Rose Prairie Quilts and Farm

I have the first of 4, of the Ruby's Gardens done and the fabric picked out for the next one. It has been so stinking hot that I do not dare go outside after I come in from working in the garden. By then I am heated and tired and just want to hibernate inside. I had no intentions to work in the garden this morning seeing how it was near 80 at 7:00, other than watering the new seeds planted but this one bed has been driving me nuts since I've been home.  My garden and that beds looked like this 6 weeks ago before I left  As you can see I had planted cabbage in this bed.  Now my garden looks like a jungle. I made it through only weeding half the bed before I got overheated. I wanted to get it all gone but it was just too hot and this was before 9:00. I just can't work out in this heat like I use to. I had harvested 5 heads cabbage and meant to get to the others before the rain hit last week.   But I put it off and now my cro

sorry it's blurry, not sure why Up on my design wall this morning is the first of the four Rubys Garden quilts  I worked on it a little Saturday and finished all the alternate blocks and now I'm ready to sew them together.... I think it looks really sweet.  This one is going to be for my youngest daughter who loves pink At one time I was auditioning different fabric for the outer border.  But as you can see from the pictures I think I'll go with just the background fabric,... that one looks the best I like to take photos of the quilts on the wall because by looking at a pictures I get a better perspective of how all the colors and fabrics blend together, seeing what works and what doesn't work. My goal for the day is to finish assembling this top and then deciding on which fabrics I will use for the next set of embroidered blocks. Each one will be made from different fabric. Even though it was 75° this morning at  6 AM. I

  My finish for the week was the Thangles sampler that I started way back and can now cross it off my list.  I learned from this quilt is I am not a Thangles girl. But I did like the fact of taking a strip and being able to mark, sew and trim away to get your HST One of the best part is that I used only fabric from my stash. I do not have a lot of batiks but from the few I had, the one seen here for the alternate blocks work out perfect. I couldn't of picked out one better. I had also had set aside for another project the dark brown that I used to seperate the blocks from the border. The pictures are not very good, at the time I took these we were being drench in rain and the natural light was poor. The quilt measures 67x54 Linking up with  crazy mom quilts Sarah at  confessions of a fabric addict

I want to share an update on my straw bale garden experiment. I hadn't planted anything before I left to go to California last month. I was afraid it was going to be hot and dry and no one to tend to the bales. Boy was I wrong, we had a record amount of rain and cool weather while I was gone. My bales were perfect for starting a garden. They were well into the composting phase of their development and ready to plant. Last week I planted pumpkins, a climbing butternut squash and some cucumbers. I planted vines variety because my bales are next to the fence and I figured I would take advantage of it As you can see they all came up so beautifully except for some older pumpkin seeds that I went ahead and planted.... being very doubtful they would even come up.  So I'll need to replant something in that spot As you can see from this photo I have some weeding to do around my bales. weeds find any crevice to grow. After I do that,

, I'm doing the free BOM  Cozy Afternoon  from Jacquelynne Steves  which she started this month I decide to do mine in embroidery work. I'm going to make it for my mom who is basically disabled cannot get up and about very much so I thought it would be a perfect little lap quilt for her. Now my mom, she taught me how to do embroidery work, she did beautifully embroidery work herself. So I figured in honor of her I would do embroidery. Now I need to decide on color. I thought about the 30's fabrics.... I have such a large collection and they are bright and cheery, I think she would like that. The other thing I'm working on today if prepping my ruby garden blocks that I have embroidered by washing out the markings. Some only need a spray of water and a few needed to soak for a minute Then dry and press them to be ready to be  trimmed up to the proper size I love my Tucker Trimmer, this is the large one It is so eay to line up my wor

I have raised small flocks of chickens for over 30 years now & every now and then I'll get an egg that is not perfect.  I had one of those eggs recently. One good thing is that I had only one egg and not a series of eggs. I take that as a sign of no major infection concerns. I could be wrong but I see no signs of illness. This egg is wrinkled or  Corrugated shell ( I believe more the latter) From what I can find out... that is most likly a stress related cause by being an overly large egg (which it is) or having two yolks release by the ovary relately close together. For more imformation to can go here  that is a PDF of 20 common egg shell problems and here  at Backyard Chickens website on  Common egg quality problems. I hope this helps anyone who on occasion come across an egg that is not perfect.  I know it helps me.  Another good resource is "The Chicken Encyclopedia" by Gail Damerow. Its a good general information resource to h

What's up on my wall is what I was working on yesterday and that is the Thangles buck-a-block from a few years ago. I was trying to decide on which border to use, and decided to go with what I used as the alternate blocks  But it's a small quilt not very big, 38x52 and I want to make it big enough to at least be used as a lap quilt. So I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to add a small strip a dark brown to break up the border and blocks. I'll make the border 6 inches and the inside strip an inch and a half so that will give me an additional 15 inches around... making it 53x 67. I think that will be doable. I had thought about using the leftover strip - but I don't believe I will have enough - I haven't measured yet. Prior to working on this, I decided to take my walk this morning while we were having a gentle summer rain. I haven't deliberately done this in years.  You know if you ever get a chance and don'