HOT HOT HOT

All reports of my untimely demise have been greatly exaggerated! LOL OK so not really I promise I am still alive! Although with temps well over 100 again today I wish I could just melt away like an ice cream cone on the sidewalk.

I feel terrible, it has been weeks since my last post an not a single picture to share, oh not that I haven't gotten anything done as a matter of fact I have been getting so much accomplished that I have let my poor little blog flounder like a fish in the desert sun! (did I mention it is hot here)

I have gotten more peppers pickled, who know that 4 little plants would produce that many peppers, and still growing! I have picked more than 50 and have at least that many more getting ripe on the plants!

I have been quilting too, I always imaged quilting to be a winter sport, but when it is hot enough to dry a pair of men's jeans in the shade on a laundry line in less than an hour, well it is to darn hot to do ANYTHING outside!

I have quilted and bound the quilt I made for my neighbor Carl, just have some thread trimming to do, I finished three more coffee quilts similar to the one on the top of my blog, will put them on the frame soon to quilt (since my work schedule is picking up again, I only have one more Friday off this summer!!! YEA)
I will be putting one of the coffee wall hangings in my Etsy shop when it is done...
I have also been sewing my daughters birthday quilt, it is my first attempt at applique! The quilt is wild and wacky high heel shoes, pictures soon on it as it is turning out really cute, just one more row to go.

And lastly I have begun work on a red, black and white king size quilt for my bed, it is unlike ANYTHING I have done before! Stay tuned for pictures of that one also.

Well, that was my quick post for today, I promise to return again soon, with pictures! (because we all know that pictures make a blog so much for fun)

Till I return, stay cool!
Gin

Watermelons, Pups and Pickled Peppers!

Good Monday again!

Wow a two post day!!! Actually I am just trying to get caught up on my blogging!
A couple of posts ago I ask for suggestions on quilting the watermelon quilt, well suggestions I got, I finally managed to get out to my room to finish the watermelon quilt... I think it turned out really cute!I ended up using a simple loop on the melon part, and a nice rippleish on the rind, you can see the stitching in the light green area the best! Oh and I added the "seeds" because that was what made the watermelon!The rest of my weekend was all about pickling peppers! This was my first time ever making a pickled peppers, I hope they turn out OK, these are banana peppers and when they are done they should be like the pepperchini peppers you get at subway.Washed, seeded and ready to boil, I had just under a pound.. these came out of my garden, I have a couple dozen more still on the plant so will have to do this all over again in a few weeks!Boiled, and in the brine, the recipe was easy.... cider vinegar, water, sugar, garlic cloves, celery seed, mustard seed and salt. boil, simmer mix lid, water bath! Here are my little half pints in the water bath, I think I need to get a canning rack, the poor things just about rattled themselves silly! I did end up with 3 half pint jars of pickled peppers from 1 pound of peppers.OK last picture of the day, my baby, scoochy.... all snuggled in and ready for a nap in Torrie's freshly washed pretty fabric! Is he not pretty!

Well that was my weekend, I got a lot done, and had a wonderful visit with an old friend from high school plus a great visit with my friend Wendi!

I wish all of my weekends could go this well and productive!

Till next time, thanks for stopping in.

Ginny

Another Monday, finally have something to say!

Good Monday,

OK so I have had a ton to say, just waiting on pictures!

We had the BEST 4th of July, every year we have a neighborhood party, some times big some times small, we take turns hosting the party and this year was our turn, Well we kept it pretty small, close friends, and good neighbors, we ended up with about 20 people, with an even split between kids and adults. I think every one had fun, the food was good, and it was HOT, it topped right at 100 degrees that day, so we made up some water fun for the kids. T and her friend Julia filled about 250 water balloons, Stuart made a water balloon cannon (he was launching water balloons from out back yard, OVER the house on the the front yard of the across the street neighbors!) We also made up a dozen water wienies.. (rubber tubing, writing pen tip, fill with water = hours of wet fun)

The kids said the water fights were the best part of the 4th. Then of course we did tons of fireworks!

I was so busy that night that I did not get the chance to take any pictures, thankfully my wonderful neighbor Judy had her camera and took tons, here are some photos of our 4th.

One of my favorite parts of the evening was when we presented my neighbor Carl with the quilt top I have been working on for him. Carl (the seated gentleman) is one of our dearest neighbors, he has spent his life working in service to our country. He is one of the kindest and most caring people I know, I am proud to call him friend. I started this quilt in January, it went on the back burner for a long time as other things took over. I had not gotten it finished by the 4th, the poor thing still needed two side borders... but we showed him anyhow, the quilt is now on my frame waiting to be quilted later this week.

