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Isn't it pretty? I had it outside for a couple of weeks but the buds kept drying up long before they were ready to bloom. Apparently, my new pal is a delicate flower and prefers to live in the house. I'm happy to accomodate it if it keeps giving me such pretty flowers.
Seven jars of strawberry jam.
Seven pints and one quart of sour cherries (plus some extra that's hanging out in the fridge). Look at that color! When I was little, Grandma canned cherries. I'd make the most amazing cherry milk shakes from those cherries. I wanted to get back a bit of my childhood. And make Grandma proud, of course.
And nine jars of Simply Delicious Cherry Chutney (from the Ball canning book). This stuff smelled amazing while it was cooking.
Now I have to figure out where to store everything. Oy!
My first... and it's terrible. <grin and shrug> I have new-found respect for those folks who machine quilt. Paying someone to do it for you is worth every penny! Trust me on this. The quilt doesn't look too bad from a distance but up close it's not a pretty quilting job. The whole quilt was just for fun anyway so it's all good. I'm just going to need to practice on a lot more doll quilts or minatures before I do another lap size quilt. Most of my problem with uneven stitch length was due to the fact that too much quilt was crammed under the arm of my sewing machine and that made it hard to maneuver the quilt. Oh, and the back's got a big old fold right down the middle. Oops.
I finally finished the tunnel book from the class I took months ago. I'm afraid the picture isn't good enough to see what's going on. There are 3 "pages," not including the front and back, and you look through the book to the back. The black wings off to the sides are the wrap-around cover. I loved this class but, as usual, I'm not happy with my book. I'm definitely my own worse critic. To me, it doesn't have the oompf I'd like. Of course, I'm not remotely objective about it. I'll have to wait for another opinion.
When I was little, my grandma canned sour cherries. I remember how good they tasted and was known to drink the cherry syrup right from the jar (when no one was looking, of course). Imagine how amazing cherry milk shakes are when made from home canned cherries. Trust me, they're fantastic. Anyway, I'll be picking and canning cherries this weekend. And thinking of Grandma.
I'm considering applying for the Ann Arbor Art Fair in 2011. Just considering at this point because I'll have to create a lot of pieces to sell between now and then... well, and get accepted, too. It's rather daunting, although I did start two more pieces this afternoon. I just love playing with beads and color and design. It's a huge rush!
There was also some spinning this weekend but nothing I can really show just yet. The brown Cormo and black CVM are all spun up and I'm now spinning some of the (endless) white Cormo I bought a few years ago. The plan is to knit a pair of mittens with all three natural colors and some of the white Cormo dyed red. Now I just need to the tennis elbow to clear up so I can knit again.
Not too shabby for the front of a condo. The pots on the right and left hold green beans; the bed on the right two kinds of tomatoes; the bed on the left more beans, grape tomatoes, cucumbers and miniature cantelope. The long narrow pot in front has the carrots. (They don't seem to have germinated very well.) And, of course, the two potato boxes at the back. To the left of the garden are four more pots that have my Purple Viking potatoes. See:
Baby 'tato plants! Okay, here's my question: These five sprouts are all coming from the same piece of potato, do I cut off all but one or do I let them all grow? The pot they're in is about 18" across.
I bought more raw fiber (I know, I know but I couldn't resist!), this time Polwarth. I'm in love with Polwarth's crimp. Even after scouring, the crimp is still gorgeous:
How could I resist such gorgeous wool? And it's sooooo soft, too.
I've gotten back into bead embroidery again. I love to see pictures of other people's studios so I thought I'd show you a shot of mine. I've been happily working on a variety of projects besides beading: spinning, making oodles of strawberry jam (ooo, I need to post a pic...), crochet and the gardening. I'm even going to finish (finally) the theater book I learned to make months ago in a class. I've been having fun. Here's my latest finished piece:
It's supposed to be hot and humid this weekend so I expect I'll be holed up inside with the air conditioning, only venturing out in the early morning or after the sun goes down. I really don't like hot and sweaty. On the plus side, escaping the heat means more time spent working on projects so, bonus. What will you be doing this weekend?
She got me through some really hard times in the past 19 years. I miss her but now she doesn't have arthritis, she isn't deaf and her kidneys are working fine. I'm sure she's reminding Bastian of who the real boss is. I love you, my sweet.
This was how my day started Friday morning: 12 lbs. of U-pick strawberries by 9 am. The beginning of the U-pick season. The plan is for a couple batches of jam and strawberry pancake syrup.
The potato boxes are done and the potatoes planted, along with the rest of my little garden. I'll have pictures tomorrow providing it doesn't rain. I've already had to replant some of the 'tatoes because the stinking squirrels have excavated. Squirrels are evil!
On the left is natural colored Cormo and on the right, true black CVM (California Variegated Mutant). Both had bleached tips I cut off before scouring. I just adore naturally colored wool and these two are beautiful. I've already spun the Cormo and I've started on the CVM. The staple length was rather short after I trimmed the tips so flicking would have been too bloody. I'm not very good at carding so I pulled out my Louet Mini Combs, combed and spun worsted. I'm leaning toward mittens with the finished yarn.
As requested, here are pictures of the quilt. Sorry, they're not very good. I'd already put together my quilt sandwich when I took the pictures. The front:
And the back:
The back looks verrry wrinkly. I hope it doesn't quilt with folds. I've never done anything beyond tying my quilts so getting a quilt ready for machine quilting is new to me. Fingers crossed...
These are my neighbor's and the most beautiful Delphiniums I've ever seen. Gorgeous!
I took pictures tonight of the quilt top and back but the pictures didn't turn out. I'll try again tomorrow.
Remember this yarn? It now looks like this:
I bought a free-motion quilting foot for my sewing machine yesterday and played with it a bit. It was a lot easier to do free-motion quilting than I remember from the class I took a LONG time ago. My practice square wasn't perfect and if you look at individual sections, you'll see not-so-good -parts, but overall, I'm happy enough with it to quilt the real thing.
I'm almost done piecing the back of my wonky-squares quilt. Assuming is doesn't rain, I should have pictures of both the top and back tomorrow. This one I'm having professionally quilted, mostly because there isn't room under the arm of my machine for a full size quilt. My little Project: Improv quilt is small enough that it'll fit easily.
The rain we got Saturday afternoon! OMG! Reports say we got 10 inches of rain in one hour! Holy cow! The park kittycorner to my condo is flooded. I've been here nearly 10 years and I've never seen that park flooded. Oh, and so did my basement. *&^%#@! It didn't flood badly, just enough to be really irritating and to require me to cut the sopping wet area rug into strips so I can get it out. It's nasty! I HATE dealing with flooded basements. <sigh>
On a brighter note, Mom gave me some peonies:
Aren't they pretty? I went to my parents' place Saturday morning to build the second of my two potato boxes. I'll post pictures just as soon as I remember to take them while the sun it still up. The boxes will be planted with Rose Finn fingerling 'tatoes. Yum!
The rest of the weekend, I worked on my first Project Improv quilt:
The front and back are both done; when it's completed, it'll be about the size of a lap quilt or a baby blanket. I want to machine quilt this myself but I'll need to teach myself machine quilting first. It's not as easy as it looks.
Finally, a pic of Seli in her "nest":
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