Spring planting

The last few days have been just beautiful - warm, sunny, breezy - perfect for getting the gardens in shape.  My aging knees have been put to the test, but they seem to bounce back fairly well if I don't overdo.  Saturday Chris helped me plant the flowers that I had bought earlier in the week, and yesterday I did a major weed of the garden beds in the front yard.  I planted a bunch of impatiens in a shady spot.  I also now have two garbage bags full of weeds to give to the compost guy when he comes to pick up next week.

Today's plan is to plant some lettuce in boxes out front and some geraniums in a pot.  I decided not to put out flower boxes this year because our windowsills have just been repainted.  I'd hate for Nate's work to be spoiled by the mess of boxes make.  

If I feel up to it, I'll work in the backyard, but if I don't, I'll worry about that flower bed manana.  I have wave petunias to plant there and want to reduce the size of the shasta daisies.  They like to take over.

After my session with the Maze of Mystery Saturday, I decided to take a break and just read yesterday afternoon.  Maria Semple's latest book, Go Gentle, has been highly anticipated by critics but I'm not loving it.  The plot zigzags in time and seems very disjointed.  If it doesn't improve (and I am now 37% into it), I'll set it aside and start reading a mystery set on the Isle of Man.  I halso ave a haircut scheduled and a Zoom gathering with state library retirees, too, this afternoon.  

Spring has sprung!

Yesterday was sunny, warm, and lightly breezy, with trees beginning to flower.  We opened up windows for the first time since fall, cooked outside on the grill, and planted annuals.  What a day!  We're hoping for another today and, if we're lucky, tomorrow, too.  The many colors of green are wonderful to see on our lovely Green Mountains.

Chris came over to help me with some planting and, while I had a tall person around, I took a picture of the quilt I finished last week, It's made with scrappy Kaffe Fasset fabrics and a few other colorful prints and will be going to Bags of Love for kids going into foster care.  I quilted it very simply using fusible batting (which I don't like much but keep trying to work with as it does make it easier to baste together).

Today I'll do a little more weeding and may go out to buy another hose and a longer extension cord so Chris can trim the bushes.  While at the hardware store I may also get a few more plants although there is still a slight danger of frost.  We always waited until after Memorial Day to plant tomatoes and other things, but in recent years, with climate change, we can often plant a little sooner.

This is going to be a busy week with a hair appointment for me and dental cleaning for Paul, quilt guild meeting, lunch and dinner out with various friends, and the opera - Cinderella - on Saturday.  In between I'll peck away at Dear Jane and the gardens.

The Maze of Madness!

It felt really good to work on my modern Dear Jane quilt again.  I hadn't made any blocks since September, but when I got everything out again, I found that I only have two more rows of blocks to make.  That's 26 blocks, however!  I have been quilting as I go, in batches of rows, so I sashed three rows and put them together.  I'll quilt those... eventually.  I then sashed two more rows and put them together.

Here are the six blocks I made this week for Row L.  While I'm not wild about paper piecing, it really works the best for many of the blocks in this row.

Just in case you'd like a closeup of L-6, Maze of Madness, here is one:

It truly did drive me nuts although not as much as L-4 (the name eludes me).  I hope the next few blocks are a bit easier.

All the blocks in rows A-K look great together, and I think I have enough gray grunge for the 1" sashing and stop border for the rest of the blocks.  Instead of the triangle border I'm planning a 3" piano keys border using all of the black on white background prints all the way around.  I will start cutting those scraps up when I feel like taking a break from sewing the blocks.   

We are having the kitchen and dining room downstairs painted the first week in June, so that will most likely be a good time to escape upstairs to sew or outside to garden.  It's been raining a lot lately, so everything is green and growing quickly despite chilly overnights.  Chris is coming tomorrow (Saturday) to give me a hand outside which will be nice.  I always enjoy those mother/son workdays.

Blocks of the month and other finishes

I managed to finish the Out of my comfort zone quilt and a table runner last week in between other activities.  I'll try to get pictures of each if/when the sun appears.  It's been very unpredictable lately.

And this morning I finished Blocks of the Month for May!

There are five 8" log cabin blocks and two 9" Traffic Jan blocks, along with a hexie flower that I made for one guild's block lottery.  The latter was finished at my Saturday sewing group a week ago Saturday.  It took quite a bit of time, but the light there is great and good for hand sewing.

Yesterday's state guild meeting went well.  It's so nice to attend as a "civilian" (non-officer)!  As historian, I have very few real duties although I have been organizing 40+ years of papers in order to turn them over to the state historical society archives for safe keeping.  I am planning to run a block of the month activity on the guild's website and Facebook group, but I don't think I'll start until I've figured out what blocks to include.  People seemed quite interested when I showed them the blocks for 1989 (10 year anniversary) and several others.   

Happy Mother's Day to all who read this!  We are heading to see The Sheep Detectives at the movies.  They always have subtitles for Sunday matinees.  We'll stop at the bowling alley on the way home for pizza.  They make the best in town.  My biggest question for the coming week is...  what UFO should I work on next?  Stay tuned!