This is another picture of Carl's quilt, I am on the left, and Carl's friend Nancy is on the right. Nancy is visiting from Utah and is going to come over and help me quilt the quilt.

Carl and Nancy, what a nice couple! Oh I have to point out the table center piece, Morgen made several of them, they are coffee creamer containers, and construction paper, they looked like fireworks!
Yes this is me, I was ready to slap that camera by the time the night was over I do NOT like having my picture taken!!!
My back yard very small, and full of people... lets see.. Julia, Rina, Morgen, Doug, Annie and Berit.Stuart the Grill Master (and Darling Hubby!) Wendi and Morgen....In this one, Jessica, Julia, Rina, Morgen and Kendra.

And not a single picture of the fireworks!

Thanks for stopping by, I have another post coming soon of what else we have been up to. Stay tuned!

Ginny

Need quilting suggestions!!!

Good morning!

I just realized how long it has been since my last post!

I have actually managed to squeeze some sewing time in, I finally finished those cursed backpacks! I will post pictures of them soon. Officially I will NEVER do another backpack I truly hate them!!!

On the fun side of things I finished my block for next months block lotto at our local Craft Warehouse, I will have to take a picture of this block I really like it and was happy with the final results.

And I have begun work on another coffee wall hanging, matter of fact I was up till eleven last night working on it! (this is what happens when I have caffeine in the evenings - I just knew I should not have had that iced tea)

I am happy with how this one is coming along. I have also started work on Torrie's Jeff Gordon quilt. When our local Joann's closed I got an entire bolt of JG fabric for almost nothing. Torrie (who is a huge fan) ask me if I could make her a quilt, so I am using a pale blue minkee and going to make it similar to the red alien quilt below.

Oh and I am almost finished with the watermelon quilt that I have on the frame, I was stumped for a while on how I was going to quilt the green part of the watermelon (OK so still am but have an idea... If you have any suggestions let me know) I have done a basic stipple in the dark green areas, and loop t loops in the pink border area, for the pink watermelon area I am also doing loops, so I can sew black "seeds" in the loops. I am having a terrible time with the green "rind" area, I thing I am going to do peacock feathers to fill in the area... but am still not sure, having only 5 inches to work with is hard because I have to break it into smaller sections when I quilt.

So please for those of you who are quilters, I would love suggestions!!! I really do like this little wall hanging and want to get it finished before the summer is over!

Thank you for stopping by today, I promise I will post again soon...

We have a big neighborhood 4th of July party every year, and this year is our year to host... so have been gearing up for that...Wish me luck as I am NOT a natural hostess... I envy people who are!!!

So if I do not see you before then, have a safe, sane and happy 4th!

Ginny

Sharing the fruit of our labors

Good Monday to all!!!

Well, another week has started and it is promising to be a nice one. The temperatures here are nice and cool. I thought I would show you a few pictures of my garden, about a month ago I posted this picture, every thing was small and just starting to sprout.

Saturday I decided to take a few more pictures just to show the difference a month can make! All of the sudden every thing went POOF!!! I have everything from Basil to Zucchini stuffed in this little garden! There is... (from back left working around clockwise.... corn, lettuce (in the hanging baskets) tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, thyme, oregano, chives, sweet basil, cilantro, dill, lemon balm, banana peppers, garlic, green onions, carrots, cantaloupe, Zucchini and a watermelon plant.Here is a shot from the other side, and yes I know it is a ton of veggies in a very small space! Oh I forgot, I have spinach in this hanging basket.And amazingly I have already started to harvest! My first of many zucchini, I have tomatoes ripening, and both kinds of peppers, I have already given the lettuce a hair cut and need to do so again, same with the spinach. Then there are the herbs... Wow did they take off, I have been gathering and freezing some, given away a bunch, and Sunday Morgen and I started bundling for drying... here you see from left to right, bundles of basil, oregano and thyme, Oh my house smells so good!

So now you can see why I have not gotten much quilting done, I have been outside and loving it! I have already told Stuart that we are putting in two more raised beds next year!

My favorite part about this whole project was Morgen's comments as we were bundling the herbs, she says Mom, I thing we should have a fire going, and quilts over our laps, and Torrie should be reading to us as we do this by lamp light! (I think she was feeling a bit pioneerish) I told her that her sister would need to be reading the Bible to make it authentic!

