Sunflowers and Butterflies

The sunflowers are all appliqued.

I have started on the butterflies.

Stay safe and well.

I've Been Busy!

So have other quilters. 

To see what they have been up to go to 

Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.

After I finished the masks I decided I was going to finish up something for ME.

I had started this Zip Zip Bag from a kit from Connecting Threads several years ago, but never got around to finishing it. 

I decided now was a good time. Over the last several years I have gone from carrying a larger purse to a smaller cross-body purse. Sometimes I only take my wallet, especially in cooler weather when I am wearing a jacket/coat with pockets. I slip the wallet in a pocket so my hands are free. When the weather warmed up I didn't have a pocket big enough so I started using the cross-body purse again. As I have accompanied Husband to his medical appointments I end up holding onto his wallet, checkbook, reading glasses. That purse just isn't big enough to hold his things and mine. Time to finish this project.

 

It has three compartments. The one in the middle isn't very deep but works well for a small bottle of hand sanitizer, lip balm, etc. I added a D-ring at the top to clip my keys to. The strap is long enough my keys slip into the pocket.

It's bigger than I thought it would be but I am going to try it out for a while.  

Then I decided to make a new wallet. 

This one has four zipped compartments and co-ordinates with the Zip Zip Bag. 

The spaces between the zippered compartments form open compartments for even more storage. It was glued to a metal frame after construction. It is bigger than my other wallet but still small enough to fit into my jacket pocket. I love the pop of lime green with the black and white!

In between working on the bag and wallet I decided to tackle the closet in my sewing room. It was full of Son's things. I have boxed up the things he wants when I can get them to him, tossed some stuff, have a pile that needs to go into tubs for storage here and some items for donation. 

During the cleaning I found his FFA jacket and shirt. He kept asking about them, wanting them. I hadn't seen them for a while and was sure I had taken them to him already. But he kept telling me he didn't have them. He is notorious for not looking very hard to find something, usually doing a quick scan around himself and saying 'can't find it' so I was convinced that they were at his house and he just hadn't looked for them. Meanwhile I had looked for them. I had gone through every closet and drawer and 'safe spot' I could think of. I was beginning to think they had accidentally been donated or thrown away. I guess I was the one who hadn't looked hard enough. To my relief they were hiding behind some other clothes hanging in the closet. I found them when I started removing all the clothes. His jacket and shirt are now in plain sight, clearly marked. They will go to him the next time I see him.

I bagged up most of the clothes - they were 30+ years old - for donation. I thought the donation boxes around here were open again, but I found out they are still taped up so I have nowhere to go with them for now. I still need to get a few boxes of things not needed for now moved upstairs out of the way, but I got the closet organized. 

My things are now easy to get to and I have more room in the room. The two carts/drawer units are on wheels so they can be moved as needed. Still not the way I want it, but it is better. I'm sure some rearranging will take place until I get it the way it works best for me.

While all this was going on I noticed I had a visitor.

Bold little critter, isn't it?

We used to have several walnut trees on our property. We are down to only one now, but I find walnuts buried in the flower planters and saplings coming up all around the flower gardens. Wonder how that happened!?

Now I am back to working on the Butterfly baby quilt.

Stay safe and well.

My Day

Monday started out with normal household stuff - clean up after breakfast, check try to check email and other computer related activities, finish up face masks, check the garden.

We have been having issues with our internet for a while now. Again. It never seems to end. I made a call to our provider, they sent a guy out who made some adjustments and things were great the rest of the day. Then in the early evening our connection was dropping again. That continued for hours. 

 

This is soooo slow! It feels like the old dial-up speed. It takes pages forever to load.

This is better, but still not good.

This is more like it! This is good. This is what it was when I started this post. Now it is back down to 3.8 MBPS. Grrr.

While I was merrily sewing masks I got a call from Husband. He needed my help. He round baled some of the hay. He doesn't have the room to store it all inside so most of it gets stored outside. Through the wind, rain and winter weather. He is trying bale sleeves this year. They are a big plastic band that slides over the bale.

It is definitely a two person job. With one of us on each side of the bale we are able to slide the sleeves on. Then he moves it to a spot on the back side of the barn to be stored until needed this winter. We got sleeves on 6 bales and have 9 more to do.

