Productive day

It was a good day for accomplishing things I've been meaning to work on for a while.  Paul had errands to run, so I was home alone in the morning to rattle around the kitchen making jam.  I had frozen strawberries and rhubarb from last year.  I love the look of the jam in jars after canning.

I'm a little disappointed with this batch because it seems rather runny.  Mental note to self:  drain some of the liquid from frozen fruit before jamming!

I finished adding snippets of batting to edges of the Arboretum quilt I've been working on.  My "Frankenbatting" was just a tad too short in places.  Now I'm quilting the last border before adding the binding.  I really like this quilt.  When that's done, I'll take a short break from quilting and work on a few more Dear Jane blocks.

After lunch, I sat down to watch what I thought would be Quilting Arts on TV, but it turned out to be a delightful new program, Fresh Quilts.  It has a modern slant but is less artsy than the other show.  It was quite good.

While watching TV, I finished working on some I Found a Quilted Hearts I started last week.  I embellished them with buttons, charms and decorative ribbon.  They are now in a baggie for the car in case I go anywhere I can hang one or two.  They are fun and easy to make although I haven't seen any reports of finding the ones I spread around on last summer's trip back and forth to Wisconsin.  I plan to take a few to the town forest this summer.

Finally, I started shaping the toe of the sock I've been knitting.  Maybe I'll finish today if I can remember how to do the Kitchener stitch.  I am looking forward to making a few hats with some variegated yarn from Knit Picks,  These will all go to "Bags of Love" for kids in foster care.  It will be nice to work on larger needles after the tiny sock needles (#2).

Orphan blocks

In my quest to use up some of my orphan blocks, I got some I Found a Quilted Heart hearts ready to hide in plain sight soon.  I put two crumb blocks together with batting, quilted them, and then pinked the edges in the shape of a heart.  Then I sewed some ribbon for hanging and pinned a tag on each.  Here's one...

I'm writing a short article for the state guild newsletter on this phenomenon.  It's really fun to send these little hearts on their way, and I hope some nice people find them and report in.

I finished quilting the little house quilt today, too.  It needs to be trimmed, bound, and photographed for posterity.  I hope to get to that tomorrow.  This morning I decided to make some Zucchini Bread, using Mom's recipe that she gave me in the 1970s.  I made two medium loaves (one to eat, one for the freezer) and a smaller one for my nextdoor neighbors.  I had asked my cleaning person to bring me a zucchini, but she brought 3 good-sized ones.  I'll probably make another batch later in the week and then figure out some sort of casserole for the smaller of the three.

This afternoon, I made a pillow to take to Wisconsin for my brother Axel's new apartment.  I used a t-shirt for the back and two orphan blocks on the front.  I have no idea what color his furniture is, so I chose blue which seems to go with everything.   Growing up, Axel and I always watched Jeopardy together after lunch in the summer.   Even now, we compare notes although he is careful never to tell me who wins for the day since his comes on at 4:30 pm and ours is on at 7 pm.  Paul gave me the Jeopardy t-shirt for Christmas as a gag gift.  It's too small anyway, so I think this is a great use for it.