The Weekend was Productive

I accomplished most of what I wanted to. There are still a few gardens that need cutting down, but that's a never ending job. I got a bit sidetracked when my dear husband accidentally spilled a full cup of hot coffee down and under the refrigerator and across the kitchen floor. It was a mess and he had to pull out the refrigerator so I could clean the floor behind it. Of course, the vents were dusty so they had to be cleaned and then the whole floor had to be scrubbed...

I was actually happy he did that because it was the first time the refrigerator has been pulled out since we bought it two years ago.

I did finish quilting the feather design border. (4/21 6:19 PM I switched out the pics because this one shows the quilting much better)

I think it took about 4 hours. I sat in front of the TV and watched taped Gardener's Journal, Kitty B., and Simply Quilts while I worked on it.

I am beginning to see the end of quilting on this one. I still have the same border on the other side and then the final border to quilt. Probably a minimum of 20 more hours and then the binding and it will be done. It's nice to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

I harvested my first chives and DH bought some Vidalia onions. YUM!

I caramelized some onions with mushrooms to top these steaks that DH cooked Saturday night.

It was a good weekend.

Snow in the Summer and Christmas Mittens in the Spring

Imagine my surprise when I found my elf Christmas mittens in my rock garden.

How in the world did they end up here? Maybe those elves do move around while we sleep!

I pondered that thought all morning. Finally I figured it out. I had these mittens in one of my evergreen bouquets on the kitchen counter. When I took the evergreen boughs out I tossed them over the rock wall. The mittens dropped out on the way to the wall.

Now I need to remember what was in this pot that I stuck in the ground last fall to overwinter.

I am pretty sure I blogged about it, so I will go back later and find out. I can't tell you how often this blog has come in handy for me to remember things.

This mat of silver is snow-in-the-summer. I get many people googling how to remove grass from this ground cover (and from phlox). I thought I'd show how I do it.


There is no easy way. You must be brutal. Just stick a shovel in near the grass and pop the whole shovelfull up (I normally wear gloves, but I had to remove them to get the camera).
Get as close to the grass root as you can and shake the soil away so you can get the full root. If you don't go after the whole root, you may as well not bother pulling the grass. It will be back before the week is out.

Once it's out just pull out the shovel and let the soil drop back down. I don't even bother to stomp on it or pat it down.

I never notice any killing of the ground cover from this method. Snow-in-the-summer is one of those plants that is almost impossible to kill. I just keep sticking the shovel in and removing grass until I've had enough of it (you will never get it all unless you have a very tiny patch--save your sanity and just put in a respectable amount of effort and move on). Here's mine after I dug around for about 15 minutes.
I just leave it like that. It will look great after a rainfall and a bit of warm weather.

Look what else the shovel turned up. My first grubs of the year!

It's early in the season so I am too squeamish to squish the little devils between my (gloved)fingers. Instead I dropped them on a rock and initiated my new gardening shoes. Ah, what fun! I squished 5 of them.

It's 3:00 p.m. and I have put in a pretty good day of garden work. I hope I don't feel it tomorrow. Gardening work usually doesn't make me too sore. But I am getting older and I suspect that's one more thing that will be changing as I move toward those golden years.

Weekends are for Sleeping In?

Not in my little world.

I'd never get anything done if I spent my two days off sleeping.

Here is what I was doing at 6:00 a.m.

Marking my feather design for quilting. Remember when I told you I put in a long green border on my star quilt and that I would be very happy next winter to reach that point with no seams when I quilted it?

Well, that is the exact point I am at on the this winter's quilting project. After months of hand quilting over zillions of seams, I am now at the glorious point of having over 9 feet of seam free quilting. I found a nice feather design and used yellow chalk to mark it. I have been using a combination of a disappearing ink pen (blue ink) and yellow chalk to mark this quilt. I like the pen, but the color didn't show up on this purple border so I had to use chalk.

I have done all sorts of different patterns of quilting on this one.

