Vanishing Saturday

Where does Saturday go. I blinked and it was goneeeee.I need another day to my weekend. I didn't get to sew at all. I am having withdrawals. Help me, Help me, I am melting.

Well this is what I spent most of my day doing. Can you guess what that is? You got it Apricot Pineapple Jam. Yummmm!!!!!!!!!  My second favorite jam, my favorite is grape.  I still have a box of apricots left. What to do? Maybe dry them or maybe fruit leather. BUT NOT TODAY. 

  I did get a couple of baby blankets done earlier in the week.

These are those self binding blankets out of flannel. If you haven't tried them you should go find a tutorial to watch. They are so fast and turn out so cute, you would be amazed at how many you can do. Great presents.

Crazy Weather

Last Friday a hail storm to beat all storms came whipping through our neck of the woods and destroyed the vegitable garden and the flowers. The hail was so big in some places that it took out windshields.

This is a picture of the violets before and the one below is after.

This is my husbands corn field.

and his tomatoes

It knocked the fruit off the trees and bruised what didn't fall off. The craziest thing I have ever seen. Oh well so much for whining. There is always next year.

Twister

The concept of the Twister ruler has fasicnated me for awhile. So here is my first go at making something with Twister ruler. I have six projects at various stages going right now... not sure why I started another one, but this was a lot of fun. Fast, easy, and I think way cute. I have a hard time following directions, so I slightly modified the pattern found in Let's Twist Again by Marsha Bergren. My goal was to use all of the usable fabric I could. I was also limited on using something I had on hand... no runs to the store and I commited myself to trying to use only 2 charm packets. I ended-up using 2 1/2 charm packs (Ruby and Muslim mates by Moda) and 1 fat quarter of the ruby. The back will probably be mulsin and now I am trying to figure out how I want it quilted. Do you think hand quilted with Pearl Cotton thread or the usual???? If you have never used the Twister ruler- below is a few snap shots of my first go at it. You layout your pieces and sew them together- either 10" or 5" (charm size) in the order you would like. I rearranged them a half dozen times and finally gave up. I do not feel very comfortable doing random and I'm suprised at the outcome. Instead of doing the border row, I went ahead and put "extra" rows on all sides.

After sewing them together- you get out the pretty cute little ruler and cut--- what cut--- are you kidding me-- I spent good money on this fabric-- I am not going to waste a piece. This is what I got after I finally mustered up the courage to cut.

Then you sew them back together in order row by row. You get two by two....

Then a whole row......

This is what it looks like after--- what?? Why are there holes in my quilt???? n

I cut the "extra" off the sides and ends to make a border to go around the quilt (there was extra because of the extra rows I used instead of the border).

This is all that I am left with- so I sewed the 2 1/4 inch blocks together and I'm planning on using it for the binding.

This is as far as I got... about 4 hours give or take. I'm not the fastest... but a very easy table topper or wall hanging... It was a lot of FUN!

Jennifer
PS. If you are interested in the ruler or the book let me know and I can get you one.

Another finished quilt

The heat wave finally caught up with us. We were in the triple digits today and looks like it is here to stay awhile.

I finished quilting this top for Mom, now she just needs to do the binding.

Don't you just love summer. I have been picking raspberries just about every day. Most of them I have just been freezing but this batch went from this:

to this:

I love the flavor or raspberry jam but I am not very fond of the seeds in my teeth. Well the light went on when my daughter suggested I strain them. Why didn't I think of that? So I did, there are still a few seeds but not near as many as before. You should have seen my kitchen, I think I had red juice every where. I doubled the batch and it ended up boiling over, what a mess but it still turned out. I did get 18 pints and no leftover for sampling. I was hopeing one of the jars wouldn't seal so we could eat some and I wouldn't feel guilty about opening a jar. I make low sugar jam and it is just the right amount of tart. Wish I could share a taste with all of you, it is so good.

Jeanette

Happy Fourth of July.

This is what I feel like.

We had a family reunion at my house over the weekend. 30 people, camping out in my back yard. 16 were kids under 9 and of course we had wind and rain but at least the temperature was not in the 100's like it was elsewhere and like it is suppose to get this coming weekend. We even had fireworks on Saturday night. A little more excitement than was anticipated. I wasn't there but I guess one of the lighted ones tipped over and set off a whole bunch and the whole crew were running for their lives. Not a night to forget.

This is my current project on the quilt frame. A quilt made by my Mom and my sister for a cousin.

I also have a wedding for a co-worker coming up and I have this quilt I need to get cut out and done.

I just added some new charm packs for fabric lines from Moda that wont be out till this fall.