What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

       I have no idea how I cannot get posts up. I am working on quilts and paintings and gardening, and I take photos of it, but I cannot sit down and write. My brain seems bound up. I know I have been suffering sleep issues and the normal stuff. I want to get something down here. I think I need to stop reading so many distressing reports and world events as I think that may sucking the juice out of me. I will try and show work I have completed and not try to backtrack what I have missed blogging ...

If you had told my younger self I would be a quilter in my 40s and a gardener in my 50s, I would’ve said “No way Jose!”   Yet, here I am, quilting and gardening.

The idea of gardening came to me last Spring after a couple of heavy snowstorms damaged a bunch of limbs on the trees leaving me with a lot of bare ground after I had them properly trimmed. 

So I actually finished two quilts in past couple weeks. Crazy days. The first one 'Positive Thinking', just needed the binding sewn on. It's been in that state for a couple months now and finally all the planets lined up or something. 

Bright flowers for the win!

Positive Thinking is a true blue finish!

 It feels so very, very good to finish up with this particular quilt: 'The Mountains Are calling'. Not only because there's been so few finishes for the year, but because it's really ran me through the whole gamut of emotions from feeling rather blasé about the idea until now, when I'm actually rather proud of the cozy, warm vibe to it. Who would have ever expected it to end up this way? 

The Mt's Are Calling is a true blue finish!

At last, I was able to venture outside to take photos of this quilt on our hill.  Our spring has been wet and cold and miserable, but finally we are in the heat and I could safely drape the quilt on the stones without fear of getting it wet and muddy.

      It has been a rainy, cold spring here. Lots of dark clouds. One thing that has resulted is that the tulips and spring flowers last a lot longer. There are still good looking daffodils among the tulips. In December, we had to take down an oversized oak tree and we were able to plant two columnar trees- a sweetgum and a Pacific Fire maple (great looking color branches). Still, the garden is behind in cleanup and planting due to the weather. Today, the sun came out and it is actually getting close to 60 degrees!

Yellow hellebore

Bleeding Hearts

Dirt ...

It was overcast several days this past week, but those days were the only ones I had to try to get some wildlife photos. I sat on the veranda for a while, quiet and still until the birds felt safe and came back to the feeder. I watched the bluebirds go in and out of the house building a nest. This was so fun to see.

The male sat in the oak tree for a photo, then few off to help gather nesting materials.

The house is in the redbud tree, hanging from a lower limb, but high enough off ...

 It's the first finish of the year! Yoohoo! All washed up and nicely crinkled, just like I prefer them.

#AHIQStringTulipQAL

First completed quilt for 2023!

It's way late to do a end of the year wrap up post so if this isn't your thing, please feel free to move along. It's mostly for my own records anyway, since quilts tend to get lost in the shuffle if I don't keep track. Last year ended with a respectable 15 quilts totally finished up. Not my best number, but definitely nothing to sneeze at. If I wouldn't have gotten so sick, there would possibly have been another to add to the list. Apparently it wasn't meant to be!

2022 Finishes (1 ...

I can almost feel myself start settling in to the regular routine of normal quilting habits. Almost. Why does it take me so long these days to adjust back to the usual ebb and flow of things? Probably has to do with the state of the world around us. All the uncertainty wears on us in so many different ways. So nice to burrow down into our cozy little world at home and soak up the good things.

Orphan Annie working itself into a quilt top

This past week the Tulip Festival in downtown Hendersonville began. Every one of the many brick planters are filled with early blooming tulips in all sorts of colors. The tulips last quite a while, and are inter-planted with smaller flowers to fill in the beds.

Small violets and little marigold-like flowers bloom between velvet red tulips.

From one end of Main street to the other, luscious color! Sorry about the garden hose in this shot, I was distracted by the lovely yellow tulips with deep pink violas and didn’t notice it.

Of course, a few of these got hidden ...

I've been working on the border for the A-Tisket-A-Tasket quilt. Lots of hst's which are not difficult, just annoying.

Trimming the hst's

Auditioning some possibilities

This project is now a top!  Yippee!

Last week was A WEEK! Moving into the new church space in time for Holy Week and Easter was a blessing beyond measure. But, there was A LOT  of work to do behind the scenes, going forward, to organize and personalize the spaces within the new church to ensure functionality. I took on the task of cleaning out what had been used as a former storage closet off of the chancel and transforming it into

Last week was A WEEK! Moving into the new church space in time for Holy Week and Easter was a blessing beyond measure. But, there was A LOT  of work to do behind the scenes, going forward, to organize and personalize the spaces within the new church to ensure functionality. I took on the task of cleaning out what had been used as a former storage closet off of the chancel and transforming it into

It seems like it has been a while since I could share with you what I am working on in the sewing room. But, alas, everything I am currently doing is a secret. And it is multiple projects, LOL!! First, I am making progress on Pachanga, but I can’t show you that yet. Second, there is a super secret project that is in the works. Then, I finished a special tutorial project for Hands2Help, but that will be on Sarah’s blog in May. I’ll be starting on another project this week that will be for Fat Quarter ...

It feels so good to check a couple more projects off of the open-ended projects list. Gives me just a little bit of breathing room for the brand new starts. 'Cuz there's always gonna be new projects here, there and maybe every where!

Once again, it's a finish!

It was a relatively quick finish for the Ormes Inspired quilt once I put my mind to it. Just had to grit my teeth and plow through the last little bit of hand work on the batik fabric lettering. After that, there was a very small amount of effort to ...