Buds

Happy Earth Day!

 

 

My Red Hexie Top is Finally Finished

I started this two years ago   I often left it in the bottom of a bin and worked on other things.  But since I had trouble getting out of bed, walking around and sitting at my sewing machine, I decided to finish this top.  I am very pleased with it. 

Last weekend was Easter.  William loves to colour eggs.  Here he is, hard at work.

Wishing everyone a very happy weekend.  Our weather is going to be cooperative and nice.

Bruce's Mills Maple Syrup Festival

We went to the Maple Syrup Festival today.  It was the last day of the festival, so it was today or never.   Luckily for us the weather was not too bad.  It was kind of cold in the morning, but the sun was shining and it became warm by lunch time.

William loved the wagon ride, the birds of prey and tasting the maple products. 

Here he is on the horse-drawn wagon,

 

 

The birds of prey fascinated him. He gently touched the owl.  He just loves animals of all kinds.

 

 

And of course the maple lollipop was his favourite.

 

 

 

 

I have not found my missing posts yet.  But maybe it won't matter too much.  I didn't post very often last year.  I was not well and neither was my camera or computer.  I will try to find the photos of the quilts I managed to finish last year.  It will be just for my own use.  I hope you will find them interesting too.

Oh, No!

I seem to have lost a whole year's worth of posts.  What happened?  I wanted to show you my finished red hexie top.  But I could not.  And when I tried to find it, I noticed that all my posts from last year are gone.  So here it is.  I am going to try again.

 

First Finish for 2017

I've been sick.  For two weeks.  They were the worst two weeks of my life.  But I have been feeling a bit better over the last few days.  And I was able to sew the binding onto my Shadow I Spy. 
I had it quilted by Janet Chisholm.  She actually finished it just before Christmas, but I was not able to do anything with it.  On the last Friday of the year I picked it up and took it home, intending to finish it before the end of the year.  But, like I said, I got sick.  A nasty flu.  But - better late than never.

 

William really loves this quilt.  It contains all of his favourite things.  From strawberries to fish.  He loves sitting on it and pointing to everything.

 

 



He also uses it as a play mat, driving his favourite trucks all over it. 

 

So this is officially my first finish of my 17 for 2017.  Now onto other projects.  I am linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts.

 

Day Lilies, a Flimsy and a Zucchini Recipe

Several people asked me for the Zucchini Pineapple Loaf recipe.  So I will add it to the bottome of this post.  But first I want to show you my scrappy flimsy.  I started this a couple of years ago, but put it away when my machine started to give me problems.  I sewed a couple more rows and now I think I have had enough of this one.  I am calling it finished.

This quilt top reminds me of the Day Lilies I have blooming in my garden at the moment.  I love these.

This is a gorgeous peach coloured one.

Another peach coloured one, except this one has a dark centre.

A double peach lily.

A yellow day lily.

I have more, but I will save them for another day.

Now for the Pineapple Zucchini Loaf recipe.  This is from a "Company's Coming" book by Jean Pare called "Muffins and More".  It is my favourite book by her.

Zucchini Pineapple Loaf

2               eggs

1/2 cup     cooking oil

1 cup        sugar

1 cup        unpeeled, shredded zucchini

1/2 cup     crushed pineapple, drained

1 tsp         vanilla

2 cups       all purpose flour

1 tsp          baking soda

1/2 tsp       baking powder

1/2 tsp       salt

3/4 tsp       cinnamon

1/4 tsp       nutmeg

1/2 cup      chopped nuts  (I have used 1 cup raisins instead of nuts and it turned out great)

Method

Beat eggs, oil and sugar.  Sir in zucchini, pineapple and vanilla.

Measure remaining ingredients in another bowl.  Stir.

Pour all at once into batter.  Stir to moisten.  Pour into greased loaf pan 9x5x3 inches.  I use a bunt pan sprayed with PAM.  Bake in a 350 degree F oven for about 1 hour.  Test to see if it is done.  A toothpick will come out clean.  Cool for 10 minutes.  Turn loaf out to cool on a rack. This is delicious if cut into slices and spread with butter.  Yield 1 loaf.

I am linking up to The Needle and Thread Network.

Zucchini Love

I was cruising around blogland this morning and I saw a delicious lemon zucchini loaf on Em's blog. Since I have a lot of zucchinis in my garden right now, I decided to bake one.

I got all of my ingredients together.  And I was off!

The lemon loaf never made it to the photo shoot.  So much was eaten that it looked a mess.  But it was truly delicious!  I had more zucchinis, so I baked another loaf - a pineapple zucchini loaf.

This one I am going to put into the freezer and save it for the weekend.

More Red Hexies and a Trip to the Beach

I worked on a few more red hexie flowers.  I thought I had made at least ten, but now I can't find them all.  So here are eight of them.

