Farm, Food, Family and Four Finishes

I guess today is brought to us by the Letter F.  Fabulous! 

Family:

My grandson Easton was in town in July on leave from the US Navy, and we had a small farewell dinner with him before he left. Poor guy - I think his last several days here were spent doing farewell dinners with all the extended family!  Here we are after a great meal at The Bohemian - a European-style restaurant and brewery.

L-R: My son Ryan, his wife Kim, Bruce, myself, Easton’s girlfriend Madalyn, and Easton

Food:

I hit the -60 pound mark at Weight Watchers on Tuesday morning. That evening, it was our monthly card game night  (Hand and Foot) with my WW friends. I brought this fruit tray that featured some of those giant blackberries from our garden.

Four Finishes:

The Red Ribbons quilt has been bound and is officially done. It will go into my personal To Be Gifted pile for an occasion down the road. I had depleted my pile last May when I went to my Cousins Reunion. 

Red Ribbons was quilted with a basic stipple in the center and an up-down motif (heck, I don’t know how to describe it, but you can see it) in the light border. It finished at 53x66”, and was actually a finish for the month of July. The backing and binding are the same red as the outer red border.

I was able to quilt three of the five little quilts I have basted for the Community Quilts program; these will eventually go to the Salt Lake Chapter of Quilts for Kids. First up is the Tigger Baby Quilt:

I added the blue cloud border to the top and bottom of this already-pieced quilt to bring it up to 39x48”. The backing is a bunch of light blue fabric scraps sewn together.

The second Community Quilt was this little boy’s Star Wars number:

It finished at 39x48” and was backed with this bright yellow yardage from my stash.

The final little quilt was this adorable embroidered Little Girls quilt. It finished at 39.5 x 44”

Oh, this was such a joy to quilt! So bright and happy. There are loops and hearts throughout.  The backing was provided to my by Jo Kramer, and there is another piece of it for a future quilt.

But wait, there’s more!

I did start in on my yellow scrap sewing for Yellow August in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I’m linking up to Scrappy Saturday to join in the fun with my fellow Scrappettes, LOL. 

First up, six anemic-looking Little Bricks blocks. This completes all the blocks I need to make a couple quilts out of these blocks. I’ll begin on those later in the year.

I finished the last 10 Jungle Happy Blocks, framing them in yellow. Instead of showing you the blocks, I have one finished top and one ready-to-web top to show you. This first one is 20 blocks and the color stripes are horizontal. It will finish at approximately 40x50.

The second quilt, with blocks just pinned to the design board, will have vertical color columns. It uses the other 30 blocks and will finish in the neighborhood of 50x60”.

I’ll finish these later this month, because for the next week I’ll be concentrating on finishing the last two little Community Quilts and cutting out - and hopefully sewing - the next 40 star blocks for my son and daughter-in-law’s Christmas quilt.

Farm:

On Wednesday, Cousin Kim came over. She, Bruce and I walked at Wheeler Farm, the County historical working farm that is down a few doors and across a busy road. We have to actually drive there unless we want to take our lives in our hands crossing that four-lane road.

We saw a red fox as we were walking in the back woods area. I wasn’t quick enough to get a picture, darn! But I did snap a photo of this peacock near the Old Milk House.

The cute baby goats and sheep melted my heart!

I also have a soft spot for the old farmhouse. One of my favorite things when I worked at the farm many years ago was conducting tours through the farmhouse and imagining what life was like 100 years ago. This is a side entrance that led out to what was once a kitchen garden.

And here’s a closing shot of the front yard area of the farmhouse, looking over to the activity barn.  I love having this farm a stone’s throw away from us and will miss it when we sell our house (downsizing) next year. 

Thank you if you’ve read this far, and thank you also to the Letter F for sponsoring today’s post (wink).