Busy Times

 SO I got the burn pile under control! The first burn took us down pretty well, but look here!

We're down to the ground! No more brush pile here!

There was a small mishap with the lawn mower....my hose is now about 3' shorter now than it was before. 

When I went to Albion, I stopped at the Presbyterian Church. They are now closed. They were having a yard sale. It's a sad thing, but is getting to be a common occurance. This was my childhood church, and I loved the windows.

And the big organ-it never was used as I remeber it, but I heard that it does operate. 

This stereo set up was used to play carrilion music-from LP records- through speakers in the church steeple. It was only on a few special occasions, like Christmas, but the music sounded so cool as I remember it anyways!

It's a really beautiful sanctuary, I hope it gets sold to someone for a venue or somehintg.  The curved pews are so pretty. 

They have pew cusions now! That's an improvment-you'd think that would get some folks into the seats!

The small office rooms all have stained glass windows too. This was a Sunday Schol classroom for awhile when I was a kid. 

And here's the problem...

With only a dozen or so people in church any given Sunday, you can't even pay the electric bill with that attendance, let alone pay a pastor.  It's a big loss for the community-there is no church now and no school. That's a death toll for the town I think, lucky they are not a bad location for commuting for work in bigger towns. 

ANd this guy was being helpful and using the magnet roller to pick up nails from the brush pile ashes. He's pretty good help. 

And very busy help too!

The water is always a favorite-it was crazy hot the last few days.

Time to upgrade from the triccyle-he calls it his e bike-I've got a new bike ordered for him!

Not Orphans Anymore

 So I am pretty good about not having UFO's around (Unfinished Objects). But I had a few orphan blocks from This Quilt back in 2025.

I didn't like them at the time, but here they are again. So I added some sashing and we now have a table runner! I loaded it up on Freddie and spent a lot of time looking at designs.

I went out of my comfort zone and chose a pretty dense design for this little piece.

Two whole bobbins to do this little thing!

Look how nice it came out!

I just love how nicely it lays, flat and square!

See the design? It's a lot of stitching, but it looks great! And I used the prewound colored thread this time.

The backside looks good too!

Well that's it for orphan blocks and no UFO's here!

Chores, Chores, Chores

 I just finished listening to this book. Highly recommend! The audio book is really well narrated, and while it is a long book it's hard to put it down!

And I tried these cookies. I was feeling festive. Pass. The filling is not very good and doesn't taste like anything. They are festive looking though!

I've been using up my stash as fast as I can! This bundle of 30's reproduction prints is next on the pile. 

I used a cute pattern from It's Sew Emma Called Tail Feathers

And here's the design I used for Freddie to quilt it. 

I cannot get a good picture, no matter what !! Shadey stripes....

Kind of not bad, but not very true colors....

I used up almost all the fabric on the back.

I do love the quilting design!

Indoors is a little more true color I think. The solid is really a nice pink. 

And look at this! I cleared out the container cupboard.

Uggghhhh! Where do the lids go??? Why are there so many containers??

There all done until next time. It seems like I can get about 6 months before it's out of control again!

The Wood Pile and the Fabric Pile

SO, In finally had a nice enough day, with no wind, to get the burn pile going in the backyard! It's been getting bigger and bigger for over 6 years! Nobody ever want to come do it, so , as usual, I did it myself.  Bean came over and they helped me keep it going so I was very pleased and thankful for that!

And I got another  quilt finished. I have no plan sometimes when I buy fabric. Somtimes, during a shop hop especially, I'll be overwhelmed and just buy something to get it over with. Because I REALLY want everything, but my budget won't be having that!
 

So that's how I came to have this motorcycle fabric. I had enough to make this pattern from Villa Rosa Patterns-they're the ones that look like little postcards with short instructions. It's called Foxfire. Here's a link Villa Rosa Foxfire

It looks pretty good from a distance!

I like the word print fabric on the outer border. 

But a closer look reveals the issues I had quilting this little thing! It's about 65"X70".

I don't mind backing that is scrappy and kind of awkwardly wonky. And that's the case with this one. 

But here's one of the obvious issues....I ran a tiny bit short on the backing, I had measured and knew it would be close, but as the quilting got nearer the end, it was clear I was going to run into the bit of extra fabric I had sewn on to the end to attach to the leaders. Oh well, it will still be cozy. 

If you look a little closer, you'll see there's more. See how the top row of quilting is pretty level? Even with the border fabric, ok. I high lighted it in yellow.

Now look at the bottom....see the purple highlighter? Not even close to being even with the border. Well, what's done is done with this one! I won't use this design again, it's way too hard to make it line up nicely because it doesn't nest at all. 

And the burn pile is down to here now! I just need one more nice day to finish it off!!