around n round she goes

A blog for my knitting, spinning, quilting, violin-playing, or whatever else floats my boat

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Location: Texas

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

What am I doing?

Since I don't feel much like taking pictures of my knitting right now, you get flowers instead. Accidental flowers...

This is from a set of volunteers growing on the front edge of the lawn. As you can see if you look closely, the ants love them. They'll bloom for a while longer, then I'll actually get to mow in that spot. I've been carefully manuvering around them for a couple of months. I suspect these were planted years ago - they just keep coming back. I've no idea what they are. Does anyone recognize them?

Life finds a way, doesn't it? My husband and I planted a few hydrangeas the first year we moved into this house (9 years ago, now). They did ok the first year, but really suffered from the heat. We pretty much gave up on them and thought that they had completely died out. Look what I found tucked up under the hedges this summer! Not very big and not many flowers, but there all the same. These flowers are like litmus paper. Depending on the acidity of your soil, the flowers can be pink or blue - that first year we had pink and blue flowers on the same plant.
And does anyone recognize what I'm working on here?

Yes (for those who guessed right). It's a quilt. It's become something of a family project. Mother and Daddy pieced it from a bunch of 'fat quarters' - those nice square bits of material you can get at the fabric store specifically cut for quilters. They also sandwiched it with batting and backing and pinned everything together. They then tried to machine quilt it - using an embroidery flower tacking pattern.

The darn thing didn't want to cooperate with them. It's a real headache to manage a full-size quilt using a regular sewing machine. I've done it but there was a lot of cursing involved. Mom and Dad gave up and the quilt went into the closet.

I volunteered to hand tie the quilt for them so all that effort wouldn't go to waste. So... 16 ties per block times 30 blocks ... 480 ties, right? And then the binding and the finishing.

I got out my Q-Snap quilting frame and put it together. And then put it together again a different way. And then again. And then went online to their website and printed off a picture of the frame and put it together again the right way.

I think I'm almost half-way through the blocks now. That part of it is going pretty well, now that I've got my equipment sorted out. I'll probably use my sewing machine to do the binding, but we'll worry about that when I get there.

There's another sock in progress, too, but I'll post pictures of that later. I still have not resolved the lace scarf problem, but I'm not too concerned, it will be months before I need something that warm around my neck.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

So nice to hear from you you again. I think that first flower looks to be some sort of poppy. The stem wouldn't happen to fuzzy would it.

I can't wait to see your lovely family quilt when it is finished.

1:45 PM  
Blogger Brigitte said...

The quilt is beautiful, I'll have to show my sister as she's an avid quilter.

Nice to hear your back! Hope the neck is getting better?

4:35 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The flower you've shown looks rather like a portulaca. Hard to see the leaves, but if they are fat like a succulent and the flower is almost like tissue paper, then maybe that's what you've got. I love them, they don't mind the heat too much and they will often self-seed. Good luck finding out what they are.
Chris

11:13 AM  
Blogger 鳳梨酥Blue said...

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5:36 AM  

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