Amazing Harvest

We had a really good year in the garden in spite of the lack of water. I believe we got 19 cases of raspberries, 3 or 4 of black raspberries, tons of beans, cabbage, squash, fruit etc.

These are the butternut squash and the pumpkins I just picked.

These are pumpkins I have not yet picked.  In fact, I didn't plant these, they came as volunteers. Both these and the ones I planted are those small sugar baby pumpkins. Great for eating.

And these are the third time I have thought, well, this will be the last time I will be able to pick tomatoes.  Here it is the 18th of October and I am still getting tomatoes.  I quit picking the cherry tomatoes weeks ago though  I could still pick them as well.

Whole cloth again

Here is a slightly better picture of the whole cloth quilt. At least the color is better.  By the way, for those of you in Utah, this quilt will be hanging in the Springville Art Museum Quilt Show through August.

Whole Cloth

So,  I finished a whole cloth quilt for my daughter.  It is actually a beautiful dark red so the photos are awful.  Sigh.  

This is a center medallion that I drew myself.  I am no artist.

This is a shot of the back.  You can see the designs better here. 

I did a wild computer driven border on the outside border, then a hand driven border with flowers and leaves.    Then I have an inside border of dragonflys.

Then a double cross hatch around the medallion

Here is another bad view of the red side.

By the way, the raspberries.are on.  Early and beautiful.  Wow. 

The roof work

As I said, we are re-roofing.  This picture shows part of the old roof- what is left on the porch below and some of the new roof above.  It also shows one of the problem areas that took so much time.  We had to clean away around the roof windows, of which we have 5, and rework them with new flashing and old. They look much better now, and should be less likely to leak.

This photo shows the large expanse of the front side of the house.  The new roof is a little more brown and looks a bit like shake.  It is made of architectural grade shingles though. 

This photo shows the upper ridge which is not yet covered.  We have done tons of work, but will have to move some shingles and do a few more rows before we do the ridge work.  Those shingles are heavy.                                                                  

I love spring!

The lilacs are in bloom, there are still a few magnolia blossoms on the tree, my tulips are coming on in spurts since I have early, mid and late varieties.The grass is green and the trees are beginning to leaf out.  It is beautiful out there.
On the other hand, we are currently re-roofing our house.  Everyday (except Sunday) since last Wednesday I have spent the majority of my time up on the roof.  My feet hurt, my hands get numb and I have a backache.  It is so obvious that I am not in my thirties like I was when we built the house.  Yes, sweet C and I built this house ourselves.  That was 25 years ago, so much renovation is needed.  We have been doing things over the last 3 years, but I think the roof is the biggest project.  Building the deck last year took some time, but didn't cause the aches and pains.
I can hardly wait to be done with this one.  I have quilts to quilt, vegetables to put in, and Grand-babies coming.

What happened to pretty?

At church today I was noticing the young women and the clothes they were wearing.  It made me sad.  Only two of the girls were wearing pretty clothing that fit.  The others all had trendy, messy, wrinkled outfits that seem to be the latest "fashion".  Most were wearing "t-shirts" of one sort or another.  Years ago that was certainly not considered church wear.  We wore our best as a sign of respect to God.  Now even adults wear "t-shirts".  I have often thought that "conspiring men in the latter days" included fashion designers whose only goal in life was to take our money, not to clothe us in modest and pretty ways.  Our leaders admonish us to be in the world but not of the world.  I take that to mean that if we need to make our own clothing to be modest then that is what we should do.  Years ago I made most of my clothing. There was a time when I wanted to be a fashion designer.  Funny, huh? I do other things with my time now.  Maybe I need to rethink that thought?

Garden complete

So, my "Midnight in the Garden" quilt is complete. Binding, sleeve, even label in place.
Unfortunately, I have a hard time getting a photo that really shows the quilting. It is so much prettier in real life!
I have a hard time giving this one up. Still, I believe in the cause. If any of you want to bid on this quilt it will be auctioned off at the HMQS quilt show on Saturday, the 12th of May from 12:30pm to 1:30pm. Minimum bid $100. The quilt is 49x49 inches.

