Design Wall Monday

I love spring! My husband, not so much. He farms. He does not like farming. Long story that I won't go into here except to say that his father likes to be in control of EVERYTHING ... every. little. thing. He is 93 years old, but still wants to be in charge. This makes things difficult at times.

Anyway, I spent my weekend mostly outside working in the yard. Mowing the yard takes about 3 hours. Picking up the sticks before mowing took about an hour. We have some Basswood and Chinese Elm trees around our place. If the wind even thinks about blowing (and it blows most of the time around here) these trees drop twigs and small limbs like crazy. If it weren't for the shade they provide I would be very tempted to remove them.
Then, I spent some time with this...

I have been having issues with bending over to work in the garden. We don't have a big garden, but it is becoming move frustrating and less enjoyable for me. My wonderful husband bought and put together this lovely raised bed. it is 2' x 8' foot and comes up to my hip. We placed it in the garden and filled it with soil. I will get it planted today after work. Cucumbers will go on the end with the wire panel. I am also planting carrots, beans, lettuce, cherry tomatoes and a pepper plant. I am hoping my son will get more involved this year. He is a full-time wheelchair user and this is the perfect height for him.

As far as quilting goes, I finished this quilt for my friend.

I appliqued the small squares to the yellow squares. She didn't care for the yellow and had some leftover pieced blocks so I used them. I hope she likes it better now.

The librarian for our school district is going to retire at the end of this school year. Several years ago she received a grant from Arts Resource Grant and, along with some teachers and parent volunteers, the students made some small quilts. We were able to 'steal' two of them from her and I will be quilting them this week.

This week is the next retreat for my quilt group. I am packed and ready to go!

Design Wall Monday

It is dreary, rainy day here today. It has been that way all week along with some very strong winds. Yesterday we had snow showers. I am really looking forward to some normal sunny spring days.

Kindergarten students do not do well with inside recess.

I am showing the last of the photos from letter Qq week. They did have fun and love what their finished quilt blocks look like when all put together. There weren't enough blocks to make another complete row so I made a pillow!

Here are a couple students playing Quilt Bingo. They missed it the day we all played. The other students are playing regular math bingo with numbers 0-20.

 BINGO!

This is on my frame, but since it is such a dreary day the pics aren't the best.

This is for a friend in my Quilter's Exchange group. She is also my husbands godmother and the one responsible for getting my to join the group. They were just finishing up a paper piecing exchange when I joined. This is the quilt she made from that exchange. I am almost finished quilting so hopefully I can get a full picture of the quilt soon.

Design Wall Monday

We had lots of fun during the week with quilts in Kinergarten.

I laid this quilt out two days in a row and the kids loved it. It was lots of fun to look for all the fun things in this quilt. They really enjoyed The Quiltmaker's Gift  and  The Quiltmaker's Journey books, too.

Friday I had the good fortune to have a rescheduled appointment. That meant I would miss a day of work, but get to go on a fabric shopping trip with my quilty friends.

Kindergarten went on a field trip to a local children's museum. There were lots of parents going on the trip so I knew it would be a good day for me to miss.

My quilty friends had a good day at Boline's Quilt Fabric Warehouse where the owners are so helpful and friendly. We always have lots laughs. Then, we found somewhere fun to eat lunch. We have made this trip several times and have decided we need to try a different place for lunch each time. Then on to a quilt show in Bloomington, Illinois.

I have really trying hard to not buy a lot of fabric - just what I need for an ongoing project or something I really love. These are my purchases from Friday...

On the left is a red and black flannel. I plan to use this for some Christmas pillow. Next, the green gradated fabric will go in a quilt that is in the planning stages. The top three on the right are for the 365 Challenge and Civil War Sampler. On the bottom right is a blue plaid that will be the background of a hand applique 6 x 12 banner.

Yesterday as I cut more pieces for the 365 Challenge I realized I probably should have picked up some more dark blues as I am starting to low an a few.

I am way behind with this project. I do print out the daily pattern. Yesterday I cut a lot of them, then I skipped ahead and got the center medallion pieced for the 365 Challenge...

I also got the next three blocks made for the Civil War Sampler...

In the evenings I am knitting on Indian Feathers by Alina Appasov. The pattern can be found on Ravelry.

I am finding it takes me about 30 minutes to knit the pattern row, and a lot of concentration, so it is slow going with this one.

  This image was taken from the Ravelry website.

To see what other people are working on  go to Judy's blog.

Spring Break Final Day

This is my last day of Spring Break. I am not ready to go back. I still have things I want to do and I still am not feeling 100%. The meds for this sinus infection are giving me terrible heartburn, intestinal woes and flushing, which feels very much like hot flashes, only more frequent. The eye drops cause by eyes to feel dry and achy. Thankfully, Wednesday is the last day so hopefully those side affects will diminish quickly.

My family made the trip to the sale/auction barn this morning. I got dropped off at the fabric store downtown. I was pretty selective with what I purchase because I really do not need anything.

Starting on the right, some neutrals because I never have enough of those and I use them a lot. Next, are a brown and 3 purples for the Civil War Sampler. I really like the purples and seem to have a hard time finding them. After that are some black/gray/white prints. You know, for that future quilt I have cooking in my head. And, on the left are five pieces that I just had to have. I am seeing tiny barn quilts... or tiny quilts hanging on a line or over a fence... or....

This next week in Kindergarten is Qq week, so I am packing up some quilty things to talk about with the kids.

We talk about colors, shapes, sizes...

Squares, circles, rectangles, triangles, hexagons, diamonds...

We talk able size... some quilts are small for decoration or a table mat, some are bigger for babies or children, some are big enough to cover a bed...

I like to show them this bed size one last. It is well used; the binding is frayed and needs to be replaced, but I love it. It is made from scraps of clothing I made for my son when he was young, and leftovers from other quilt projects. I spread this one out on the floor and let the kids sit around and on it and look for whatever they can find... tractors, cowboys, guitars, letters, works, stars, moons, suns, flowers. My son's name is in the quilting. The kids always enjoy seeing what they can find. And, since it is such a well-worn quilt I don't mind them crawling all over it.