Karrin's Crazy World

Sunday, June 04, 2023

HQAL, Slow Sunday Stitching

It was another busy week. I went with some quilting friends to see the movie Book Club 2. It was quite entertaining and I liked it.

Wednesday was our quilt guild's workday. Whenever there is a 5th Wednesday in the month, we have a workday from 9-2, with a potluck lunch. We bring quilts for people to quilt, or quilt kits for them to assemble, or they can assemble pillowcases.

I chose to work on the Sunbonnet Sue blocks that were donated by the daughter of a former quilt guild member who had passed earlier this year. I am in the midst of putting on the sashing I cut out from my stash.

I also got my Hands2Help quilts in the mail this week. The first quilt is for Quilty Hugs for Happy Chemo, the second for MCC, and the last 2 quilts are for Little Lambs.

Last week I was also quite busy with my garden. In the middle of planting things, I got this idea to make another garden bed in the area that was formerly John's boat yard. I had these edgers/pavers that were taken up when I redid my front yard last year.

I moved this beam across the yard with a dolly, and the rest was made up of the leftover edgers and brick. I ended up hauling in about 25 cu yards of soil from bags. One of the reasons I did this was because in sorting out another garden I found that my wisteria has dropped seeds all over the place. And my irises and naked lady bulbs need to be separated as they are way overgrown. It might look a little tacky but I didn't have to pay for anything but the soil.

My garden is looking like this now. I bought a dragonfruit plant. I need to see if I can dig a hole in my hardpan soil to plant it.

This is what a dragonfruit tree looks like.

While working outside the other day raking up some leaves, I disturbed this snake. It wrapped itself around my rake, and I carried it across to the park and let it go.

My hydrangeas are getting ready to burst out in color. I have a blue one right now, but usually all mine turn pink or purple because of my soil. This blue one I planted late last year.

Daughter Kristen had this pop up on her Facebook page from 9 years ago that grandson Keaton had written.

This is Keaton now.

Granddaughter Kyleigh and her boyfriend Drew had some beautiful pictures taken with Maple by a friend of theirs.

After working on charity quilts for the past several months, it felt good to get back to working on Winter Blues, a quilt by Bonnie Hunter. I am working on the pieced borders right now. I think I should be able to get them sewn on tomorrow.

Right now my slow stitching work is on a long-ago UFO, from 1999! I am attempting to finish it for the When Pigs Fly Sew-It Show-It Challenge in a couple of weeks.

This is the part I am working on now. The project consists of more embroidered blocks, and a bunch of pieced blocks. I am trying to get at least the top done, but it is going to be close.

Check out the other hand quilt along members below.

This Hand Quilt Along is an opportunity for hand quilters and piecers to share and motivate one another. We post every three weeks, to show our progress and encourage one another. If you have a hand quilting project and would like to join our group contact Kathy at the link below.

Kathy, Margaret, Deb, Nanette, Sharon, Karrin, Daisy, and Connie

I will also be linking up at Kathy's Quilt for Slow Sunday Stitching. Check out what these bloggers have been up to.

Thanks for stopping by!

Saturday, June 03, 2023

One Monthly Goal, June

It's time to link up goals for June at either Elm Street Quilts, or Stories From the Sewing Room.

My One Monthly Goal for June is the same as it was for April and May, to quilt this Apple Core Quilt for my son-in-law Jeff. The past two months, with working on the 5 charity quilts, I unfortunately didn't get to Jeff's quilt. But his birthday is July 1st and I really need to get it done this month.

So my goal for June is to quilt and bind this quilt. I will be linking up at Elm Street Quilts. Many thanks to Patty and Anne-Marie for this monthly motivation!

Thanks for stopping by!

Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Hands2Help 2023

It's time to link up quilts for the Hands2Help Comfort Quilt Challenge for 2023. I finished up my quilts this week and took a picture of them.

The first quilt is for Quilty Hugs. I had cut these tumbler blocks out with my Accuquilt, and were leftover from a prior quilt.

The second quilt is for MCC. There is an interesting story to these flannel blocks. My daughter's MIL was moving several years ago and was trying to lighten her load in moving to another state and was going to throw these out. I told my daughter that she should give any fabric she wanted to get rid of. I think she had planned to make a raggedy quilt but never got around to it.

The last two quilts are for Little Lambs. I will be mailing these out on June 1st. These are made from Potato Chip blocks. You can see the You Tube explanation by Brenda of Conquering Mt. Scrapmore.

I will be linking up at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sunday, May 28, 2023

Slow Sunday Stitching

It was another busy week, another week of fighting the blasted mealy bugs. I found them in another room. I am currently checking all my indoor plants every day for any signs of infection.

