Lots to Sew

This blog has been short of sewing posts lately (maybe you're glad about that?), but that certainly doesn't mean I haven't been making things! My house is scattered with all sorts of in-progress projects. *sigh* Someday I will have a sewing room! Until then, the tops of furniture and various drawers will have to suffice. I'm working on a custom order for 6 baby girl bibs - and I always love it when the customer says "just do whatever you want."



I had a little shopping spree last weekend, which resulted in a large pile of yummy new fabrics that need to be ironed. I like ironing fabric - so soothing. I've read a lot about how much people hate ironing fabric and ironing their seams when piecing a quilt, but that is one of my favorite parts. It's so satisfying to turn something all jumbled up into a flat piece with a nice straight seam...



These guys have been waiting to be filled with lavender for over a week. And I didn't even take pictures of the pile of finished ones waiting for their photo shoot. I'm hoping to have the shop restocked with sachets some time next week... this new batch is really fun!



And, because I don't have enough overwhelming projects going on, I finally succumbed to the wiles of the hexagon charm quilt! I am super excited about this, and, in typical form, want to ditch all the other things I am half-finished with and spend every second of the day sewing little hexagons. But I won't. I did make my first 25 last night while watching a movie with the hubby - so very fast, fun and easy! I'm hoping to get a bunch of these little guys made (and I think I need over 1,000) on our upcoming road trip to Oregon. I promise to finish the bib order first, though! :) I've been wanting to make a quilt just for me, and hoping to incorporate a lot of the little scraps of favorite fabrics I've held onto over the years. I've been wanting to make quilts of tinier and tinier pieces lately, and one-inch hexagons are about as little as you can get without becoming ridiculous. Also, this quilt is completely hand-pieced (as opposed to being sewn by machine), which would accomplish another of my quilting goals. I'm envisioning the finished quilt folded at the foot of my bed... in my bedroom... (haha), so I have plenty of time to get it done. I'll keep you updated on my progress!

You know you have boys when...

... you are explaining to your oldest son how a flower press works and he wistfully says "I just wish it was a dinosaur press and I could put in a piece of roast beef and it would squish it into an Allosaurus."

Oh well.

(Pressed flower photo courtesy of Mingo Gardens.)

Living off the land

The other day I had a completely off-the-land omelet and it was awesome! Remember my onion patch? Well, I guess they really mean it when they write on the packet of seeds "plant in fine, loose soil," because my soil was NOT fine and loose, and the onions pushed themselves up out of the dirt because their roots couldn't get deep enough. So, after 7 months of faithful watering and weed pulling, all I have is a handful of tiny little onions. But they sure taste good!



Those, combined with some fresh zucchini from the garden and a couple of newly laid eggs made for a darn good supper.



I love the idea of growing our own food, and a meal comprised entirely of things we have grown and nurtured ourselves is much more than tasty - it is an accomplishment. I have a feeling we're going to be eating a lot more omelets in the days to come...

Model-A Adventure

A few weeks ago my brother and sister-in-law came to town and arranged for her dad to take my kids and I on a Model-A Adventure. Cindy's dad collects and restores Model-A's and has quite a beautiful award-winning collection. But that is not what we were off to see. We were off to see "The Coyote," a cut down, trashed Model-A with couch cushions for seats and a sheet of plywood to sit on in the back. It was awesome! Bill (can I call him my father-in-law-in-law?) tried to teach me how to drive a double clutch (still have no idea what that even is, which should tell you how my driving went) and was so wonderful about letting both boys drive (on Uncle Daniel's lap, of course) and not caring about us stripping the gears or whatever happens when you drive a double-clutch the wrong way. He kept insisting that "you can't hurt the coyote," and that certainly seemed to be true as we crashed along across the bumpy field that had recently been harvested for wheat.



Both my boys had a blast, and Titus was in some state of silent euphoria almost the entire time. As we bounced along on our plywood seat, I would occasionally ask him if he was having fun, and his responses was always "uh-HUH!" He is obsessed with cars and his sweet little heart almost burst with joy when he saw this:



We spent the last hour touring Bill's shiny collection of cars, but Titus would not leave this car's side. Bill let him go inside, and Titus spent an entire hour buckling and unbuckling his seat belt and talking to Chatters, the little chipmunk puppet that lives in the back seat. It was adorable.



Moses got to pedal around on Cindy's old John Deer tractor bike, and Bill sent me home with two bottle of Cilker olive oil (basically liquid gold) and a bale of raw cotton. How cool is that?!?! All three of us were in heaven. Thanks, Bill and Cindy, for a wonderful Model-A Adventure!

Starting the week off with a bang

Hi there! How did you spend your Monday morning? I'm guessing you didn't spend it running around your 3 1/2 acre yard in your pajamas hunting down a coyote with your son's Red Ryder BB-Gun... Me neither. Just kidding - of course that's how I spent the morning. After a phone call from our wonderful neighbor saying he spotted the coyote on the back of our property and discovering a pile of black feathers, the rest of the morning was spent with me alternately running around not knowing what to do, cursing at the worthless dogs, and trying to figure out if I actually have the guts to shoot a living thing. The verdict is still out on that last point, by the way, since the only time I got close enough to the coyote was before I had located the bb-gun. The verdict is also still out on whether or not a bb-gun is powerful enough to do anything more than make a coyote angry. There are no pictures of this incident, thank goodness (did I mention I was in my pajamas?), so I posted a recent "family picture" that I like the looks of. Never a dull moment...

Apologies and Excuses

Yikes - is it actually July!?!? So sorry for my long absence. I've been here in spirit (and if you have a blog you know what I mean - everything that happens becomes a "that would be a great post" moment or an "I wish I had my camera because that would be perfect for the blog" scenario). But summer and farm activities have been filling up every spare moment. These hot dry days the garden needs to be watered at least twice daily, and weeds are threatening to take over new seedlings while mature plants need to be harvested and made into some sort of dish that people will eat. I have an abundance of lettuce which is nice, but BOY is it a pain to wash loads of dirt and bugs off lettuce!



There are also all sorts of shenanigans that needs doing - the latest of which involves the zipline and resident criminal Bentley The Dog (I know, I promised, but look at that sweet face. Could you get rid of him?). Also in the mix are legos, sprinklers, squirt guns, sewing, riding various new bikes and scooters, catching this year's newest batch of baby frogs, learning to bake gluten free food, feeding and watering (and trying to tame) the ever growing baby chicks ... the list of distractions is endless. Poor blog.



Hopefully your summer is going just as well as ours is!