Making Christmas Progress

I am making a little progress every day.  I am so excited because I will have it all done by the fist or second week of December.  No stress of working right up to Christmas Day.

I finished the Dallas Cowboys quilt for one of my sons:

This is a close up of the quilt with the backing and the binding all done.

Here it is folded and ready to go into the matching pillow case to be used as the wrapping paper.

I used the same "piano blocks" for the top part of the pillow case, and one of the lighter colors for the middle band.

I know it is hard to see the quilting on the back of this quilt, but if you enlarge it you can see I traced the stars on the front middle panel.    I came out really nice and I think he will really enjoy it.  The size came out to be approximately 50" X 68".  A good size for a throw quilt.

Next up is a octagon tabletopper that I made for a neighbor of mine who has a couple of cats that she adores.  The center has all kinds of cats getting into Christmas mischief.  

This picture shows the backing I used, and I also used it for the binding, as I always like to do a diagonal type binding if I can.  I quilted it doing a straight line method of outlining the octagon shape spacing the lines about 3/4" apart going around continually.

I took some time out of sewing to get some canning done.  This last summer, my chickens were giving me about 9-10 eggs a day.  Way more than we can consume.  So I stacked up about 14 dozen in our spare refrigerator, to can at a later date.  Fresh eggs need to rest for quite a while, about 6 - 8 weeks, in order for them to peel without half of the white parts staying attached to the shell.  When canning eggs, they need to be perfect without any craters or cracks in the white part.  We canned them in a red chile flake and peppercorn brine this year, giving them the red color.  The men in my life eat them like candy.  Me, no, not so much.  

Warmest...

A Treat From My Husband

I have been asking my husband for about the past five years to build me a greenhouse.  This fall, a couple of weeks ago to be exact, he decided to build me one!  I am so excited, as I want to extend my garden growing by starting new plants in the spring, and keep growing some vegetables into the fall/winter.

I have had these plans picked out for the last three years that I found on Pinterest.  If interested, here is the link  to the greenhouse plans (their free!).

Here it is all framed out!  It is a gable shape, 10' X 12', and corrugated tin around the bottom.

This is hubby being silly when I was trying to take pictures.  He's a lot of fun to work with and be around.

Here is the corrugated plastic sheets that will finish the greenhouse.

 Of course, here is hubby working on getting the sheets screwed into the frame.

We had just beautiful fall weather to work on such a project.  We should be done with the outside this week, and then we can start working on the inside.  I plan on having a washtub sink (complete with plumbing), work bench tables along each side, a pea gravel floor, and some rods across the ceiling for hanging items.

I'll keep you posted as we proceed to the finished greenhouse.

Warmest...

Small Projects Progress

Notice:  This is another long post with lots of pictures.

The wrist splints are coming off today, so I will be able to get back to some serious sewing next week.  In the mean time, I have been able to maneuver enough to get some small projects completed on my clients orders.

But, I have to first tell you that while I was working on these small projects, I was busy harvesting our Roma tomatoes from the garden.  I have run out of freezer space for the tomato puree I have been making, and the tomatoes do not ripen enough at once to do a batch of canning, so I went to drying them.  Not exactly like "sun dried" tomatoes, but good enough for saving and using this winter.   I had a few pieces that did not totally dry, so I threw them in a pot with a small amount of water, and made some three bean chili for dinner last night.  Easy peasy!

This is my second jar of the dried Romas.  I still have another batch on the vines out in the garden, but will get to those next week.

Moving on to the sewing projects:

Here is the double college team baby quilt I posted about here.  The client wanted one college team on one side and another team on the other.  In this case, one side is the Nebraska Cornhuskers, and the other side is the North Carolina Tar Heels.  (I even looked  up what a Tar Heels was, and found out that this from Wikipedia:The exact etymology of the nickname is unknown, but most folklore believe its roots come from the fact that tar, pitch, and turpentine created from the vast pine forests were some of North Carolina's most important exports early in the state's history. For a time after the Civil War, the name Tar Heel was derogatory, but it was later reappropriated by the people of North Carolina.^[1]

Because the exact history of the term is unknown, a number of legends have developed to explain it. One such legend claims it to be a nickname given during the U.S. Civil War, because of the state's importance on the Confederate side, and the fact that the troops "stuck to their ranks like they had tar on their heels".^[2] )  One should know what it is they are working on, right?

