Sorry been MIA

Although I havent been quilting, I have been busy, canning and freezing and cooking.  I love fall, but it does get busy.

I work full time, so have only a few hours each evening to do my fun activities.  But I have managed to get a bit accomplished.  Since my last post I have frozen corn off the cob, and several quarts of creamed corn too. Green beans, herbs and zuchinni in the freezer, and dehydrating. More tomatoes canned, including a batch of tomato tang, which is a spicy catsup like condiment.  This week we have started on apples, canned slices, sauce, wedges, jelly and also dehydrated rings. Oh, and Davids favorite, Grapplesauce.  Might need to do one or 2 more batches of that if I can get more grapes.

But I did get my package of fabric off to my brown bag quilt exchange partner.  I hope she doesnt hate the fabrics I chose for her!

Canning this weekend

Go to the dog blog to see the total counts for the weekend, but here is the photo.

Back to the Garden

Its been a busy couple of weeks with dog shows, so other household stuff has taken a back seat.  This week I am focusing on catching up with the garden, it has become a bit weedy in places.  All the heat and rain is helping the garden grow beautifully, but also those pesky weeds.  My garden is not huge, living in the middle of a city, I have a space at the community garden.   Its not big, but I pack stuff into it pretty weel.  This year I planted more tomatoes than before and wow, do I have tomatoes!  I wont have enough at any one time to can large volumes, but I do have enough to do a can here and a can there.  As well as to eat right now! I am hoping to can my first ones tonightt, but it will depend on the heat index. A hot water canning process in a house with no air when its already 90 and humid is not necessarily the best idea!

However, as busy as I have been, I was able to get the white around 2 flowers this week, so I feel like I made up for the last week.

I have been sewing

but I just dont have any progress to show yet...soon I hope.

Hex Flowers

My Garden

Well one thing about the combination of rain and hot sunny days, my garden has gone wild.  The zuchinni  in the foreground are waist high.  (Sunday night I found 3 club sized zuchini, i do not understand how they hid so well when they are small, but from what i have read, I am not the only one who finds monsters from time to time!)
The tomatoes in the next patch back are chest up to nose high on me.  I am short, 5'3" but that makes my tomato plants almost 5 feet tall. And though you probably cant see it in the picture, they are loaded with small green fruit.
The Peas are about done, the heat is not their friend, but the green beans are starting to flower. I love fresh from the garden food.

One Flower and a few 4 patches

Here is todays one flower, this one has all its white, and I started on the connecting green as well. 

I really was in the mood to play with my sewing machine this weekend, so I started a scrap quilt. Using only stash. Its the Schnibbles Plan C quilt, done using up stash fat quarters. I have all the four patches done, and am working on the star points. Although I have dog shows all next weekend, I am hoping this top will still get completed by next Wednesday, but no promises.

Woohoo I love using stuff on hand. 

Sorry the photo is a bit dark, and doesn't do the colors justice.

Its time for something different..

I haven't had the sewing machine out for a while, and today I have the bug.  After work tonight I am going to start working on a scrap project. I have been collecting scraps and cutting bricks, 1.5 x 2.5 for quite some time. I have a shoebox full, so I think its time to start putting those bricks together.

And I have a few other WIP's that I would also like to get back out. I am hoping for a weekend of quiet sewing time. I hope to update Monday with some status and progress photos!

One Flower Wednesday

Well at least one partially completed flower.  It was a crazy busy week and weekend for me and picking up a needle for even a few moments rarely happened.  However, I do think this one is pretty!

Wednesdays Flowers

Sunflowers?

Hex Flowers

My flowers for this week.  Its grey and overcast outside, so I had to take this inside, where its also grey and overcast.

BookSneeze

Well I got my first book to review from BookSneeze yesterday.  I am really eager to read it and do the review, but I have a bit of dog business I need to do in my spare time first.  But I can say that I will be posting a review within the week! 

Due to the dog work I need to get done, I did not have a chance to sew any last night.  I hope to have a flower for tomorrow though, I only need to finish a few hex's....

My batteries died!

Both my personal pbetteries and the camera batteries died.  I worked hard this weekend, but have no photos to show for it.  I got the garden cleaned up a bit. It was the first weekend with no rain in a while, so there was lots too do.  Its not perfect yet, but its looking better! 
I started alterations on one skirt, and started sewing another.  The one I am sewing is a no pattern skirt.  I need a few easy care dog show skirts, so I decided to make my own. Nothing fancy, just serviceable.  And cheap-the linen was on sale so the whole thing cost me less than 5 dollars. Hopefully I will remember to pick up batteries for the camera and I can share my progress with both the garden and the sewing.

Reusing hexie papers and white green and more white

Thank you for all the nice comments about my flowers!  I am really happy I pulled this one back out of storage to work on.  the break was good though as I am rejuvenated.

Knowing that I have lots and lots of white to do, last night I started cutting. I think I cut enough white hexies for about 6 more flowers.  But, I don't have enough hex papers for that many, so I really will need to start working on putting some of the flowers together so I can reuse the papers that come out after they are joined.  I find that I can reuse the hex papers about 4-5 times before the edges start to lose the crispness needed.

What about you, do you reuse your papers?

One Flower Wednesday

With the start of my new blog, I moved the One Flower Wednesday here!   1 flower with white, 1 partial edge flower and one flower both needing white. Maybe this week.  I think I now have almost all my flowers made, but I have a whole lot that stiull need the white.  I may have to do a trial layout this week and see.

Busy weekend

It was a very busy weekend. On Saturday, my nephew had his 4th birthday party. The kids had a great time, it was cold and rainy but it never stopped the little ones. The joy they all had was expressed in each movement and puddle jump, but not shared by all the adults who were cold and wet and huddled up under the awning.  When did our joy go?  I remember playing in the rain as a child. Where does that abandon go?  The kids were a joy to watch, and the smiles never stopped.

I spent part of the time at the party observing nature.  There is a cardinal couple nesting low enough in my brothers lilac bush that an adult can see into the nest, well assuming you are taller than me at 5'3".   I watched both the momma and poppa bird flitting in and out and taking care of those babies.  Unfortunately, the nest is open to the elements, and poor momma bird was soaking wet. But she was pretty good about staying and covering those little ones.  I wish we would get some better weather for her though, as it will be hard for her to keep those little ones warm and dry, I am afraid.

Yesterday was a dog show, but in the evening when I got home I was able to go check out the garden.  The weather has been so wet that I havent really even gone down to the corner to check on it all last week.  I was amazed at how much change the week had brought!  Lots of growth, but not nearly the weeds I was afraid of.  A little hoeing and it looked much better.  Hopefully we will get a good crop of summer vegies this year.  I will try to get some photos if we ever get any sun again!

A little bit of piecing last night on the flowers.  I am a slow hand worker, but I guess its not a race!  Photos of that will come on Wednesday.  Enough of an update for today.

Peace to you.

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog!

My original blog Days at Daybreake was started with the idea that it would be about life, family, friends, of course the dogs and birds, as well as hobbies. But as it has progressed, I find it is primarily my dog blog.  The dogs ARE a huge portion of my life, and do take up a huge amount of my time, but I find I still have a need for creativity.

My hope for this blog is to be a place to share my creativity, through books, quilting, knitting, even recipes.  With my participation in the One Flower Wednesdays group and my hopes to do more, and present more of my handwork, I hope for this blog to take this out of the way for the dog folk.  I doubt they want to hear of my frustration with trying to crochet a round item and have it stay round!

So again, welcome and please stop back again when you have the time.