Midnight in the Garden

Ok, so I have spent WAY too long putting together a charity quilt. My excuse is that I hope to be able to use it as advertising. It is for a Riley Blake challenge and I saw last years. I know I won't win the challenge but I hope not to be the bottom of the pile either.
My flowers are all dimensional, which is what took me so long. I knew what I wanted but not how to achieve it. Well, I did achieve what my plan was, however, it is so busy that the overall look isn't what I would have wanted. Too late now. I have to turn it in by Saturday.


Don't ask me why these pictures came out sideways. I didn't take them that way.
Now all I have to do is make the back, and quilt it. Oh, and bind it, and make a hanging sleeve, and put on a label. See my problem? And I have quilts to quilt!

latest jobs

Isn't this cute? I think she appliqued on all the circles, and the rest is pieced, but the circles came out so perfectly. I love how the center of the flower is just a little off center, just like a real flower would be - so I had to emphasis that.
Of course, my pictures loaded out of order again! Not sure what I'm doing wrong. Do I need to load one at a time? I didn't used to have to. This is a close up of the corner of a tree quilt.

This photo is to show you the clouds, rainbows and birds in the sky behind the tree.
And here is the whole tree. You can see why I had to show you close ups - you sure can't make out details even this far away!
And a close up of the bows and blocks quilt. Darling fabric. I think she took the class at Morganson's in Payson.

Charity Quilts

Ok, so these didn't load in the order I wanted, or even the order I uploaded them in, but. . . .
This is a closeup of a quilt I quilted for the daughter of one of the policemen shot down in Ogden recently. The quilting is double hearts and daisies. I wish you could see it better because it really is cute.
This is the Quilts of Valor Quilt I did for the Utah Valley Quilt Guild.
Here is a close up of the quilting. You still can't tell really what it says. The border says "Thank you" and "Freedom isn't free" Inside the quilt along with an eagle, waving flag, star and award are the words "respect, honor, and thank you" It looks better than you can tell from the photo.
And this is the longer view of the little girls quilt. It's called X's and O's. The ladies in my bee did the blocks and one of them - the one who headed up the whole thing, set them. The stopborder is a brown and cream pocka dot and the border has tiny little squares of pink and brown and cream. I hope she likes it.

A quilt for an injured veteran

Yesterday was service day at Utah Valley Quilt Guild. I helped tie 3 quilts, put a label on one, ironed for someone working on a Quilts of Valor quilt, and then started this jelly roll races quilt to make another quilts of valor. I ran out of time so I finished it today and will start quilting it as soon as the backing is out of the dryer. I'll try to keep you posted on what I quilt on it - not sure which way I'll go.

Cactus Flower

I started this top soon after I started learning to quilt - took a class at Quilt Fest. I didn't know enough to do something this complicated and made many mistakes, had to resew too many seams and it still is a bit distorted. I would like to enter it in the HMQS competition. Remember - I won an award there last year, and would like to do something wonderful this year. This quilt is supposed to have wide black borders with vines and flowers appliqued on it. However, the quilt pattern is called cactus flower, and I would prefer to applique on a cactus in bloom. I can't draw. Would any of you artistic relatives be willing to draw me a simple cactus in bloom that I could use as an applique? I still have to figure out what I want to quilt on it too. I'll keep you posted.

A Customers quilt

I just finished my latest customer quilt. Makes rather a good whole cloth doesn't it?
She wanted traditional quilting - mostly stitch in the ditch and crosshatching.
I talked her into a few flowers and leaves in borders to soften the look.
Had a few piecing problems but altogether rather a beautiful quilt. Not cheap, unfortunately. (Sorry ladies). Had I been trying for a whole cloth I would have buried the knots, which would have added even more to the cost. I spent over 40 hours quilting this puppy! Oh, and she created the pattern on EQ.

By the way, it is finally snowing. It has been a weird, cold winter with almost no snow til now.

My latest wholecloth

A glimpse of a quilt I am doing for someone else, and my latest try at a whole cloth. Unfortunately, after I had finished it I realized it is too small by 20 inches circumference to put in the competition I wanted to enter. Sigh. I could try again slightly larger if I could find some 60 inch fabric or wanted to seam the top, or I could color this one and enter it as an art quilt. What do you think?