EDIT: Things continued to worsen until we had no connection at all for many hours. I was unable to finish my post. Yesterday I called to report it. Turns out a storm had gone through the area where the tower we receive our signal from is located. Parts were ordered and by early afternoon today we have a good connection. 

I got 50 bigger, masculine masks mailed to Son's GF; 30 child and 40 teen/adult masks mailed to my mom's former employer on Tuesday. 

As I was driving to town I stopped and took a photo of this beautiful sky.

When I got home I took a walk around my yard.

These 'ditch' lilies are right out my front door. 

They make me smile.

 

 

These berries are right out my front door, too. They just appeared a few years ago. I fought them, digging them up, for a while, but then I decided they wanted to be there so I bought some trellises to help contain them a little. I noticed the birds are enjoying them even though they aren't ripe yet. There probably won't be any left for me to eat. That happened last year. 

Since I haven't had much any computer time I started a new project. I'll show more about that later. Then it is back to the baby quilt.

Since I wasn't able to get my post completed on Tuesday I had to finish it using the new blogger. I must be getting the hang of it or all the changes aren't out yet because I didn't seem to have much trouble. The buttons are moved around but I think I was able to figure it out. 

Stay safe and well.

Masks

To see what other quilters are up to go to

Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.

I was able to get four sunflowers appliqued on the Butterfly baby quilt.

I am really enjoying this quilt, but I had to stop there and make some masks.

Son's GF needed bigger, man-size masks. She, meaning the male employees she manages,  also requested more masculine fabrics and colors. I try to put a more subdued or tone-on-tone type fabric on one side along with a 'fun' fabric on the other. 50 masks are ready to ship off to her tomorrow.

My mom retired several months ago, but her former employer sent a Facebook message that they are in need of masks in both adult and child sizes. So I have been busy with that, too.

I am trying to be mindful and make some masks more masculine. I am also trying to remember that not everyone likes 'fun' fabrics. Keeping that in mind, even with the ones for kids, I am trying to pair quieter - solid or tone-on-tone - fabrics with the fun fabrics.

My personal opinion is that if we have to wear a mask why not make it fun! But, not everyone feels that way and I understand that.

I have mentioned our barn cat previously.

I don't usually see him much. But, last night he decided to hang out on the ramp at the front of the house. He stayed there for about an hour.

I kept watching him. He really is a pretty handsome, cat, but doesn't allow 

anyone to get too close. I caught him taking a little cat nap. I love when cats curl their front paws in.

Then, he stretched, washed his face and was gone. 

Stay safe and well.

Ugh!

I think I am just about to give up on growing a garden.

Yesterday morning there was this -

 There were five mini cucumbers left. 

I planted 10. 

Beans have been de-leafed.

This morning -

 More beans de-leafed.

Two decent cucumbers left. 

Two more that are basically just stems.

I'm sure it is the starlings.

Bird netting and more wire coverings have been ordered. The garden supply place called yesterday to inform us that these items will be shipped - wire coverings in July, bird netting in August. 

A little too late, I fear.

However, most of the flowers are doing well.

This Malva Zebrina did get chomped off, but has new growth. 

Either the rabbits will leave it alone or are waiting for it to grow a little bigger before they snack on it again.

 

 

The Hibiscus that the rabbits also dined on took a hit from the wind last week. 

The tallest stem was laying on the ground. It still is. I don't know how, but it surviving, so far.

Work on the Butterfly Baby Quilt continues.
I laid out the pieces to get an idea of what it will look like. 

GF is happy with the look.

I appliqued all the stems in place.

Then started with the sunflowers.

I am using Sulky and Star variegated threads. I am so thankful for my fabric AND thread stash!

I am usually not too excited to do machine applique. I like the look of it, but my needle gums up and I have lots of thread breakage. I use Steam-A-Seam 2. I read on a blog a while back (sorry, I can't remember which blog it was) that they use 'anti-glue' needles when doing applique with fusible web. So I ordered some and decided to use them.

The needle seems to get a little sticky after a while, but I am not having thread breaks.

I just got a call for more masks for an organization that provides residential treatment programs for children. They will be resuming home visits soon and need masks. So I will put the quilt aside for a few days and sew some masks.

Stay safe and well.