There are big clam shells, little clam shells, triangles, diamonds, straight lines (well, not exactly straight, LOL) I like to change the design to keep myself entertained as well as to find ways to limit the amount of seams to quilt over.

I love to watch the quilt take on a personality as each section is quilted. I guess if you aren't a quilter, you wouldn't understand how exciting that is. We quilters can't keep our hands from slowly caressing the quilt top after we finish a design. Before it's quilted, it's just a bunch of patchwork pieces. The quilting gives it life.

I have made a mental goal to finish quilting this border this weekend. It's a lofty goal because I also plan to finish my outdoor work. So I guess I'd better quit blogging and get to work!


8:15 am update.

I took a shower (yes, I showered before I went out to work in the garden) and while getting dressed to go outside I realized that I didn't have any gardening shoes.

My favorite leather slip on shoes finally bit the dust last year and were tossed. I needed something stronger than Crocs if I planned to do any real work.

Luckily I used to buy a lot of shoes and I found these in my sewing room closet. Yes, they are nearly new even though I have probably had them more than 5 years. The only time I ever wore this type of shoe is when I went to the gym and I stopped doing that about 4 years ago.

So out I go to see if I can work in these. They do look quite fashionable with my biking pants, don't you think? No, I don't bike. I just liked the pants.

I hope we all have a very productive day today.

Has Anyone Read this Book?

I am trying to read it. I am on page 30 and it's been over 2 weeks since I started to read it.

I must not like it much or I would have found the time to continue. By now I have forgotten almost everything in the first 30 pages.

I am trying to decide whether to give it another shot this weekend, or just forget it.

So I am looking for anyone who has read it to guide me forward. Is it worth trying again?

I want to enjoy it because this author has written a number of books and I am eager to find an author that I just can't wait to read the next book.

I need to take a weekend trip.

It's the only time I get to read.

I've worked a bit each night on the gardens. Just a bit. No more than one hour per night. I hope to finish it all this weekend.

Here is the rest of my fashion show week.

Wednesday, my newest copper shine top with the animal print jacket I bought as one of my very first CC purchases. I love this jacket (so much that I ordered another one with aqua animal stripes. It's a very lightweight jacket which is what I like):

Thurs: The coral jacket (this is the one I matched my nail color to)

and today it was back to the darker colors. This is the only outfit that was not purchased from CC:

So there you have one full week of my work attire. Every day I wore black pants (I bought 8 pair of the exact same pant). I went from wearing only dresses and skirts to wearing only pants during the past year or so.

I used to wear pantyhose everyday.

Now I never wear pantyhose.

I am getting very boring in my dress habits.

Fold up the Quilts and Bring Out the Crocs!

I just spent my first 45 minutes outside cleaning the gardens.

It felt good!


It's only 58 degrees, but to me that's perfect for cleanup work.

After work this afternoon, I cut down 2 wheelbarrow loads of Sedum Autumn Joy and picked up some big pine branches that fell during the winter.

That was enough for my first time out in '08.

It's supposed to be around 60 degrees for the next few days, so I will probably do a bit more each night.

I have decided to continue my fashion show. Today I wore my new blue jacket with the ruffley edge. Here I am at 6:30 this morning just before going out the door (had to edit and remove the head. I couldn't stand it anymore):
I liked this jacket enough to buy two of them. I have a peach-colored one just like it.


i am wearing the same jewlery as I wore yesterday. I've been pretty lazy lately about changing my jewelry. I used to take the time to change all my accessories every day--even my purse. Now I just put on whatever jewelry is the easiest to grab and I use the same purse every day. I guess I used to enjoy dressing for work more than I do now.

In the Pink (and Black)

I love pink and black together.

A couple of you asked for a fashion show with the new jackets, so here it is...at least one of them. Please forgive the missing head. :)

I am quite happy with all 5 of the new jackets. Well, I haven't actually worn the jean jacket yet. It's the one most of you liked the best, but I like it the least. It's too casual for work and I almost never wear jeans. I had cool summer evenings and capri jeans in mind when I ordered it. One of these days I am sure I will find a reason to wear it.

