Rose Prairie Quilts and Farm

Five on Fridays is back on Amy's blog so skip over there and give it a look to see what others are posting for their five My five this weeks........  Is lessons learned on straw bale gardening This was my first year to attempt straw bale gardening. It's a very ingenious way of gardening if you do not have good soil, the space or energy to have a garden. It's temporary so if your're a renter, you don't have to worry about making any permanent changes to the yard. It can be done on concrete if you don't have any place for garden. I do not fit any of those criteria's but I wanted to give it a try anyway. I have a large enough garden to keep me busy all year but I was fascinated by this idea and wanted to give it a try so here are the five things I learned from my experiment this summer 1. I found out that you will need to look for a tightly compress bale. Mine were loosely packed which created some issues when com

I have been able to make a little progress last night and this morning. I finished the rest of the cross stitching, plus was able to even do the little snowflake block.  So this morning I trimmed up the block and made 4 churn dash blocks. They're little filler blocks.  Now I can say block 3 is completed and it's on to the last, block 4. I didn't get all the Farmer's Wife blocks done like I was wanting. My goal was to get the 6 blocks done so I could drop them off at the quilt shop on my way to meet my friends. We try to get together at least a couple times a month to visit and stitch. Was able to get 4 blocks completed, took these to the shop. When we meet someone usually has a finish quilt to show and this time Joan had a beautiful one,. As a group project we decided to make the Pea Ridge Lily.  I have mine done. Pam had hers done  and now Joan does too. Plus it's quilted and bound. I believe

Yesterday after I finished the string quilt, I took a break from the sewing machine and did some quilting and some embroidering. I put Doc Martin on Netflix and did some hand quilting.  Was able to finish this one block  and now I'm ready to start on this one. Finally I can start seeing the end. That's only because I'm being pretty persistent about getting in some quilting at least every other day I have only these two big blocks to do. And some smaller ones that are fillers. Then of course the border. I normally quilt during the day because in the evening after "The Man of the Place" gets home I try to spend time visiting and catching up on our day. So if I do hand  work it's usually something that I don't really have to pay to close attention to or if not too cumbersome. Did worked some on the Scandinavian Christmas  I'm doing a Crosstitch around the outside of the

Yeah!!!! It's done.  I really need to check and add up how many I've done this year to see what's the number is. That way The Red String quilt would have a number. But until then, Here it is. Measures out to 99" x 99" Some how bigger than I first considered.  The block size is 12" finished. Have 7 rows with 7 blocks in each row. The border is 8" right now. I inserted a 2" strip of string pieced. This is the book that has this pattern Linking with; blossom heart quilts

I'm almost done with the Red String. Yesterday while watching Bonnie's Quilt Cam, I was able to finish putting the rows together. What better time to work on a scrap quilt than watching the Queen of scrap quilts. Just love the look of this pattern. It looks like it would be challenging to assemble but really its not. The pattern has a plain border but was thinking about using the leftover strips and cutting them down to 2" strips to finish out to be 1 1/2". Insert that strip between the background fabric for the border. Hard to decide cause I like the look of both ways. I added 2 rows to make it square. Right now before border it's  84" x 84" Can go with the suggested 6" border to make the quilt  96" x 96" or go with a slightly larger, say 7" or 71/2" to make the finish size 98" x 98" I'm leaning towards slightly larger border, thinking the small fi

I am having a true slow Sunday. Got up at 7, which is sleeping in. And slowly had my cup of coffee, then finally got dressed and out of the house shortly before 9 o'clock. Now that is being slow.  This morning is another gorgeous pre-fall morning.  It was a pleasant walk Then I spent some time in the garden.  Tending to some weeds and planting a few more seeds for a fall crop. It's getting towards the end of the planting season. Our first frost is around the first part of November. Then this afternoon Bonnie Hunter had one of her "Quilt Cams".  Which I haven't seen in a long time. So I stitched along with Bonnie. Worked on the Red String. And then this evening I believe I am going  to work some more on my Scandinavian Christmas. I've been taking a little break from hand quilting and appliquéing these past couple nights and doing some embroidery. If you get a chance go over

OK I know it's not Friday But I was gone all day yesterday and really didn't have a chance to do this. Besides feeling a lot like fall this weekend, it is starting to shows signs of it being near here on the farm.  My Lady apples start to turn a slight red tint more towards the end on the month but apples always mean autumn to me. The Dogwoods are one of the first trees to change color in our woods. This year is a good year for the pears. It will be October before they'll be ready. Beside the Dogwoods the Sassafras trees are turning also. Some of squashes and pumpkins I harvest this morning. I wish I could of gotten a picture of the bucks I saw this morning. They were out in the pasture locking antlers. A sign of the rutting season coming soon. Go to Amy's at Love Made my Home I missed the deadline to link but go over and see what others share.