Thursday, June 6, 2019

Good Fortune and Bad Fortune

So, first the bad. My trusty little iron died. It was about 3-4 years old, the longest I’ve ever had one of the little ones. (The big weight-lifting caliber Rowena still functions just fine, dammit!) I use the little one almost daily. Since it plugs directly into the multi-outlet surge protector (like the sewing machines), everything gets turned off when I’m finished working (which really means playing) for the day. Bruce, an electrical engineer, was able to fix it, but it was not designed to be put back together. Insert sad face here! So, I’ll be using an Amazon gift card I got for Mother’s Day to buy a new one - and some new quilting gloves. Since the weekend, I’ve quilted 4 small baby quilts for Quilts for Kids and finally really LOOKED at my poor gloves. They're hole-y and worn out, so I’ve got some serious online quilty shopping to do.

And speaking of Mother’s Day, which was over 3 weeks ago I realize, I also was given an orchid. I snapped a picture of it to prove I’ve managed to keep it alive for three weeks so far. My green thumb is definitely limited to the outdoor garden, not indoor plants and flowers. Here is a picture of the orchid along with some matching irises (pure “coinkydink") from the yard.


I won’t regale you with all the false starts I had in the sewing room today that fall under the category of Bad Fortune. Instead, here is my Good Fortune quilt that I finally added the binding to this afternoon. YAY!  It finished at 55x69” - I intentionally left out one of the borders. This was Bonnie Hunter’s Mystery Quilt-Along quilt for 2018-2019, and the first Bonnie Hunter quilt that I’ve finished - but not the last!


The back is the 2-tone green print that I’ve had in my stash for a few years.  The quilting I did was free-motion flowers, swirls, feathers and anything else I wanted to practice on. It actually looks pretty OK. You can kinda/sorta see parts of it in the picture below.  This was goal #2 on my Finish-Along list for the second quarter. You can see my list here.


Since we were out in the garden snapping pictures of Good Fortune, I had to take some more pictures of the garden. After all, I hadn’t taken any pictures since Monday. HAHA! Actually, we had some incredible weather in the high seventies/low eighties (F) on Tuesday and Wednesday. (Today it’s been raining and is breezy again. I guess those two days were our summer......) Anyway, look at the difference in some of these pictures!

So, this is my Chihuly rose; it’s a floribunda. The picture on the left was taken Monday, June 3 and the one on the left (different angle and time of day) was taken today, June 6.

Chihuly Rose

And this red climbing rose and irises are shown on Monday (left) and Thursday (today, right)


Our vegetable plants have gone nuts and are finally growing by leaps and bounds. Even one of our tomato plants has a tomato!


I know I’ve shown this vignette under the apricot a time or two already this spring with the bird bath, the miniature roses, Boomer’s headstone and the hollyhocks. But just look at how those hollyhocks have taken off. They’ll be blooming soon!


Now, I’m off to see if I still have time to pick a goal for June for One Monthly Goal (OMG) and link up.  

6 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your finish of Good Fortune, it is beautiful. My iron died too, and I finally got a new one last week. Your gardens are lovely!

    ReplyDelete
  2. On the subject of irons, I've learned that the $20 ones last just as long as the $100 ones and I feel a lot less guilty when I need to replace one!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your 'Good Fortune' quilt looks great. Not sure I could ever manage one of her patterns (too many pieces to fit together) but I do love them. Re the orchid - do you water it with ice cubes? I learned that and have been watering mine and it's really doing well. Except for one thing - I also learned (to my detriment) that you shouldn't ever cut off the flower stalk when the blooms are done, because that's where new blossoms grow. Oops!!! Oh well, at least I have some pretty green leaves!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love your good fortune - and lovely garden

    ReplyDelete
  5. Love the colors in your Good Fortune!! Congrats!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love your version of the good fortune quilt. The colors are so cheerful. Your iris in the garden is gorgeous. I do wish I still had a garden. But I did get my flower pots planted. I have mostly shade, so my choices are limited. Impatiens is my standby, as well as coleus. Keep up the good work. I will be picking up my new machine tomorrow it’s going to be a whole new world for me for instance free motion quilting.

    ReplyDelete

I appreciate your visit to my blog and love your comments!