Daughter's Quilt: Ready to Sandwich

I've got my little girl's quilt ready to go to the next level. Pinning the layers is my least favorite part of quilting, but it must be done. Here is the front of it.

I believe the colors look much nicer in person, but here it is. She loves it, which is what counts anyway! In fact, she picked much of the fabric, and then I had to find a few to go with it all. That's why it's a little corny. I will be trying to get this finished within the next couple weeks before her 5th birthday. She knows I'm working on it, so it won't be a surprise, but it would still be nice to have it ready by then. I did something different on the back. I pieced fabrics together from the leftovers, rather than buy new fabric for it. I even had several blocks extra, so they are on the back also. I guess I didn't get a picture of the back.

Silver Lining in the Clouds

I am always hearing about silver linings in the clouds, and a couple days ago, I snapped this picture. It's the view from the front of our house. It was so beautiful. I really needed a panoramic or wide angle camera to get the whole thing.


I am trying to remember to snap a picture of a beautiful sunset also. I see them all the time, but forget to document it.

All Torn Apart

Another old post---

Here's my computer, all torn apart. Not to pat myself on the back or anything, but I saw parts and touched pieces of the insides of my computer that no self-respecting woman should *have* to see. (Some of you may choose to do so, but I didn't have that option!) I was quite nervous about the whole thing, but it's done. I didn't even break it beyond repair! Here's a picture of it.

Mother's Day in Review

I had a lovely Mother's Day. My family remembered! That's major progress, I can assure you. They got me a huge greeting card, and a red rose.

But that's not all. Hubby blessed me with a brand new sewing machine, of which I don't know how I was even quilting without it. I had to do my own legwork to find the machine I wanted, which took a couple weeks, but it was all worth it.

You local ladies are welcome to come over and take a gander at it. You know the invitation's open!

"Did You Miss Me?" My Daughter's Answer....

Well, it's been a while, I know. Busy? Yes. Planting blueberries? Yes. Quilting? Yes. Bit of the blues? Yes, again. (Stuff I can talk about? No. I guess that's why I haven't been blogging.)

I've been searching high and low for some quilting buddies. I went to a quilting club meeting for the first time, in a neighboring town. I had no idea what to expect. It was somewhat disorganized, and definitely intimidating to be around such experts, but totally fun. It is probably good for me to step out of my comfort zone now and then. I showed them all my completed Spring Quilt and they loved it. (We were going to reveal our Spring Quilts to the homeschool lady's quilting group on June 1st, but I think it's been postponed for a while. I guess there won't be any pictures posted until then. :)

Anyway, I got back home, and there I found my 3 kids, all gathered around me, asking me lots of questions about what I did, what I saw, and where I went. They have never been so interested in me! I guess I should go off on my own more often. It felt real nice to come back to such a nice welcome home. I tried to dole out the hugs, each of them wanting more than I could humanly give in just a few minutes. I'm not an octopus.

I asked my 4 yr. old if she missed me. "Yep. I missed you SO much I thought about missing you the WHOLE time! My brain was just filled up with missing you real bad." (emphasis was hers.) I had to write it down really fast, so I wouldn't forget what she said. It brought tears to my eyes.

Our Babies Are Growing Up

Just a brief little update to explain where I've been. We are planting those 4000 blueberry bushes. They aren't babies any more, but teenagers. It is time consuming and back-breaking work. Not to mention that my hands will never be the same. We are planting in mulch, so the splinters abound. I am digging out splinters from all of our hands. I picked up some rubberized gloves tonight, so it should be better now.

I am also having computer troubles again. Yes, my 3 1/2 month old computer had a hard drive failure. I had to get a local computer guy (one of the Dads in our HS group) to slave the hard drive for me, to save some personal data. The computer is still under warranty since it's new, and they'll even pay for shipping (Hooray!!), but it's still a pain in the neck. I have been trying to get my stuff together for our taxes. We have a new accountant this year doing taxes for us (because of our businesses, I can't do them myself anymore like I used to). We had to file an extension for the new accountant to catch up, but now I am the hold up!

I got my sewing machine back and it's working nicely. What a little cleaning and new grease will do; it's amazing. I sneak a few minutes when I can, as I lost a lot of time on the sewing machine being in the shop for so long, and I also couldn't sew during our trip up North. So I feel like I'm behind on my project. Not to mention that I was having withdrawl symptoms.

Off to bed now, as we're going out early in the morning again. It's getting SO hot to plant in the evenings. The kids skipped school today, but for good reason. It won't last forever. It just reminds us of how the pioneers made sure their planting and harvesting took first priority. The rest of "life" had to somehow find a place around the farm work. Actually, my hubby stayed home from work today to plant all day. He took his sales calls as they came in, but otherwise, he took a "personal" day.

Catch you guys soon. I haven't been able to check any body's blogs.

Food Rut Progress

Well, there wasn't another new recipe the last couple of days, but we're staying out of our food rut. Yesterday we stopped at a local produce market, and found several things "in season", or at least close enough to being in season that lots of stuff was affordable. We came home with tons of fresh goodies:

• Corn on the cob, a whole case of it!
• Watermelon
• Peaches
• Black grapes
• Limes
• Bananas
• Mangoes
• Red & luscious tomatoes
• Green beans
• Potatoes
• Vidalia (sweet) onions
• Spinach
• Cucumber
• Carrots
• Red bell pepper
• Yellow crook-neck squash
• Zucchini
• Purple cabbage
• White cabbage
• Cilantro
• Napa cabbage (for more Asian salad)
• Ginger root

Wow! I guess we really loaded up. But it all came to under $50.00. I love that produce stand.