Can you stand one more post about the quilt? It was bothering me that there was no dark border to anchor it. To me most quilts need a dark border. Today at work I thought of some blocks I had been sewing for the past year. When I felt like doing mindless sewing I would do a few of these and toss them in this plastic bin. (The 2007 is for the Roses are Red quilt. It was intended to be done by the end of 2007 and that label was to be sewn on the back. I think I will call it "close enough" and sew it in anyway)

I was thrilled when I got home and discovered that I had enough of these blocks to add another border to the star quilt. (If I keep this up, it will end up as another king-sized quilt). So here is a pic of the quilt as it looks with the new border.



It uses most of the same fabrics that are in the stars. Here's a close up of one corner:

There are 436 pieces in the border! It would take a long time to just sit down and sew them all together. When I was making them, I thought I'd be happy one day to have a border all ready to sew on.

Today was the day. And I was indeed quite happy to remember I had these!

So in the last two days it went from this:

to this:

to this:


I am pretty certain that I am now done! :)

Fast Food Toys, a Preening Turkey and More of the Quilt

My husband has a very odd hobby.

He collects fast food toys.

He has thousands of them--many, many thousands.

His twelve-year old niece decided to get rid of her collection and gave Uncle Jim a call. Of course he couldn't resist another three bags of them.

He found a few he didn't have so he was happy.

We had 4 hens and a Tom turkey visiting today. Here's Tom trying to impress the ladies. Unfortunately I couldn't get him with a full tail feather spread. The ladies just ignored him and continued walking away.



I decided to add a border to the star quilt and spent a good portion of the morning making the 4 corner blocks and attaching them. I decided to finish it now while I still had matching fabric. It would be just like me to use up all the fabric in another project without realizing that I still needed that fabric for a border.I like the size much better now.

This quilt is made of 289 3-inch blocks. Here's the back side. You would never guess what the front looks like from the back, would you?
Most of these 3-inch blocks are made from 8 different pieces. That's a TON of seams and a hand quilter's nightmare. Just look at all these fabric layers that must be quilted through . Since these seams are every three inches, it is nearly impossible not to have to quilt through them.
The 6-inch plain border will give me a place to quilt with no seams and I can do some sort of fancy pattern in that area. I can now fold it up and put it away until I decide to start the quilting. I will also cut the fabric for the binding and fold it up inside the quilt top so that I have it when the time comes.

I can't believe it's 1:30 p.m. already. The day is zooming by. I am cooking pork roast and scalloped potatoes for dinner. A nice comfort meal for a cold spring day.

My Snow Finally Melted so I Thought I Would Start Cleaning My Gardens Today

until I woke up and saw this!


It was so beautiful that I had to go out and take pictures.

Needless to say, there was no garden work done today. Nonetheless, I enjoyed a wonderful day. I cleaned just a little, I finished the 64 3-inch blocks I've been working on all week to finish off the X's for this star quilt I started last fall,


and I spent a few hours hand quilting my 'Roses are Red...' quilt while watching a marathon of Deadliest Catch, an Alaska Bering Sea fishermen show on the Discovery channel. It's probably some hit reality show that I've never heard of. I was captivated by the life of those fishermen. Talk about a tough job! I can't imagine living that life.

I think that may be as big as my star quilt is going to get. I am planning to buy new family room sofas and I think this quilt may be perfect for a throw on a solid colored sofa (tan or green is what I am thinking). It's big enough to throw over your lap, but not really long enough to pull up to your chin and curl up with (I think it's 51' by 51' right now). I will have to think about whether to enlarge it because I really enjoy curling up covered to my chin while watching a movie. It's about 4th in line to be quilted, so I have plenty of time to reconsider the size.