The client is delighted, I am delighted, and it is off in the mail to the mother's baby shower.

During this whole interaction with the client, and ordering the fabric for each team, one of the first fabrics picked was the wrong type of fabric, meaning it was fleece.  So, since it wasn't going to be used in this quilt, I went ahead and made a couple of baby blankets and put them on my Etsy site.  If you are interested, just click on the upper right sidebar Etsy icon, and it will take you directly to my Etsy site.

Another client wants me to make her a set of college themed potholders representing the University of Oregon Ducks.  She also wants nine more sets representing the different holidays such as Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, Fourth of July, etc.  Originally she has just asked for the U of O set of potholders, so I have done those first and they went out in the mail today.  I will be working on the rest of the sets in a couple of weeks, as I have John Q's quilt that needs to be quilted.

I also finished one of the pillow shams that will go with John Q's quilt, and I will be working on the other one today.

I kept it simple in the binding of the outer case, opting not to do a flange or ruffle, the customer is just not that kind of a person.  The back closure is just a simple envelope type, making it easy to get the pillows in and out.

Lastly, I finished the "marble" bags for the sling shot's that my dad had made (more about that in this post), but I didn't get any pictures before mailing them off to the client.  My dad had made a couple of sling shots for his neighbor, and the neighbor wants the bags to hold the marbles.

Warmest...

Harvest Season

I normally would have done three to five posts about all that I am doing, but I just haven't had the time to get to writing about it each day, so that is why this post is so long.  Bear with me...

Yes, I have been absent, only because it is fall and that means it is harvest season for all kinds of things.  More tomatoes being made into stewed quarts, about 12 so far this year and the tomatoes are still ripening.  I have had better seasons, but I missed about 6 weeks of spring and summer out of town, so I think this is pretty good so far.

We also roasted all of our green chili that we grew and ended up with about two quarts off of one plant.  I plan on planting more next year, as we use them a lot in our cooking.  We are originally from Albuquerque, and I have smuggled green and red chili home when I visit.  It would be so much better if I could grow enough here at home.

Then, two days ago, my neighbor called and asked if I wanted some plums.   Absolutely!  So I picked a bucket came home and put them in the dehydrator.  They came out so wonderful that I went over and asked to buy some more from her, and she said to pick all I wanted.  Should never say that to me!  So I am on my third buck, and third round of drying them in the dehydrator.  My husband and I eat lots of dried fruit and nuts while doing our trade shows, so I am getting all that I can get done for us.

This is the before picture:

 And this is the after picture:

They don't look to pretty, but they are 100% all natural and taste so much better than any boughten dried fruit.

I have done over 500 plums so far, and plan on doing another 250 or so, which is about 1500 dried pieces!  Wonderful! Awesome!

But I have been doing a little bit of sewing here and there, when I can catch a few minutes.  Here are the things I have gotten done:

John's Quilt:

I laid out the layers to John's quilt and got it pinned it together.  It is ready to go to the sewing machine for stitching.  The first picture is a pillow sham that I quilted up.  You can see that I didn't stitch in each square, I grouped together sections of blocks to give it a more random look.  The client was very happy with the way the quilting is going to be done for this and the quilt.  

This shows the quilt all pinned up ready for the stitching.  

If you look closely you can see I have used two extra loft battings to make this quilt more of a comforter.  The client wanted it really thick!

Next, I received an order for three bags to hold marbles for some homemade slingshots that my dad had made for the grandsons.  This is the first one I made, and I am sending it off to see if it will work before I make the other two.

On a personal level, I made two blocks of 20 that I need to make the next round for the Chocolat Legacy UFO BOM that I am working on currently.  You can find more information about this BOM here.

Lastly, I also received a custom order for a baby quilt.  One side needs to use fabric print of the Nebraska Cornhuskers, and the other side needs to use fabric print from the North Carolina Tar Heels.  So after ordering the fabric online and receiving it yesterday, I went out to get the alternate colors to use on each side and also started cutting out the 5" squares.  I needed to do some "fussy cutting" from the print to get the correct icons in the quilt.

