Double four patch on the design wall

I'm back in the sewing room!  I love to start the day with sewing, and since I'm naturally an early riser, it's not unusual to find me there from about 4:45 a.m. until about 6:30, when I have to get ready for work.  It makes the day so much better when I can start it doing what I want to do.

This is from the book Triangle-Free Quilts by Judy Hopkins.  For a couple of years I would flip through this book every time I went to any quilt shop.  Several years ago I was visiting a friend in Phoenix and we went to a quilt shop.  I found the book and was drooling over it once again and to my surprise, my friend bought it for me!  So nice!

It's good to be sewing again.  I've been so busy at work - I have been given a huge project - it's so stressful, about the most stressful thing I've done at any job.  Once day I think, I can do this and the next I think I'm a dunce and wish I could run away.

Check out the other design wall posts over at Judy's.

I crochet, too.

 I learned to crochet when I was pretty young - maybe 11 or 12-years-old.  I've made some really goofy looking items and some ok ones.  Crochet is very popular again.  I made this scarf for Grace.  The pattern is called "Circles Scarf" and it's designed by Linda Permann.

 Nobody in the family would model it, including the dog, so I took it outside and put it on a plant.

Today's harvest

Here's today's harvest - four cucumbers, three tomatoes and a bunch of green beans.  Not too bad from a tiny container garden.  I've been picking cucumbers like mad.  Maybe I'll send Dave around to the neighbors with these, because there are several in the refrigerator still.

On Wednesday we had a going-away party for our academic vice president.  She's going to be a college president in a certain city in the northwest that's known for its "green-ness" so we had a very green-themed party.  It was also a play on the idea that she's leaving for "greener" pastures.  I completely forgot to take my camera.  I was in charge of the punch.  I made mojito punch (non-alcoholic, of course).  I used the Crystal Light mojito flavored drink - this is not a paid commercial from them in any way, but their new drinks are delicious (margarita is my favorite so far).  I mixed up a batch and added mint leaves, lime slices, Sprite and crushed ice to the punch bowl and everyone loved it.  They drained the punch bowl twice (we had about 100 people).

I made some of the food we served (others were in charge of the cake and decorating).  I cut up cucumbers and green peppers from the garden and put them on a tray with broccoli, snow peas and celery and made green goddess dip.  We had two green jello-type salads.  We had chicken salad roll-ups in green tortillas, of course, green frosted cookies and every green jelly bean Jelly Belly makes.  I found three different kinds of green veggie chips and served them with guacamole and also had pickles and green olives.  It was very green in that room!  The decorators used three shades of green tablecloths and a million green balloons around the room.

We're into our summer schedule of four-day work weeks.  I love it.  Today I plan to hand-quilt most of the day with possibly some time out to go get a pedicure (one of my favorite "self-care" treats).

Dinner tonight

Gotta' love green beans fresh from the garden.  I've picked these over the past few days.  I didn't realize some had gotten so big so quickly!

Veggies on the patio

I've never been a big vegetable gardener.  I'm pretty good at flowers.  I love a cutting garden.  Shasta daisies, sweet peas, zinnias are all my favorites.   I love presenting bouquets to people.  My mom always tried to take a bouquet of home-grown flowers anytime she was invited to someone's house for dinner.  She could go out in the yard in the middle of winter and come back in with a gorgeous arrangement.

I decided to try a little vegetable gardening this year.  My only problem is that the only full sun we have in the back yard is on our huge patio.  The rest of the yard is shaded by live oaks.  So I've plunged into container gardening and so far it's working out somewhat.  We picked the first tomato this morning.  It's still a little pink, but I didn't want the mockingbirds to find it.

The beans are still pretty small, as are the green peppers.

Here's a picture of the whole garden.  There are cucumbers, several varieties of tomatoes, green beans squash (they aren't doing too well), green peppers, tomatillos, and of course lots of herbs, which I typically grow year-round.  I've already decided I want to double the amount I plant next year.

What's in the hoop?

I've got a couple of things on the design wall right now, but I think I've posted about both of them before, so I'm posting about what I'm hand-quilting today.

This is a Jo Morton/Jo's Little Women pattern, back when Las Colchas had a Jo's group.  I was a faithful attender of the group, but I got tired of just making little reproduction fabric quilts, as, I think, most of us in the group did.  We started just bringing anything we wanted to work on and pretty soon we were a non-Jo's Little Women group and then we weren't a group at all, which was ok.  The best part of the group was getting together with other quilters.  Francine at Las Colchas now has almost every Friday as a sit and sew day and you can work on anything you want.  I usually can't go because of work, but I'm hoping she'll continue in the summer because we do a 4-day work week at the College and I want to make time to attend.

Anyway, I'm hand-quilting, like I said.  Being an occasional rebel, I decided to enlarge the quilt.  I added two more borders, One is just on the top and bottom (where the Baptist fans are in the first picture), to make it rectangular, and then I added 6-inch pinwheel blocks all the way around.  Can't wait to finish.

You can see more posts by people who followed the rules and posted about what was actually on their design walls at Patchwork Time.

Consider the lilies

I opened the door to let the dog out this morning and I thought that the way the sun was shining through these Easter lilies on the back patio was so beautiful.  In the church we talk about C&E people - you know, people who attend worship only two times a year - Christmas and Easter.

Given the subjects and dates of my last two posts, I guess I'm a C&E blogger!