Just Sewing and Gardening

Sewing and Gardening - my week in a nutshell. It’s been a great, hot week, although it started out with some wind, rain and temps early spring-like. I was even wearing my fuzzy socks. But the wind brought temps that reached into the 80’s and then the 90’s. Yikes! No complaints here as long as we can get our gardening and errands done before noon and then spend the afternoon sewing - or for Bruce, puttering in his workshop. 

I know most of you are visiting the blog for the quilting part, but I’m going to mix it up a bit and show some more garden pictures first.  You know I’m a big fan of roses, but I didn’t show you all of them last week (nor will I show them all this week), but I do have a few more that are blooming their little hearts out now that I wanted to share.

This one is along the back wall with the two climbers we have. It’s not a climber, but that’s OK. I’ve tried so many things in this spot that didn’t take (mostly clematis - they hate me), so I’m thrilled that this one is thriving among the irises.

I did show this rose bush (below) last week, and although it’s past its prime now I wanted to show it again with the delphinium that started blooming. I lost two of my delphiniums this last year, so they are on my list (along with echibeckia, veronica, and hostas). But every time we run to the big box nursery, we’re getting bags and bags of mulch, and I forget. 

This week we got all the pathways in the vegetable garden laid out with cardboard (a great, natural weed barrier) and fine bark mulch. It looks so nice! I went out to take a picture of the finished project yesterday, but the wind had been so nasty that the rose petals were half gone. A mess.

The rose bush below is one of my favorites (yeah, like we all have favorite children - each and every one). It’s at the curved bend of our front walkway steps.

The little rose tree in one of our front walkway beds. So happy!

Well, that’s enough for now. I had more garden pictures, but between my iPhotos and Blogger, some photos keep being sent to the wrong place on my computer and the editing isn’t showing . Ugh. At least the sewing studio pix that I’ll be using will be OK enough unedited. So, let’s move along, shall we?

I did piece two elephant blocks this week, but I’ll save them for next week when I show the final eight ellies. Hopefully I can get them all pieced into quilt tops to share next week, too. So this week was instead devoted to strings.

Fifteen navy string blocks at 6.5". These will go to Quilts for Kids as-is to use in assembling a kit with matching fabric.

Thirty-six dark and bright blue string blocks (also 6.5”). These, coupled with the few I had left over from last year will go to QFK for use in three quilt kits. 

Once I was done with those, I started on a pile of dark blue and dark green QFK donated scraps I’ve been collecting since last year. This pic was supposed to be turned, but my photo editor is just not seeing the edits. 

After doing some quilty math and pulling out a few additional scraps, I did a few test blocks. That ugly, mushy one on the bottom left was my first effort. It did not make the final cut, but went to play with some new friends in the block orphanage. 

Here’s the final flimsy, with borders added. It measures 42x49”, and I love it. I love these little challenges that I give myself. It keeps things interesting!

The backing is prepped and I’ll baste it during the next week, along with the HST quilt I showed last week. And hopefully I can get them both quilted too. 

Behind the scenes I’m also quilting up some community quilts for Jo at Jo’s Country Junction Community Quilt program. They will also go to our local Quilts for Kids program. More on that when I get a batch finished up. And then next week will also be Elephant week! So I’ve got lots to sew, baste, quilt. If you’re looking for me, I’ll be in my sewing studio!

Linking up to Scrappy Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge at Angela’s So Scrappy blog.