Here are the two prints with the coordinating fabric:

This shows the "fussy cutting" I did on the Nebraska Cornhuskers.  There are three different logos/icons prints in the fabric.  I needed a total of 40 five inch squares, and I got all of them out of a yard of fabric.

I will be fussy cutting out the blue North Carolina Tar Heels print this evening, and the rest of the coordinating fabric, so I can get this done and out the door by the end of next week.

Warmest...

More Berries...

It is berry season up here in the great Northwest.  Today I picked up a full crate of blackberries and raspberries, and two crates of strawberries.  All of the berries, with the exception of 6 pints, are going into the freezer as whole fruit.  The six pints of strawberries are sliced and going into the dehydrator as of just a few moments ago.

As you can see, half of the above flat is in the dehydrator below. Smile.

While I am waiting for the fruit to get frozen enough to put into freezer bags, I am working on my UFO #4 (read more here about it if you are interested)  project by getting it quilted.  I am just doing some straight line quilting, mostly stitch in the ditch work.

Some spaces, like the center of the stars, I am quilting an "X", and will do some shadowing inside the trees, but nothing to fancy, as it is a simple kind of wall hanging that calls for some simple quilting.

 Later this evening it will be back to the berry harvest as I will be picking blueberries then freezing and drying them tomorrow morning.

Warmest...

More Time Spent Gardening than Sewing

It is early summer and time for harvesting crops that are ripening this time of year.  I already posted about the strawberries a couple of weeks ago, since then I have been harvesting the following:

First off, the cherries were ready and I was picking them the latter part of last week.  This bucket was filled twice, about 5 gallons of bing cherries.  We have a 100 year old cherry tree that is grafted with three types of cherries, bing, Queen Ann, and Ranier.  The bings were the only ones ready last week, and the others are coming ripe this week.  I pitted the five gallons and put them in the dehydrator and got an end result of 2 quarts dried.

This is one of two containers of peas that were harvested the next day.  They got shelled and the pods fed to the chickens, and the peas were blanched and put in the freezer.  This year we harvested about 4 1/2 quarts of frozen peas.  Should be enough to last well into the winter, to about the time to plant again next February.

This is the spring harvest of carrots.  Not as much result as was planted.  I tried a new seed company, and not sure if it is the type of carrot, or just the conditions this year.  I will be going back to my favorite type of seed next year.  I have already planted the fall harvest of carrots, so I am hoping I will get better results.  

And, as of yesterday, the blueberries are coming on strong.  I ended up picking about a quarter of this bucket, blanching them and putting them into the dehydrator.  Fortunately the blueberries do not ripen all at once.  They will need to be picked about every 4 to 5 days for the next three to four weeks.  Last year, we picked about 5 gallons all together.  Some were given away, some were frozen, some were dried, and the rest were eaten fresh and baked into muffins, pies, and bread.

Also, not pictured, were lettuce, radishes, cauliflower, and cabbage that have been harvested and already dated and so enjoyed this year.  I get so busy harvesting and prepping the food, that I forget to take pictures.  Gardening along with sewing is great satisfaction to me and provides a wonderful end result.

Warmest...

Early Garden Progress for 2014

I know this blog does not spend too much posts about my garden, but this is the progress so far for 2014 season.

This first picture is the garden boxes (with the chicken house in the background) full of produce.

This is how well my peas are doing.  These peas are from seed I saved from last year by letting some pods dry naturally on the vine.  We will be harvesting and shelling peas by end of next week.  They have been in the ground since the first weekend of February.

This is my lettuce bed, with several varieties of lettuce from Romaine to red and green leaf.  The greens that are blooming yellow flowers is mustard greens, and the three heads on the end are actually brussels sprouts.  

The rest of the garden boxes have good growing plants, but nothing else is close to harvesting yet, so more on them later.

Now for the blooming flowers this early spring.

This is the only Peony I was able to capture, as the others bloomed while I was out of town the month of May.

And this is the wagon full of all kinds of blooming annuals.  I have this sitting in the corner of the grass area of the yard, just outside of the chicken yard.  It is part of what I see when I look out my picture window of my sewing room.  

The Pacific Northwest is one of the best places I have lived to grow things so easily.  They have a saying here that goes something like this, "You really can't kill anything here, no matter how hard you try."  Smile.

Warmest...