In the mail today, I got something about a group called Ojos Gitanos, A night of Spanish guitar, song and colorful Flamenco dance. I haven't the vaguest idea what this is, but I called anyway and made reservations for the first weekend in May. I googled it and found this pic


It's a dinner show. I am assuming it's a Mexican meal. Has anyone heard of it? I think it's a group out of Chicago. DH and I love to go to dinner shows so we're game to go and see what it's all about. I hope I don't have to dance! I have no rhythm.

Just Like I Thought it only took a Royal Flush to Win

Too bad I wasn't the lady who got it. Darn! No big wins for me. I think that last year at least I won big at the machines. This year I had no luck at all in anything. It's not because I didn't try hard. I was playing the machines until 2:00 a.m. the first night. That is way to late for me and the next night I was so tired that I went up to my room at 8:00 p.m.

Has anyone been having problems with my blog loading? Dianne has mentioned a couple of times that she's has a problem with it loading: For some reason your blog lately (over the last month or so) gets hung up on bp3.blogger.com and I have to refresh or check in later to see the photos. Dianne, I am so sorry to hear that you are having problems.

I have no idea why. I have had no problem at all with the three different computers that I access it from. I must admit, that I don't really know what bp3.blogger.com is. I mean what's the bp3 part?

It was 60 degrees when we got home this afternoon. A few more days like today and all of the snow will be gone. I don't have my quilt finished yet (the one I am hand quilting and wanted to finish before spring). I am more than half finished, but unless we get some more cold snowy weather, I won't be getting it finished before May. I've spent too much time this winter making new blocks, table runners and quilts. I guess there's no rush to finish it. It's not like my bed is without a quilt. I have to change them every few weeks just to use all the ones I have.

I hear my laundry buzzer going off so I must run to get the clothes before they wrinkle!

Random Musings

While preparing meals during the past week I discovered a few things that made me wonder why I hadn't discovered them before.

One night I was having fresh green beans. As I was cleaning the beans, I grabbed my food scissors and snipped off the root ends, a handful at a time.

Quick! Easy! Painless! So why for the past 30 years have I been using a knife to cut them off?

DH bought a bag of redskin potatoes last week. Parsley-buttered is about the only way I ever serve redskins. I was surfing the net and came across a little recipe that used Lipton onion soup mix -- just dump the mix in a bag with 1/4 cup of oil, toss in the 'taters and shake 'em up.

Lay them in a single layer on a sheet pan and cook in a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes. DH loved them! Now why have I never cooked them that way before? Not only is it super easy, but a similar recipe is even on the box! I have never paid attention to the box before. I guess an old dog can be taught new tricks.

All of my new jackets arrived this week. I am thrilled with them all. While ironing this one tonight, I thought I'd show you what I love most about these clothes.
The inside of the garmet. Yes, the inside of the jackets is what I like best.
Just look at these seams. Every seam is neatly covered with bias tape. This is a detail that is usually reserved for high end items. I just love that I can get details like this on a moderately priced garmet. Oh, did you notice that my nail polish matches the jacket?

It's no coincidence. I plan to wear the jacket this weekend and I thought it would be nice to work the nail color into the whole ensemble. So when I had the nails done last week I tried to pick a matching color. I think I did pretty good picking only by memory. :) Ah, you have to make your own fun in this crazy life.

Here's another thing I did a few days ago. I love this red jacket with the navy blue top stitching.
The problem is that the top stitching catches on everything and it didn't take long for it to look to shabby to wear.

It's been hanging in my closet for a few months. Finally I pulled it out thinking I would have to toss it. Then I thought, hey, why not just take the top stitching out? So I grabbed a seam ripper and sat through one hour of FOX TV (watching clips of Hillary dodging all those bullets) and took each stitch 0ut -- one by one. Now it looks great and I can wear it for a few more seasons....unless I got too fat and it no longer fits.....darn! I should have tried it on before I spent all that time. I do like to live dangerously.

Remember last year when I was in a slot/video poker tournament?

Well, they sent me an invitation to be in it again this year. It's this weekend. Hence, the importance of having nail polish to match my jacket. :) Maybe I will win and they will take my picture. Stranger things happen. Last year I was ahead after round one, but went downhill from there. It was a lot of fun. Please wish me luck and on Saturday keep thinking, "Royal Flush for Zoey"!

