Ready for the Onslaught!

Greetings from hot Florida!


For the past six months I've cleaned, weeded, planted, re-planted, polished, thrown out, quilted and purchased. All getting ready for my husband's family reunion we're hosting. Starting TOMORROW!

"Am I ready?" you ask.  YES! Yea!

Here are some photos of our home. This is the entrance (garage to left). I had originally planted seven flats of petunia in these beds. Within four days they wilted and died. I was horrified. What a waste of money and sweat! The only thing I could figure was the overhang prevented them from getting enough sunshine. So, I went conservative and planted caladiums, a shade loving plant. Very low maintenance. So far they've survived my black thumb! You may see the marigolds in front of the caladiums. Notice how the ones on the far right are blooming. They get more sun!

The house extends to the back and right in an "L" shape.

Here is my favorite part, the backyard. I love our trees. They are live oaks, which is a bit unusual in this area. I love their limbs and the wild directions they take. We have about two acres and around the trees you will see native ferns, palms and various plants. (very little grass!). Oh, there are also some wild beasts roaming around (see second backyard photo).

 And here is our Living Room. To the left is the kitchen. The house wraps around the pool. (look, more wild beasties).

As I type this, cookies are baking in the oven. Delicious chocolate chip cookies. With my secret ingredient. Yum!

Oh, I almost forgot. This is a quilting blog! I'd better add a little something to entertain those serious readers....

I have been playing with paper piecing and hand piecing the last few weeks. I made this sampler using hand piecing on half of the blocks and half machine made. I found the hand piecing was much more accurate. For small projects I'm definitely going to hand piece. Now I'm going to hand quilt the sampler.  Which I've never done before! (Hopefully I won't ruin it!)

Have a nice weekend!

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Revenge of the Peanut M&M's

 

Now isn't this a pitiful face? 

Well, don't have too much sympathy because this sweet, darling dog got into my M&M stash (a 30 oz bag!!!) when I stepped out of the room to answer the door. When I returned there wasn't a candy left! I called the vet and the only remedy was to make Dallas vomit by pouring lots of hydrogen peroxide down his throat. So we did. And he did. He was so sweet not running away and just swallowing that stuff. He just trusted me. Wish I was the person my dogs think I am!

On to quilting...My husband's family is coming to Sarasota for a family reunion in June. Of course that makes me look at everything in a different light. "Is it really clean?", "Is it time to retire that item?" etc. I actually had a charity come to pick up an old couch Monday and they rejected it saying it was "too worn". Geez, how embarrassing! It's too worn for charity but was good enough for us last week! 

So I'm doing major spring cleaning, gardening and sewing. Mainly making a new queen quilt for the guest bed. It's this pattern from Moda Bakeshop and Rosyln Mirrington of Bloom

 

Her pattern is for 66.5"x90.5" quilt. I've enlarged it to a 90"x90" queen (it will go down the sides of a deep mattress). I'm making 36 blocks (6x6). It's very easy to make and rewarding. I've made a new friend that has a long arm machine and she's going to teach me how to use it on this quilt. This will be the biggest quilt I've made and I don't want to try stuffing it on my home machine.

I am using "Verna" fabric line by Kate Spain.

I'm also reading Jinny Beyer's book on hand quilting called "Quilting by Hand". It's the best book I've read for hand piecing and quilting. I've also ordered her CD "Quiltmaking by Hand" and I'm eagerly awaiting the UPS man!  

Well, off to replace my candy stash...Have a great day.

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