, and there's none of the beads, trim, buttons, paper crafting, or other craft supplies. Even scarier? There's a significant amount of fabric already "organized" that's not represented here either.

I got everything moved from the playroom and other assorted hiding places around the house into our bedroom so I could have it all in one place. I started washing the stuff that had been in the basement to get out the musty basement-y smell. That's nearly done.

Ah well. It'll get done and I'll be able to find things by sorting through only four or five bins instead of all ten.

Our caterpillars

We have about a dozen monarch caterpillars on our milkweed plants. This is one:




I'm hoping when they get big enough I can take a not-blurry picture. The biggest now is about an inch long; the smallest is less than a centimeter long.

This is the leaf I removed. I felt bad, but according to what I could find, this caterpillar for the milkweed tussock moth will defoliate the host plant. Sorry, guys. I need the milkweed for the monarchs.


No quilty pictures, but quilty gratitude. One of the members of the Quilt Art list offered old magazines, and she lives about 2 miles from my house! She had THREE BOXES of magazines. I'm in heaven. A lot of them are older, but those were my lost-to-children no-quilting years.

Our fun Saturday - Part 2

After lunch, we went to Star Gazing Farm, an animal sanctuary. Here, the turkeys were the surprise hit.







They did have some other animals, but we don't have pictures of them. Most of the time was spent with the turkeys.

Our fun Saturday - part 1

On Saturday, we went to the Montgomery County farm tour. First, the alpaca farm.
Alpacas:


Walking around the fence:




Alpacas:


My lovely kids:


The mid-kid took this one. I'm not sure if he *meant* to have it tilted like this:
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July UFO done!!!

Started in the mid-80s by me and my Memaw:

(My holder is taller than me by a few inches and still isn't quite tall enough.)

The back:


I think you can see some of the quilting pattern for the sashing - I just did pointy lozenges that met (sort of) in the peachy setting blocks. The blocks were quilted in the ditch in the print parts of the bear paw.

Husband and middle son are still alive

But I could've killed both of them Friday night. The mid-kid got his goo all over my quilt in progress (and I was mad at TMOTH for letting him buy it).

SO - I worked like mad, quilted the last block, finished the binding, and threw it in the washing machine. I managed to get all of the goop scraped off and it appears to be gone...

Good thing, too, because our well died Saturday morning. We finally admitted it was not fixable by us Saturday afternoon. TMOTH was going to wait until Monday, but NO, dammit, I do NOT bounce out of bed every morning and head off to work so that I can't get my well fixed when I want it. I'm sure it cost us a couple of hundred more to get it fixed now instead of next week, but it's worth it to be able to shower in the morning.

An unexpected gift

While doing the FabShopHop, I signed up for the e-newsletter at The Quilting Cottage. "Sign up and I'll send you a free gift." Well, I'm thinking a coupon, something like that. Well, THIS lands in my mailbox on Saturday!:


Two lovely coordinating fat quarters (how'd they know I like sage green!). Something simple, but I'm sure to remember them the next time I'm shopping online.

The milkweed post

I noticed this buy (a milkweed bug) on one of our plants today:


When I went over to get a closer look, I saw this!!!

Man, I hope we get caterpillars!

Later, I saw this:

We have aphids on the milkweed, so he's happy.

Photos, not quilty

NO quilting was accomplished tonight. It was kind of discombobulated - late getting home, had to run out for hamburger because the chicken was dicey, had to take the tween's BFF home...but I found the camera.

So here are some squash! The curly one is tromboncino, the three pale green & yellow are Zephyr, and the bright yellow and green funky looking one (far left) is our own special mutant. I know that I didn't order this, and don't think it even exists in any seed catalog that I receive. It looks like a cross between Zephyr and a couple of OTHER types of summer squash. It is currently taking over the garden, even more than the tromboncino, whose spreading I tolerate because the fruit is so tasty.


Patterns! The only issue is which one to make first...

This one is from 1966:


This one is copyright 1967:


This one (my favorite) is from 1971:


The yummy batik:

Freecycle goodies

The camera is MIA, so no photos :(

I responded to a freecycler's posts for "sewing supplies and vintage patterns" and picked some up Friday, some today. The patterns are GREAT - classic "little black dresses", some jackets, a bathrobe pattern...the sewing supplies were not so much great - some polyester thread and some bias tape. AND, buried in the pile of humdrum fabric, about a yard of a stunning blue batik. JACKPOT!! There's quite bit of beige that may work for curtains as well.

Quilting is slow but steady - one block and one row yesterday, two blocks and one row tonight.

A productive weekend

Well, the grand dream of FINISHING the quilting was clearly not to be, but progress was made. Three sashing rows quilted, and 5 or 6 blocks.


Also some gardening time. I've mostly been watching this squash plant grow:


It's in the "finished" half of our compost bin:


Also in there are some tomato volunteers:


We love all kinds of volunteers. Here's one of the milkweeds, with a bee buzzing away. No butterfly caterpillars yet this year :(


At any rate, the ones I planted ON PURPOSE in the garden are farther along. I picked a Zephyr on Friday - actually two that had grown together - and have a tromboncini growing along. I'll have to start checking regularly now.

Some fun in the sun with the Small Man and the kitties:
Cheese!:


Running inside:


Cookie:


Cotton:


And then it rained! YAY!

Productive 4th

- took one strip (4 blocks) off one end of the quilt
- broke the strip into blocks
- embroidered our family's names onto a blank block

Hopefully today I can get the top (back) together. I may decide it needs a border, so will have to make a JoAnn's trip. I also need to find an anniversary present - Monday is #18 for us.