Busy week ahead

Today we have an appointment at the "Eco Depot" to deliver some used batteries, old light bulbs, and an old thermostat for recycling.  They used to be the "Additional Recycling Center," but when they moved they upscaled the name and, annoyingly, made it mandatory to make an appointment before dropping off stuff.  I am curious to see their new digs.

It's going to be a jam-packed week.  Tomorrow I'll bake a lemon cake to take to a musical program at the library on Wednesday, and then on Thursday I'll go with Paul as he is interviewed by one of the TV stations about a Barre baseball bat company that became world famous for a time.  Apparently, all the major leagues used this particular bat.  I'm not sure when it will be televised.  The young reporter who arranged the interview seems to have caught on to Paul's vast knowledge of quirky local history. 

Friday I will be baking something again in preparation for Saturday's state quilt guild meeting.  I have a quilt made out of blocks I won at the fall meeting for show & tell, and I'll do a short talk on what I've found in the archives.  I can't believe I didn't take a picture of the finished quilt - I'll rectify that soon.

In between, I'll keep quilting the "Out of My Comfort Zone" quilt and knitting this purple striped scarf.  I started the scarf earlier this winter but because the yarn is very fine, fuzzy, and uses #4 needles, it's taking a while.  It will be a cozy scarf for a little girl going into foster care when I'm done.

State Quilt Guild Blocks

I've been working steadily on organizing the state quilt guild's archives over the last couple of months.   My plan is to deliver the archives to the state historical society for cataloging and storage in the manuscript collection as soon as I'm done.  Every two years, when officers change, I'm suggesting that they add to that collection.  

I inherited bags, tubs, and other containers of papers from the previous guild historian.  She seems to have lost her enthusiasm for the job several years ago, and they had all been stored in her garage.  One of the tubs is filthy, and the other one needs a little spraying with the hose.  I threw away all the three ring binders and plastic sheet protectors that had been used.   The materials used in the past were not acid free and some of the sheet protectors show signs that ink had already been removed from the paper.

The best part of the archives is the newsletter which was published at least twice a year since the organization's founding in 1979.  It's been fun looking at them, especially seeing the patterns for raffle blocks that people make in advance of the semiannual meetings.   I'm thinking of making a sampler of blocks from various years, beginning with those tenth anniversary blocks.  I think I showed the 1980 block, but here it is again.

Next, I worked on the block for 1999, the guild's 20th anniversary, which was not what I would call a beginner block.  I wonder how many people made it?  I was pleased that it was appliqued, and I had every intention of doing that with fusible applique.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find my Steam a Seamm so I reverted back to my old favorite, freezer paper.

My fingers are stiffer than they used to be, and my eyesight isn't great, but it turned out pretty good. The embroidery on the darker fabrics doesn't show up that well, but it will do.

I was very disappointed to find the 2009 block was just an 8" half square triangle in fall colors.  That will not do!  I'm going to make some 8-at-a-time half square triangles (a method I've never used before) starting with two 8" blocks and make a block out of the resulting squares.  I don't remember what the 2019 raffle blocks were, but I'll enjoy choosing one to sew, I'm sure.  If folks at the guild meeting in May are interested, I may just distribute little booklet for the fall meeting.

Paper pieced stars

On a visit to the quilt shop last fall, I picked up a book of patterns for paper pieced stars.  I set it aside with some fat quarters that I received from the board of the state quilt guild as a "retirement" gift after my term as president was up.  I worried that the blocks would look a bit washed out so I varied the background from neutral to periwinkle and set the blocks on point.  I added a little goldish brown to the mix and ended with a brighter periwinkle.  For the setting triangles I used foundation papers for 3" triangles which were much easier to make than the stars.  Once quilted, this will be a nice table runner, but unfortunately, it's now waiting in the closet along with several other projects.  I'll try to get a picture today.

I attended quilt guild Tuesday night and showed the Triple Barn Star quilt I made a few months ago. 

Also at guild, I picked up the last round robin quilt - Marie's - to work on, and I've been making friendship star blocks ever since.  It's red(ish), light gray, and blues, with a large pieced star in the middle.  I'm not sure what Marie plans to do with the quilt, but I do know she served in the Army during the Vietnam era.  Several of the rounds have been pretty plain, so the stars seemed quite appropriate to me.  But the quilt is around 48" x 48" so there are a lot of 4.5" stars to make.  I assume they'll take me a few days of solid work to finish.

Meanwhile, there are household and garden things to attend to.  The weather has been increasingly nice, so I need to get out and clean up the flower beds.  My knees have been giving me trouble lately, so I'll take it easy.  We have taken a few walks in the neighborhood, too, which has been nice after the long winter where we hardly walked at all.  

I finished reading Jennifer Chiaverini's latest book, The Patchwork Players.  It's very easy going which is nice after reading The Bullet That Missed, the third book in the Thursday Murder Club series.  The plotlines of those books can be very confusing with quite a few characters, but everything comes together in the end.  I thought our book group was planning to read the fourth book in the series next, so I thought I'd try to catch up before reading that one.  Instead, we're reading The Tokyo Express which isn't available on Kindle.  I'm reading a used paperback and hope I'll to finish before we meet next week.  We have a social week ahead with dinner out a couple times, so I'm not sure how much progress I'll make.  So far, it's moving along nicely, and I like the Japanese background.