After seeing granddaughter Kyleigh's plantar boxes, I ordered a metal one for myself. I got it all assembled, and spent Friday hauling soil and purchasing some vegetables. I bought 3 kinds of tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, jalapeno peppers, and some herbs. Friday was spent going to multiple stores to find what I wanted. My side yard, where John used to build his boats is vacant, gets a lot of sun, and I think is a perfect spot for my garden.

Tuesday I went with several quilting friends to the movies. We saw Love Again that I really loved. It had Sam Heughan from Outlander in it, and that might have influenced my opinion. I am looking forward to Outlander's new season coming up June 16th.

This past Wednesday was Community Service workday at my house, which meant I spent 2 days cleaning up my house.

This week I was able to quilt this little quilt for Quilty Hugs for Happy Chemo for H2H this year. For Slow Sunday Stitching this week I will be putting the binding on and sewing it by hand.

I was also able to get this Gathered Blessings sampler done by Kathy Schmitz.

I have also been working on this secret project for the next blog hop, When Pigs Fly.

I'll be linking up at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching. Head on over and check out what everyone has been up to.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sunday, May 21, 2023

Slow Sunday Stitching

This past week has had its ups and downs. The down part involves my indoor plants. I have been battling mealybug, first on one begonia, then it moved to most of my orchids in the living room for months. I have treated them with alcohol, Neem oil, and a soap insecticide. It got so bad that I had to cut the beautiful blooms off most of my orchids as the bugs were attached to the flowers. The mealy bugs start sucking the sap out of a plant and eventually destroy them. Then I found an online recipe which seems to be working for the orchids. It consists of water, Neem oil, baking soda and 10 drops of Dawn. They are still in the garage, being treated for dehydration, but the mealybug has not come back on the orchids.

Meanwhile last week, just before I was departing for the Begonia meeting, I discovered an indoors string of pearls encrusted with mealy bug. I tossed that out, there was no way to resuscitate that plan. The next day, I checked out the begonias in the kitchen window and discovered 3/4 of them with mealybug. I took those outside and went and bought some lady bugs at the local nursery and have been releasing some each evening, which reportedly will feed on mealybug. It is warm enough, that those begonias are going to stay outside.

One of the good things this week is that grandson Jaeger is home from college for the summer. He came over and helped me put up my new triple umbrella to help shade my plants since my neighbors removed their shade trees to put in a pool.

The foxgloves are getting really tall.

I have spent part of the week pulling weeds early in the morning as it has been getting up into the 90's this week. This is a wild morning glory that keeps going all over my garden, wrapping itself around my plants.

The third week of the month is always busy for me. There is Begonia Meeting on Tuesday night, and then Wednesday was guild meeting. This was the meeting they were handing out ribbons from the quilt show last month. This was not a judged show, but all that entered received a ballot to vote on their 1st, 2nd and 3rd favorites in each category. My mermaid quilt, "What Makes My Heart Sing" won 1st place in the Challenge quilt category, but I was the only entrant in that category.

This week I acquired a new grandpuppy. Our granddaughter Kyleigh got a Great Dane puppy this week. One of our friends' Great Dane had puppies. Kyleigh's puppy's name is Maple and she is a female and the sweetest thing. She is 8 weeks old.

Grandson Jaeger came to my rescue again Saturday afternoon. My walk-in closet's light burnt out Friday night, so I went and purchased new light bulbs. They are this circular kind. You need to put them in the brackets and then plug them in. I am short, and I couldn't seem to find the right angle to plug them in. Jaeger came over and figured out the prongs weren't spread apart enough and fixed that and was able to get them plugged in the right away.

Now I don't have to use a flashlight to get my clothes out. I don't think we ever changed the lightbulb in this lamp since we redid our closet many, many years ago.

This week I was able to remove all the bad stitching I had made last week on my longarm and quilted the two little quilts for H2H charity drive this year. For Slow Sunday Stitching this week I will be sewing down the two bindings.

I was also able to piece one more H2H quilt. I plan to get this quilted this week and bound. Hopefully will be able to mail all 4 of the quilts I have done the end of the week.

I will be linking up to Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching. Head on over and check out what everyone has been up to.

This next week will be another busy one, with workday at my house, a hairdresser appt, hearing aid appt, and trying to get yard work done, and quilting.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Rose Colored Glasses Sew It-Show It Challenge, My Day

The Rose Colored Glasses Sew It-Show It Challenge started Monday. This is hosted by the amazing Carol @Just Let Me Quilt. Today is my day. There have been some amazing projects the past several days. The entire list is below.

The challenge this time is to make something rose-colored, with glasses, positive words or combination. Thanks so much Carol for again challenging me. Pink is my least favorite color.

Several months ago, one of the members at Begonia Society handed me a bag of fabric and projects. Apparently during Covid people would give her these to make masks, and she no longer needed the fabric. In the bag was this kit for a table topper, using pink fabrics.