Until next week,

I HATE to Shop

I know I am an anomaly -- a woman who hates to shop!

I am talking about the shopping done in malls,-- physically going from store to store, trying on clothes, waiting in line, writing a check, etc. etc. For me, it's a waste of valuable time.

Luckily I have discovered online clothes shopping. Much to husband's chagrin, I have no aversion to shopping on line. I love to click, click, click and within the week boxes appear full of wonderful items like these that I ordered today:





I am in need of brightly colored jackets for summer. I think my early morning shopping spree turned up a few nice ones. (Yes, I did buy two of the very same jacket, only different colors. I do that all the time.)

This whole order took less than 15 minutes of my time.

I know many of you are probably thinking that it's very expensive to order online with all those shipping charges. I admit it can be. But I only buy when they are on sale for at least 50% off. If I can buy them for about the same as it would cost at the local JC Penney (which is about the only clothing store I shop in), then I click without regret.

I know online shopping is not for everyone, but I am so happy that I discovered it!

Willow stopped by and left this comment:

Hopped by to see if Good Friday might find a gardening post and found the wonderful deck decorations going strong. You do know you are an inspiration to many. Blessings at Easter!

Willow

First, thanks for hopping in, Willow. It's always nice to see you. A double thanks for the kind comment. It would make me very happy to know that I inspired someone in some positive manner. I think in the past I may have inspired some negative behavior in a few people
Ah, those were the days! Just kidding, you all know I would never do improper things.

It made me chuckle to know that you were thinking you may find a gardening post on Good Friday. I am afraid you are just a little early to find one. We still have large snowbanks. This morninig it was only 10 degrees and a bit more snow fell overnight.

Even though it will be weeks before there is much gardening in northern Michigan, I have changed my header to a garden theme. Maybe it will give good karma and the weather gods will smile upon Northeast Michigan. We can only hope.

The Table is Set, the Menu is Done

and nobody is coming for dinner.

Yes, I have the table set, the menu ready, and I am NOT even cooking!

I like to prepare far in advance, so I made this menu about three weeks ago when I thought I would be hosting the Easter dinner. As it turns out we are going to my MIL's for dinner. Every other year she has had an early brunch, so I assumed I would go there, then come home and cook dinner for my family later in the day.

It's a shame that I won't be using that cute menu frame.

I still need to make something to take and am debating whether to make the coconut lemon cake. It's a three layer concoction--homemade cake with homemade lemon curd between the layers and homemade coconut frosting. At the moment it seems like too much work. There will be way too much food (there is every year) and we all end up bringing home most of what we took....so I am not inclined to work that hard on something that will not get eaten. I may opt for something easier.

I will be removing the Easter table setting today since I won't be needng it tomorrow. I am eager to try out one of my new table runners...probably the yellow/brown one. Now if only I can find some pussy willows and forsythia for a centerpiece. I saw that on Jean's blog and just loved the combination.

Is everybody busy cooking today?

Designing Table Runners

I have really been enjoying designing table runners to match some of the dishes I own.

I decided to make a runner to coordinate with these green plaid plates that I bought two years ago at the Farmer's Market garage sale day.

I took a 4.5 inch block and changed it until it looked similar to the dish pattern. Before starting to sew I put a bunch of the pieces together to see what design I would end up with. I wasn't sure it would work. It's pretty hard to tell what it will look like without the colored fabric.

I decided I'd make a few blocks just to see what I had.

I was very pleasantly surprised.


I think this may be my favorite so far.

I still need to decide whether to make a triangle piece for each end. I really don't like my runners to just end in a straight line, but this one may be an exception because it's so much wider than I normally like. I felt like I needed the extra width to get a good pattern design.

I wanted to take a vacation day today, but the Big Kahuna thought I should be at work. That's what happens when you wait until the last minute to request a vacation day. I guess he didn't feel like going in early to cover for me.