Gardening news

My Silver Fox !

The squash plants just exploded with growth after a week of flooding rains.

They put out TONS of baby squash, and then about 3/4th of the babies rotted !  But we have picked 7 or 8 or so beautiful big squash and shared them already with family and neighbors.

I'm having trouble getting my fried squash to stay crisp this year, though.  By the time I get them onto my dinner plate, they're soft and floppy and I have trouble swallowing them.  If they were crisp, they would break up better with my teeth, and swallowing would be easier, I think.

The cucumbers don't look great AT ALL, but they're covered in blooms, and I did pick one that was about 6 inches long today.   I couldn't chew it, so I hope to pickle some and give some away.  I also picked one of the MANY bell peppers that are covering those plants.   The tomato plants are loaded, and have yielded one red small one and one nearly red medium-sized one thus far.  The okra plants are slow but steady.

I tried to use the alphabet characters on the new sewing machine to write something on a t-shirt, but I guess that solvy stabilizer was not the right choice for backing it, because the machine's throat plate ATE the t-shirt.   Very disappointing, but difficult to get much information on procedure online.

Otherwise, the only sewing I have done is to make a strip and flip style toilet rug for my little bathroom.

 I used a towel as a backing, and started with a half-block (these were all from my scrap basket).

Then I just started adding a strip at a time to the two sides of the half block, working my way up the drawn outline of the shape that I wanted to finish with.  After all of the piecing, I cut out my final shape and then bound the edges with bias binding.  I used my old dependable Singer machine as this became quite thick in places.

I hope to be able to make a matching rug to go in front of the tub.

The prizes are for REAL !

It's been a LONG, nearly 3 weeks, ESPECIALLY considering all the 'poor, pitiful, foolish woman' looks that I've received from my husband during that time, but my Melody BabyLock sewing machine that I won from Amy's Bloggers Quilt Festival arrived yesterday !

I was getting ready to go and work at the church like I do each Tuesday afternoon, and I looked outside to find that a truck had just stopped at my house and left a big cardboard box on my front bench !

  I could tell from the labeling what it was,........and while grinning at my husband from ear to ear, I rushed around the house, trying to keep my mind on the afternoon's work ahead.   I went off to the church and told everyone who would give me time and their ear,.....all the time thinking of how much fun I was going to have when I got home to 'play' !

Well, I was tired when I did get home, but I got the box opened this morning and spent about 4 hours just learning the basics and playing around with the features.

  She's a beaut !

I don't see myself using her for piecing, as I never even got around to making a quarter-inch seam, but you never know !  But I did find that she has a beautiful serpentine stitch that I can't wait to use to quilt something, a wonderful,what I used to call, 'buttonhole stitch' for applique, and she came with a walking foot and extension table.  And the 3 alphabets are fun, too.

Soapbox speech welling up I always get my back up when I hear people talk about how 'lucky' they were, so I'm going to squash that little expression right here...........God blessed me with winning a new machine at a point in my life where I figure I'll never again consider that a necessary or wise expenditure.  And I think that's just GRAND........and maybe even GLORIOUS !

 Yes, .......praise and glory to God, my father, my provider, my JOY !

just couldn't wait.......

......I printed some equilateral triangle paper from an online source and started playing around with a design, hoping that it would  be my first project on the new machine that I won in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  But, Amy hasn't let me know when to expect it  yet, ANTSY, ANTSY, ANTSY, and I just couldn't look at the laid-out design and NOT piece it !

So, here's what I've done.....

My own totally original design........as far as I know !

I was aiming for another big couch quilt, around 60 x 80 inches, but I miscalculated on the needed triangle size, so it came out measuring about 44 x 64 inches.   Just as well, I think, because I feel like the design would have been hard to make out, up close, if the triangles were much bigger.........they're about 4 x 5 inches, each.

I like it !

  Maybe it will be the first thing I QUILT on the new machine !