Photos - all to do with yesterday's post

So, this is the quilt my Memaw and I made:


This is a close-up of one of the blocks:


My Uncle Buckshot and Aunt Donna have both passed away now, but I think all my cousins listed are still living.

This batik with flowers will be most of the backing:


This is the Log Cabin:


I think this is probably my baby brother's birthday or Christmas gift when it's quilted.

Last but not least, the big bag-o-batting:

Long weekend ahead, yay!

I started it off with a bang by leaving work early and heading off to Jo-Ann's for their big sale - 50% off batting, notions, interfacing, cutting supplies, and clearance fabrics - PLUS a 10% off everything coupon. I wound up with 5 yards of Warm & Natural, 5 yards of light-weight fusible (in case I decide to make a t-shirt quilt), 3 4-yard pieces for backing, a cool remnant, lots of needles and bobbins, a bigger cutting mat, a smaller rotary cutter, and some safety pins. Also some clearance beading supplies. Also a t-shirt to try fern printing as an anniversary present for TMOTH.

I have 3 quilt tops I need to start working on - one is an orphan top I picked up at quilt guild, one is the July UFO (a signature block quilt my grandmother and I made together), and a king-size log cabin top my grandmother made.

Worst afternoon in a long time...

It seems all I post about lately is gloom and doom...

Friday afternoon started off well enough - I got through most of the mid-year performance evaluations that have to get done.

Then. The phone call from the disgruntled citizen. I'd sent an e-mail to our "life management" listserv at work that our county recycling was going to start taking more types of plastics starting July 1 (yay!! less trash, more recycling!!!) It got forwarded off-list and someone decided that the weasel language in my e-mail signature somehow violated his first amendment rights. This is what it says:

"This message is intended for the use of the individual entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is confidential and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or the person responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you receive this communication in error, please telephone xxx-xxx-xxxx immediately. Thank you."

Hmpf. I grew up with this personality type, who reads something, gets *entirely* the wrong idea, then feels a need to pontificate about it. He didn't want to talk to me about it, he wanted to lecture and threaten me. I hung up when he called me stupid, then answered the phone pleasantly when he called back. (It's ingrained. I'm a public servant. I answer the phone.) He lectured for a couple more minutes, then hung up on me. I'll let my boss know about it on Monday.

THEN it started pouring just as I picked the Small Man up from daycare. It didn't help that Small Man was hot and whiny. Get in the car, head for the tween's BFF's house to pick her up.

Waiting at the light to turn right, and BAM! We're rear-ended. Overall, could've been worse; I don't think the guy was going that fast when he hit me, just too fast for the conditions (i.e., pouring rain). Insurance and ID exchanged, his insurance adjuster is coming by this afternoon to look at the car. (Silver lining - I dragged all of the crap out of the car since it'll have to go in the shop next week.)

Picked up tween, came home, dosed Small Man with ibuprofen, ate dinner (yay DH for cooking), and crashed.

Does ordering stuff for the Featherweight count?

I ordered a new foot controller/power cord, motor belt, and Singer grease/oil.

No, of course it doesn't count.

I'm off the computer to cut squares for the tween's quilt.

Busy weekend

Nothing crafty, unfortunately.

Saturday morning was taken up by cleaning out the pantry. I think the oldest thing I found was pickles from 1998. Everything left in there should be edible now.

Today we took all three cats to the rabies clinic held by the county. 1.5 hours in a blazing hot parking lot, but worth it: "free" shots for the price of a county license; $12 x 3 cats = $36. I couldn't take *one* to the vet for that, and I don't really want to argue about the shots I don't want them to have.

The funny thing is that the woman calling out colors, etc. thought that Cotton wasn't a calico: "not enough white."

What a goof. Her rear end shades into *almost* tortoiseshell, but she's definitely a calico.

Why I haven't been blogging

We lost power almost two weeks ago, and we HAVE had it back for a week, so it's really only half an excuse:

We had to have electricians come out to replace the electric meter.


Of course, before that, they had to cut up the tree that fell across the road and pulled down the neighborhood lines.


A couple of big branches came off the box elder in the yard.


And a couple of pine trees got snapped off about 20 feet above the ground.

I haven't done *any* quilting. I was going to make the tween a pair of pajama pants, but I don't have enough material for her height. She's gotta stop growing sometime, right?

Strawberry season

It's late, so only one picture of strawberry-picking today:


We picked nearly 16 pounds of berries; it's the best I remember in 11 years of going to this place. OK, one more picture:


I got the new sleeve tubed and am sewing it together. I have the fabric tags and need to sew the little paint chips to them and attach to the quilt.

Bird wrangler

An addition to my list of domestic titles.

We have starlings that nest under the eaves. We definitely need to fix this, since they get into the attic. (But we're soft-hearted, so no kicking out the baby birds to do it.)

This morning, my middle kid says, "Mom, there's a bird upstairs." Sure enough, one of the adult starlings is flying around my second floor. I open the window next to the sewing machine and out s/he goes.

This afternoon, my husband says, "There's a bird upstairs." Judging by the down still remaining, this was one of the fledgelings. I opened the stairwell window a bit to open the storm window, and the bird flew up into the space. Rather than try to open the storm, I just grabbed it and carried it out. My daughter (12) is all excited - "I want to see it before you let it go!" So we go outside, look at the bird, let it go. She then looks at me and says very seriously, "You should really go wash your hands now." So I did. No more birds yet this evening.

I brought the iris quilt in from the car trunk so I can re-do the binding. It really needs to get done before guild on Monday.