There are not many red flowers in my garden at the moment.  But there are lots of sour cherries.

Yesterday we went to the beach.  William had a terrific time.  He crawled after dogs.  Tried to eat rocks.  Played by the water and had lots of swing time.  We brought our lunch and really enjoyed ourselves.

Talking to some of the day campers.  William certainly attracts a lot of friends.

He loves the dogs!  This one was just too cute to let it get away.  So he chased it.  With his mother is close pursuit.

He loved the swings.  So did his Mom.

  

Edit:  I found the other red hexies.  I had made 11 of them.

 



Hope you have a great weekend.  And a terrific 4th of July to my American friends.


 

A Special Hexie Flower for Today

Happy Canada Day

Our country is 148 years old today.  So here is a special hexie flower just for you, Canada!  

Happy Birthday!

Linking to the Needle and Thread Network.

Some of This and Some of That

We've had lots of rain and my garden is doing great!  My sewing... not so much.  But I did get a flimsy finished.  It's going to be a picnic quilt.  I used lots of scraps.  This was my 'get myself going each day' project..  My DD asked me to make a picnic quilt for a friend of hers.  There was to be no expense involved, just lots of scraps from my stash.  I was only too glad to oblige.  It will measre about 56 by 56.  Now to get it quilted!

I think this quilt has a sort of orange feel.  I guess it's that cheddar sashing.  So here is an orange plant that is blooming in my solarium right now.  I got a small piece of this from a quilty friend.  It's a Clivia.  I have never had a plant like this before and I was thrilled when she gave me a piece.  The flowers are a lovely orange colour.

And now another thing that has taken me away from my sewing machine.  My DD went strawberry picking and we made 3 batches of strawberry jam or about 28 half pint jars.  It is delicious!  We couldn't keep William out of the action.  Here he is testing out the canning pot for size.  Yup, it fits!

I also made 4 more hexie flowers for the red quilt.  I'll show you when I get them sewn on.  We have a busy week ahead.  Lots of end of the school year things to tidy up for DD.  That means I'll get to babysit William.  Yay!  I love doing that.

A Soggy Day

We have had a lot of rain this month.  More than we had in April and May.  But my plants love it. Here is a hanging basket that I bought for next to nothing.  Lots of red here too.

I have been busy making more red hexie flowers.  Here they are in the garden, between bursts of rain, Guess there will be time for more sewing today.

I discovered another red flower in my solarium.  It's an Amaryllis  that was hiding in a corner.  It was with some others that were dormant.  I didn't think they would flower until the fall, but here it is.  In all it's red glory.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Flowers on Friday

I love red flowers.  One of my favourite is blooming right now.  It's a poppy and it has been in my garden for a long time - probably 25 years.  I love this bright red colour!

And here is my red hexie quilt.  There are over 1,000 hexies in this top so far.  I still a long way to go on this one, but I have lots of time in the evenings to work on it.  I love red.  Oh, I said that already,.

So here is another red flower.  It's a Martha Washington Geranium - Pelargonium domesticum. I have also heard it called a Regal Geranium.  The little white flowers are Euphorbia.

We are supposed to get some rain today.  That will be nice.  My flowers will be singing.  

Have a great weekend, everybody!

A New Month and a Few More Hexies

I did not finish much last month.  But now that my machine is fixed, I hope to remedy that.  Last week I made 8 bibs.  They got finished and were very well received.  When I was cleaning up afterwards, I noticed that I had many tear-shaped pieces of fabric left over.  These were the pieces I cut out for the neck.  I was just going to stick them into the scrap bin or maybe even the garbage.  But then I got to thinking. Each one was just the right size for a one-inch hexie.  So that is what I did with them.

 I will use them in this quilt.

But that will have to wait until summer is over.  I need to get out into the garden. The weeds are taking over.

More Hexie Flowers and a Nomination

I made a few more hexie flowers for my red hexie quilt.  These have been slow going.  I have not had much time to sew, either by hand or by machine.  So much work to do in the garden.  And I am not finished yet.

I have had to start making duplicates of the fabrics.  But that is okay.  I will place them far apart on the quilt and no one will ever know.

Emily from Em's Scrapbag nominated me for a blogging award.  Thank you Em.  I am supposed to tell you 7 things about myself.  But I am sure you already know what I am all about.

1. I love scraps.
2. I love hexies.
3. I have been suffering from broken sewing machine syndrome.  What a drag!  But everything seems to be working now.
4. I love flowers, and I love to garden and grow some of my own vegetables.  In the summer I have very little time for quilting.
5. I used to work for the school board.  The kids in my class all had multiple disabilities.  I am retired now, but I often see a former student and they always recognize me.  I love that.
6. I recently became a grandmother for the first time.  My daughter gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.  He is the highlight of my life!
7. And best of all, he is coming over for a visit any minute.  I am really looking forward to that!

