Finally, Some Progress

I've made a good deal of progress on my unfinished Strawberry Social quilt.  We've agreed on a layout (which I spent a ridiculous amount of time on yesterday), so now I just have to sew the columns together and finish the top.  
I had set this one aside for the longest time because I got hung up on one part of the instructions.  It truly wasn't difficult and I'm not sure why I waited so long.  One thing I was really surprised by was one of the trimming steps.  I cut off a good deal of fabric!

Top row is before trimming, bottom row is after trimming!
I also have finished quilting R2-D2!  I'm going to machine bind this one.
In other news, we discovered that something, probably a squirrel, has chewed up three separate sections of our composite decking.  This does not make me happy.
I also discovered fire blight on both my newly planted pear trees, so we spent an evening trimming off and burning the infected parts.  Hopefully this takes care of it, but I'm feeling rather pessimistic right now.  The Moonglow variety is supposed to be more resistant and it's the one that had it the worst.

The potatoes are coming up pretty well, and I'm starting to see some growth in the broccoli rabe and the cabbage.  My lettuce seems to be faltering.  I was really hoping for a harvest by now, especially since there are signs at the grocery store saying there's a lettuce shortage!  (What???)

Anyway, I feel like I'm finally making some progress sewing-wise, so that's good.  Have a great week!






Second Verse, Same as the First

I started quilting the Bobbin Box mini.  And now I am "unquilting" it.  I either need to really play around with the foot pressure or my walking foot has died, because it pulled all the fabric so much that the quilt no longer lines up properly.  The feed dogs also scratched the backing fabric.  And the stitches are various lengths.  So, fun times continue with this one.
See how none of the vertical sashing lines up?  It did before quilting.

I've made a modest amount of progress on the horse cross stitch.  I'd mentioned before that I was probably going to run out of thread.  I was looking through my DMC floss boxes to find a match to one of the threads and found one right off the bat.  I happened to look down at the chart and notice that the DMC colors are all listed, just with a 1 in front of each number.  This made me so happy!  One less thing to worry about!
I made a small amount of progress on the R2-D2 quilt as well.  I fixed the ruffly spot, stitched two more passes of the pattern, and noticed that I have a huge ruffle again.  So I am picking out more stitching and trying to figure out how to blend in this new trouble spot.  Can't wait to see the end of this project.


I am frustrated with many of the projects I have going, so it seemed like a good time to work on something different.  (Why do I have so many UFOs again?  ha ha ha) I pulled out this half-done strawberry quilt to work on.

I still have plenty of other things to work on, just like always.  I probably will never run out in my lifetime.  I still need to make my shirts (I think going on a year now and getting to the point where I really NEED them done), I want to make a small travel wallet, I have tons of quilt tops to be quilted, tons of doll clothes to finish, tons of UFOs, gardening, cleaning, etc.  I don't understand when people say they would get bored staying at home.  I really never run out of things to do.  Maybe I don't want to do them, but there is always something to do.

I'm kinda bummed I won't make it to the AQS show next week.  It would be a temptation to spend money I need for other things.  I would really like to see Innova's PantoVision in person though.  I find it fascinating.  No idea if it works with my machine, but what a great idea!  Honestly, I think I may have seen it working at the last quilt show I went to, but assumed it was just the computer system, which I will likely never own, so didn't pay any attention to it.  I need to be more mindful of things.  And quit frittering away time.




Bobbin Box

I finished up my Bobbin Box top last week.  As I mentioned before, this pattern looks easy but is pretty hard to sew with everything matching.  I made the smallest version, which is 20" x 14".  I used Bonnie & Camille Basics fabrics for this one.  The pattern is by Cotton Way (Bonnie).  I haven't started quilting it yet.  No reason why; I've just been in a sewing slump this year, dragging my feet on every little thing.

I've also been very occasionally working on this tiny little cross stitch.  It is from a Bucilla kit--one of those that comes with everything including the frame.  It looks like it would be an easy thing to stitch, but I'm finding I have to take a good bit of care because the colors are all very similar.  I'm also going to be short thread because it called for using two strands and I've been using three.  I really prefer the look of three threads on Aida with a lower count.  In case you couldn't tell, this will be a horse head and it's in a 4" hoop.  It's been hanging around probably 5-8 years.  Cuz, you know, that's the way I work!
We've picked out a 12" x 8" or so section on the R2-D2 quilt.  I think that's enough to go back and straighten out the ruffly edge.  The needle has left a perforation pattern that I think I can follow from the front of the machine to stitch everything back into place.  I hope this works.

We've had a good bit of rain lately and everything is greening up nicely.  The redbuds are really pretty.  Some of the trees are leafing out.  All of our ornamental and fruit trees have leaves.  I say this like there's so many, but all totaled, there are five that we've planted!

My weight loss plan is going well.  In 25 days I've lost eight pounds!  I'm not denying myself any food category, just working to keep the portion size and calories in check and making better snack choices.  I've given myself a 1900 calorie allotment each day and am tracking it in the My Fitness Pal app.  I've only been "hangry" a few times....

Mostly Gardening

Not much has been happening on the sewing front.  I did finally finish binding the pumpkin quilt. The pattern is available from Cluck, Cluck, Sew.
I sewed and then took apart the bobbin box mini I was working on.  I'm finding it hard to get the pieces lined up properly.  I'm still very slowly removing the row of quilting on the R2-D2 quilt.  It might be removed by next fall!  If I'm lucky.  Definitely not fun.

We bought some pear trees over the weekend.  We also bought a twisted filbert, red twig dogwood, and a mini evergreen.  My daughter helped me clean out our lower flower garden, move a few shrubs around, and get the filbert and dogwood planted.  She found a mouse nest under one of the plants when she removed the dead growth. There was also a mouse nest in the pile of compost we had sitting on the utility trailer for a week. 

As if the mouse nests weren't enough....I needed to hook up the hose at the front of the house to water in the new plants.  I'm not a fan of the area where the faucet is because there's always giant spiders hiding back there.  So I had my husband help me.  We keep the hose in a plastic hose reel box.  I tried to tug on the hose to get it started unspooling. It would not budge.  So he tried.  Still nothing.  He moved the box a bit and really gave the hose a hard tug.  Out shot a rabbit!!!!  There was a rabbit nest inside the hose box!  That was not a pleasant surprise.
Meanwhile, my husband and son planted the two pear trees.  We bought some seven foot tall deer fencing to block off the trees.  Hopefully this will keep the trees safe until they are more established.
The lettuce, cabbage, and broccoli rabe are starting to sprout in the vegetable garden.  I haven't seen any signs of life from the potatoes yet.