Playing in the Garden

I have been neglecting my sewing room to play in the garden. I will take pictures another day as the bugs are out en mass now.
I am trying to identify some of the things planted in a garden area that has been neglected and is over grown. My daughter wants to dig everything up an re purpose the area but I think there might be some interesting things growing there and before we discard anything we should find out what it is.




Today I found this little flower? or maybe not a flower. This is a shot of it where it is growing. It is about 6 -8 inches tall and  the leaves are like a sparse clump of skinny grass. It was difficult to get a good shot because it is so short and it is hard for me to get down  on the ground and harder still to get up again if I get down on the ground. All the leaves and other debris don't help either.

These two shots were taken indoors with it propped up in a glass with a piece of cardboard behind it. The stem is stiff and the trilobed flowers appear succulent.
I would love to know what this is. If it is not something invasive or bad to grow in some way, It is kind of cute and different; I would like to keep it and see what happens.

After today I should have an easier time getting up and down to work in the garden. I ordered a  garden kneeler/bench and it came today.

The Reason I Can't

One of the reasons I can't get my sewing space cleaned up is that I keep pulling more things out of boxes and baskets.
When I was looking for the blue print fabric for the star quilt I found these 2 blocks in the scrap box. The one on the right was finished but the other was in 4 parts. I took them out of the scrap box and set them aside to put away in the "odd block" box. Of course before I but them away I had to sew that one block together.

I was starting to put everything away where it belongs and I found a number of pieces and parts leftover from the Mary Ellen Hopkins challenge quilt. I decided to sew the odds and ends together into blocks so I could put them in the odd block box.

My odd block box is the largest box on my shelf. I have the feeling that if I ever decide to make an "Everything But" quilt it will have to be more than one quilt. I am afraid to really take a good look at the contents of that box.

These baskets are on top of my bookcase. Once upon a time I bought 7 of these baskets to keep on a shelf with current projects. Somehow that got out of hand because the shelf was high and when I was set up to machine quilt they were not easy to reach. I reorganized and four of the baskets were used elsewhere.
On top of my book case, these 3 baskets are reachable and they hold leftover parts from recent quilts and some halfway current projects. This is where I found the parts from the Mary Ellen quilt. All of the leftovers that are not in those odd blocks I just made, will now go into the general scraps that are sorted by color. One of the remaining baskets holds the HST scrap quilt I was working on before I started the Fresh Cut quilt. It is really amazing that it is nicely sorted and ready to be worked on.

I am afraid to look in the other basket!

I will do it....

 but I will wait  until I have everything cleaned up and put away.

But what if............ 

 there is something in that basket

that needs to be put away

 in the same place as the other stuff I have to put away?

A Small Finish

Small...... but a finish none the less. I am not getting much quilting done these days. I have been busy with gardening and plant shopping and shopping in general.  Since we moved last year any kind of shopping is very time consuming.  This is big change for me as I was 5 to 15 minutes from most of my everyday shopping places.

I had intended to put a border on this and a striped binding but I could find neither fabrics. I am pretty sure I still have them but I may have bundled them up as a giveaway. I found something to piece  for the backing and some solid blue Kona for the binding. It is 24 inches square and as a table topper it is fine without a border. I quilted in the ditch over all the seams and then corner to corner with variegated red, white and blue using my Bernina # 4 stitch. I didn't want to leave the 4 inch square unquilted.                                                            

 I had planned to finish putting away all the leftovers and scraps from the big quilt project but I have not done it yet. When the weather turned nice I abandoned my sewing room and went out to play with the flowers and to take long walks with the dog. The mess is not going anywhere and I will get to it sooner or later.

A Stop on the Way to a Clean Room

I have been cleaning up my sewing space so I can start over and make a new mess. I have been sorting my leftovers from the big quilt project and putting them away in the appropriate places (scrap containers, strips boxes, Ziploc bags of squares sorted by size and larger boxes sorted by color).

Today when I was putting more things away I came across this.


When I went to the April meeting of the Basement Divas, I received a bag that I would have gotten at the Jellyroll Race. One of the "prizes" was a bag containing a 16 inch Star in a Star block, leftover HST"s, a number of 5 inch squares, a bunch of triangles in red, white and blue, and 2 - 5" X WOF
strips. On the left is what I sorted one evening while I watched TV;  the 16 inch block is on the right

I really don't need to have anything more hanging around in an unfinished (or never to be finished) state. So..... I put it up on a blank space on a design board that was just waiting to be put to use.
I made some HST's from some of the already cut triangles and added a row of blocks around the existing block and now I have this 24 inch piece. I think I will look up some dark blue leftover fabric  and use it for a back and binding, maybe a border if there is enough.

Then I will get back to putting everything away.