And now I am supposed to nominate as many bloggers as I like.  There are so many of them.  I love them all.  But many people don't like receiving awards.  So I will leave it up to my readers. Nominate yourselves if you would like to.

I am now going to tidy up my house in anticipation of William.  He is crawling all over the place now.  And he loves to pull himself up on everything he sees.  So I have to make sure he will be safe.

This photo was taken on a very cold morning last weekend.  We actually had night frost and all of our vegetables had to be covered for the night so they wouldn't freeze.  All survived.  And the rest of the day was full of sunshine.

Thanks again Em.  I love your blog too!

Baby Bibs

I've been away for a while.  Haven\t done much sewing.  But the garden is planted, just in time for some frost on Friday night.  I will have to cover everything with plastic sheeting.

Yesterday I made 8 bibs.  My DD wanted me to make some more because she likes them better than the store-bought ones.  So I got out my larger scraps and made these.

The Batman and jungle ones are my favourite.  I wonder which ones William will like.

Now back to the garden.  I have to get everything ready for the cold night.  This is so annoying.  It is supposed to be spring!  What is Mother Nature up to?

Can't Get Enough Scrappy Blocks Done

Working on some scrappy blocks.  Some were started a long time ago and some are new.  My DD wants me to make a picnic quilt for a friend of hers.  I found these blocks in one of my UFO bins.  I have been working on them while I wait to get my Bernina totally fixed.  Yes!  It was not working again yesterday.  It seems that the last time I had my machine cleaned and serviced the guy did not clean it properly. That was only a couple of months ago and I did not use it in that time. The motor was full of carbon and had to be cleaned.  Now waiting to get it back. Hope nothing else goes wrong with it.  I have put the blocks on my design floor.  They are not in any specific order.  I will sew these together in a quilt-as-you-go fashion.  I think I want it to be 8 blocks square, (or maybe 7) so I have a few more to make.  But these are really fun to do.

I have given up on my Guild's PhD Challenge. My quilts would have to be done by the end of this month and since I have been without my machine for so long, that will be impossible.  Since I have decided to not finish them I feel a whole lot better.  No more stress.  I will still try to do them as soon as I can, but not for the challenge.

I am linking up with Oh Scrap at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.

Has Anyone Seen my MoJo?

I seem to have lost it.  I have my machine, all ready to go, but I can't seem to get started on anything. I've been working on hexies though.  That is the only thing I have done this week.

Here are five of them.  And here are four more.  Sorry about the colour of these.  The sun is just too bright.

\I have a few more prepped to finish this evening.  Maybe tomorrow I will be able to sew something on my machine.  My kids both want me to make curtains for their homes.  Maybe that is why I don't feel like sewing.  Ha!  Curtains really are not my thing.  Does anyone else feel that way?  Or do you love to make things for around the house?

Good News!

My sewing machine is fixed.  My DS drove me to the Bernina Shop in Newmarket.  They had the foot pedal I needed.  The guy there wired it in and I was good to go.  Just got home and haven't had a chance to set my machine up yet.  I am exhausted, so that will have to wait until tomorrow.

I have done a few more red hexies.  Here they are in my dandelion garden.  I have never had so many dandelions before!  I'll deal with those tomorrow too.

Have a terrific weekend, everybody.

Purple for April

My DD and William took me to the Creativ Festival yesterday.  There was not a lot of stuff I was interested in, but I did get a chance to talk to a Bernina dealer.  He had wonderful advice for me.  He can fix my sewing machine!  Yay!  I can buy a new foot pedal for about $150.  Or he can fix the broken one for about $40.  So I have options.  And that is a great help.

On the RSC15 sampler front, I have done a couple of purple blocks.  Purple is the colour for April.  I am way behind and still haven't started the blocks for the beginning of the year.

 But now that I can get my machine fixed as soon as I can get up to the Bernina shop, I have plans!

Linking up with Super Scrappy's ScrapHappy Saturday.

Happy Earth Day

Today is Earth Day.  Only one day a year?  I think it should be Earth Day every day of the year.  Let's recycle, clean up our environment and plant trees and wild flowers.  I planted some peas and lettuce. Not just for Earth Day, but because I love the fresh bounty from my garden.

Just some garden photos.  This is what my urns look like now.

And some Scilla Siberica in my front lawn.

We've had a lot of rain over the past few days.  Today that rain was interspersed with hail and snow. The temperature will go down over the next few days.  But the sun should come out.  And that will be nice.

And now some hexie flowers.  I could make many of these for Earth Day.  And I will!