Thanks for stopping by!

Ginny

Quilty weekend!

Good evening,

I just thought I would drop in for a few to share with you a little project I got done this weekend,

It was a crazy weekend, almost all day Saturday was spent driving the teen age daughter to work, back from work, the a friends house, to the pool to sign them is since friends mom forgot, pick of girls, drop off friend... and on and on. So I got NOTHING done Saturday.

Sunday on the other hand was spent in my little room quilting my heart out!

The a couple of weeks ago a friend was having a yard sale, when it was over she gave me this little zip lock baggie full of coffee fabric, really cute stuff, I looked at is, thanked her and decided right then to make her a coffee wall hanging, you see Diana is a coffee fiend!

Well, off to the store I went... after all I love a good reason to go fabric shopping... I picked up a couple of complimentary fabrics all coffee themed and in colors to match her living room...

Sat down, and looked at some block patterns, decided in a square in a square pattern, and stared cutting. I did not have a written pattern, just a picture in my head of how I wanted the wall hanging to look when I was done...

Roughly three hours later...

Look below for close ups... The quilting on this little guy was fun, the entire wall hanging measures 35" square I quilted the word Coffee all the way around in the boarders, except I put hearts in the corners and the sashing blocks. There is a simple figure 8 design on the sashing. The blocks were the most fun to quilt, on the top row I quilted the word Java then a Cup, then Cappuccino, on the middle row did a cup, then the word Espresso then a cup and on the bottom row I quited the word Mocha, then a cup then Latte. I did it in a tan thread as my quilting is still a work in progress so it does not show well in the pictures, but you can see it when you look at the wall hanging in person.

This is a close up of the center square, the little 3" brown square was the fabric that she gave me, I think it is so cute! I would love to know who made it, and where she got it from as I would love to get more of this fabric and of the white fabric in the next picture.I had a 12" square of the white fabric with the coffee cups on it, I love it they are so sweet. If you know where to get this fabric please let me know, I want to make another wall hanging for another friend but do not have enough. So, for something a little different. This is K. She is one of my DC Kids.... Earlier this year she got to pick a craft out of a book for a school project.... I don't remember all of the crafts but they had to complete it at home. Well, K chose to make a 9 patch block, The little book the teacher gave them had all of the instructions. K ask me if I would help since I love to quilt.... Well how could I turn down that face... so we spend an afternoon cutting and teaching K how to sew her blocks together, pressing and sewing, she had so much fun. We kept saying that she needed to finish her little quilt, so last week she brought the block to me, we marked out a quilt design on the block, I hooped it, the back and the batting, and away she went... I think it turned out PERFECT! And it really is all hand pieced and quilted. I am very proud of K. I hope we will be able to make many more quilts together.

Well, it is pumpkin time for me... I hope you all had a wonderful quilty weekend also.

As always, thank you for stopping by.

Ginny

Sold a quilt and working on a new one.

Sunday is a day of rest right? OK so no rest for me, we have one of Torrie's friends staying with us this week while her Dad travels. Of course this is also the last week of school so the word FINALS is being thrown around a lot!

So to save my sanity I locked my self in my room last night and sewed up a little fun. This cute little guy is still a WIP, I need to add a couple more rows, then a few boarders then it will go into the QUIP (QUilts In Progress) pile. I usually wait till I have 4 or 5 of these little guys pieced before put them on the frame, then I quilt the entire weekend. I had fun with the layout on this little guy, the pattern called for all of the triangles to face the same way, with the red on bottom, pointing to the bottom left. I did not like it. So I mixed it up a bit and found I liked this layout the best. This is a close up of the fabric, it is all space aliens! The back and one of the boarders will be a space fabric in the same line, it is all planets and stars. The red of Minkee, oh so soft and cuddly!Oh I also wanted to share my good news, I sold my Rosebuds quilt! This is the first time I have EVER sold a quilt!!!! This was hands down one of my favorite quilts I have ever made, I just loved the look, the feel and the quilting. I think I may have to make another like it. I am happy it sold, Rosebuds is flying its way to Iowa as I write this as a birthday present from Grandma to her sweet 2 year old grand baby Annabell! I just know she will love her new blankie!

Well, that's about all for today, I am going to sneak out to my room for a little more sewing before I have to pick up Torrie from her afternoon job.

Thanks for stopping in.

Ginny