Getting Back into the Blogosphere

The weather has finally warmed in Maine with temps in the 70s. We have four or five days of hot weather coming up, then back into the 70s. Black flies are out and about as well. I try to load up with bug repellent, and I pay dearly with huge itchy welts if I don't. 

We have been waiting for the landscapers to start on a new back walkway, and they've finally got to it. I'm guessing the walkway is 30+ feet; and they've just started laying the pavers, so they'll be a while. 

Warmer weather also means the violets are in bloom. I discovered that my neighbor's side yard is almost all weeds in the spring, including spectacular amounts of dandelions and violets. I picked blossoms to my heart's content and made some lovely lavender and violet face cream with fresh blossoms infused in water. Also some wild violet cold process soap with dried blossoms infused in oil. 

The left over blossoms were dried and bagged for use this winter. Violet leaves were not so plentiful this year, but Mountain Rose Herbs carries dried violet leaf, and I can make soap with them too.  

Tis also the season for summer cactus. My summer cactus is a very finicky bloomer, so I was excited this morning to discover it is sprouting buds. There are not a bunch yet, but I'm hoping. 

My Christmas cactus, on the other hand, is perpetually confused. It has bloomed nearly continuously since last October. Here it is June, and it's still blooming.

In April I finished Mountain View Lodge, which was a free pattern from Benartex. I've made a couple of these as gifts for men; and this was for a friend of hubby's, who stitched a canvas cover for our pontoon boat last summer. 

I still have quite a lot of fabric left over from this collection, so I used up all of this striped piece on the back. Still didn't have quite enough, so I pieced one stripe with some tan fabric from the collection on either side. 

I am increasingly trying to find ways to use up more fabric from the stash on the back side of my quilts. I recently found a site called Just Get It Done Quilts by Karen Brown, justgetitdonequilts.com. Her YouTube channel is a gold mine of videos on scrap management and other subjects. She also has one called The Afterquilt. That video illustrates the process she uses to incorporate scraps left over from the front of a quilt into a pieced back. Very useful information.

The only other quilt I've finished this year is a quickie strippy. After having been off the quilt frame for so long, I figured a little practice was in order. Plus, these strippys are mindless and fast to put together, which sometimes provides a necessary respite from more complicated piecing. I'd like to have a stack of these tops available for practicing machine quilting.
 

Besides not having as much time to quilt as I'd like, the other reason I've been slow to get things done this year is because I've been working pretty consistently on two UFOs in particular that have been exceedingly time consuming. 

I finally finished the pineapple top and got it loaded on the longarm right away, intending to complete it before quilt show registration closed in May. I stitched out two rows in a thread color that didn't work, in a pattern that didn't work. It's been sitting on the frame for weeks now because picking out two rows of stitching takes a really long time and really kills my back. I'm still chipping away at it in increments of 15 or 20 minutes, and I don't have too much more to go. But that also means that I can't get anything else quilted because I am NOT taking this thing off the frame.  

I also resurrected my Y2K millennium charm quilt--again. I blogged about this quilt at the end of October in 2014, and that's probably the last time I worked on it. I am finishing up the last three rows of triangles, then it's time to sew all the rows together and add a border. This top is NOT going back in the closet again.

Summer Color

I took a ride to the nursery this morning to get a big bag of sunflower seeds for the birdfeeders. Even though food should be plentiful this time of year, the gold finches and chickadees are still cleaning out the tube feeder every couple days. It's worth it, I suppose, because my husband and I get so much enjoyment from watching them.

We discovered other creatures are enjoying the birdfeeders as well. Last week we came home from someplace and scared a skunk away from the feeder. Two nights ago there was a huge racoon rooting around under the feeder. I suppose I'm okay with that so long as they don't get into trouble (like trying to get into the trash or something).

I also bought a couple of coneflowers for the garden. I love these flowers, and I've wanted one in the yard since we moved to Maine. What I didn't know was that they come in other colors besides purple. I bought a peachy colored one and an orange one because my husband complained that everything in the garden is either purple or yellow. They were also available in a creamy pale yellow, which was so pretty. Maybe I'll get that one next year. I'm not very handy in the garden, but coneflowers are perennials, so I expect they'll take care of themselves.

Everything seemed to be in bloom all at once at the nursery, so I took a few more photos just because everything was so beautiful. I don't know what most of these plants are called, but I labeled the few I knew.

Begonia

This was some kind of fancy violet.

Kalanchoe, I think.

Orchids

Oh, if only I could grow these magnificent plants.

Pitcher plant, a carnivorous plant.

Hexies #27 and #28

I meant to get these up on the blog Sunday morning, but I just didn't get a chance. I have enough hexagons sewn to assemble a couple of rows now, but I'd be struggling to find the time to do it. I still have plenty more hexagon blocks to make though to keep me busy.
















It is much cooler in Maine today, and we are expecting some showers this afternoon.

In the garden, my tiger lilies are almost ready to bloom. I've waited several years for this moment. Last year the chipmunks climbed up the stalks and ate all those black pods (what the heck are those anyway?) in between the leaves. In the process, they pushed the stalks down and broke them. The year before, red beetles ate every leaf on the lilies before I even knew what hit them. I looked out the window this morning, and one stalk is pushed way over. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that nothing will happen to the rest.

Garden Glories

More plants in my garden have come into bloom, including the hostas. We have lots of them that line the back walkway, and I like looking down the walkway at the sea of flower spikes. I think this plant with the purple flowers is a hollyhock. Last year I had a bunch of black-eyed Susans, but they never came up this year. I'm afraid I may have pulled them out by mistake, thinking they were weeds. It's one of the pitfalls of not being a gardener, and it's a darn good thing these plants tend to themselves.

My tomato and herb plants are also doing very well, and I'm worried they might outgrow their pots. These self-watering flower pots are really fantastic. All I have to do is just go out every four or five days and fill up the bottom of the pots with water. I have blossoms on both plants now, and we're just waiting for the tomatoes to grow. One of these is a regular tomato plant, the other will bear grape tomatoes. Have you *seen* how expensive grape tomatoes are at the grocery store?