Not your bottom...I promise!!!

I've received several comments and emails from ladies claiming I used their backside as my inspiration for my bloomer lady... Not so...I assure I posed for it myself.  About 28 years ago( over 1/4 century ago) when I started the nursery I designed this logo.  The bloomer part was easy but getting the position of the feet correct and the hat, shoulders and hoe were giving me fits... So I had a good friend come with a polaroid camera (remember those?) and while I posed she took lots of pictures until I found a position which I could use...

I had great fun with this logo and it served me well... It was not only on my nursery website (now defunct), it was on T-shirts, garden signs, note cards, etc. I found a few sets of the note cards in the barn and if you are into garden humor you may enjoy them.... I may even put some on Etsy this summer.

CQJP finished

Sex on the Farm

This time of year there is a cloud of testosterone hanging over the garden... Our male birds of color become just dazzling in their breeding plumage. With two exceptions all of the birds in this photo collage are our spring and summer birds of color.  Not all come to the feeders as some feed on insects.  Lower right are the varied thrush and one of two species of waxwings which just pass through fall and winter... The gold finch, chickadee, nuthatches, house finches, quail, and woodpeckers are with us year round..

I especially appreciate these flying spectacles of color as the majority of the birds in the garden are shades of grays and browns such as the hawk , dove  and wren  below. (Not that I love them any less.)

When we bought the farm 33 years ago there were only two varieties of birds.... killdeer and meadowlark. There was just this derelict house on a barren piece of land and 2 nearly dead locust trees.. Our huge variety of birds is not by accident.  The requirement for absolutely everything planted over the years has been that it had to provide either food or habitat for birds.

Block Tip (my opinion only)

 When I am making a block I ALWAYS (always-always-always) leave a border of at least 1 1/2" around the image area. ie. If  I want a 6" image area I make a 9" block.  If I  want an  11" image area I make a 14" block. My beginning students get a pattern for a 9" block and in the 1st class I have them baste around a 6" area... I can only tell them you may want this extra space later and I know they think WHY???

Now I have a good example to show them... This image area is basted in black and after I had the idea of a lace cart I wanted more space lower right...The cottage is firmly placed at this point.  And since I'm making this up as I go along I quite often want to adjust the perimeter of my block even up to the very last...  So having this extra space allows me to do that.



So since I have such a generous allowance of fabric it is no problem to lower the image space 1/2" and to the right 1/2".  So you can see the difference that 1/2" makes.  Now I have a lot more room to play with my cart... It doesn't really take any more time or material to make the block large enough to have that generous margin and I highly recommend doing so!!!! (my opinion only)

Quite often I receive blocks in RRs which only have a 1/4" allowance.  With shrinkage or distortion during stitching that narrow allowance is limiting.  You probably will end up with a 5 1/2" block..  All the extra margin makes blocking and finishing much easier.. Now I have these photos to add to my slide show on block construction....

Waiting to be kissed and lace cart

Isn't this amazing?  I love what people do with my buttons!!! I  want Marilyn to send me a larger picture because this will be an terrific brooch.

And yes I believe a lace cart is doable because this looks great even rough cut...  Gone again today.

Bloomers (my size) and thinking ahead!!!

I spent last night at my mother's assisted living facility while she is recovering from a medical procedure.  The scary thing is I fit right in and was welcomed as a new resident... Home for a bit today and will go back..  Did get a lot of stitching done.

Here's the progress on June's CQJP project.  The stuffing in her bloomers needs a little fine tuning but she's there to stay and will work on her flower garden now... Somehow I ended up with very little seam anywhere for fancy stitching...

Thinking ahead.... I mention I wanted to repeat some of my favorite motifs..  Well I also want to redo some BETTER...  One is a flower/garden cart.  I have done several over the years on RR blocks but none I was overjoyed with so I want to try again with a different approach.   I decided that I might build my cart with lace this time..  The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea.. I eventually want to do one block with a garden bench and may build it with lace also.. So many of the larger laces have such gorgeous structural elements.

Pheasant Chicks - News from the farm

These are now 2 days old and we're raising them as part of volunteer program for the Wildlife Council.  I will nurture them for 6 weeks and then release them into the wild..  There is a male pheasant croaking in the garden... thinking I'm sure "Bring on the girls!" Yesterday I was at the eye surgeon's when DH brought them home but I had a pen set up in the laundry room..  He opened the box and they immediately scattered and were so tiny they went right through the wires on the pen.  When I arrived he was dashing to and fro trying to gather them but the faster he collected them the faster they escaped..  Of course Morris is fascinated by them.

There is a poem which starts "My heart is like a singing bird..."  I always think of that line when I count the things in my life which bring me great joy... High on that list are singing birds.... In my garden now there is a   symphony of singing birds including robins, song sparrows, white crown sparrows, chipping sparrows, meadow larks, doves, etc. etc. but my favorite are the little house wrens.  They sit low on the apricot tree and I get to watch them puff up and sing with great gusto... My bird book describes it as a "bubbling" song and indeed it is.  One of my cottage blocks must have bird song as a theme.

There will be more eye surgery (partly due to the injury and partly due to the macular)  and my surgeon assured me that it's a necessary thing so now it has to be scheduled and move on...

Rabbits and Daisies -CQJP #5

I found the runaway rabbit and Morris was not guilty... As soon as I found it I stitched it firmly on the block.... I had experimented with wording on felt for the lift-up tabs for my Morris book and liked it.  Did it again with the limerick on this block..  Will explain the process if anyone is interested.

I did stitch a nice, well-behaved little bunny lower right.

Rotten Rabbit and Dear Abby!!!

 Somehow I have mislaid the rabbit on felt which I had almost finished.  I have searched everywhere to no avail...  I will move on to the next block and hopes it appears.  If not, I shall have to do another...

And this is my "dear Abby"...sometimes called "blessed Abby."  With ultrasound, massage, exercise, sim treatments and ice packs she has me walking again without a cane and almost NO pain.

I am going to have to stay awhile at the assisted living facility with my mom and will  have no internet access... Hopefully just a day or two.

The life of the barn.....

Marlynne asked for a picture or two of my wonderful barn so I gather parts of older posts about the barn and combined them.

When we bought the farm in 1980 part of the barn had milking stalls and a drain along the floor... It often happens I'm taking a picture of one thing and inadvertently get a photo of something else that I need later. I was actually taking a picture of the gallica roses in this bed.  Not realizing I was also capturing about half of the outside of the milking room in its original state.  Before I could even start remodeling we had to shovel out a mountain of dried manure and scrape the floor clean... My DH is not a "handy man" with a hammer but he can really shovel "sh--"!

As I started the nursery I knew this room had to serve many uses.  To achieve my vision for this large room I figured I'd have to do "shabby mismatched" (my specialty) but found the 5 matching windows at the left at a thrift store "as is" lot. I couldn't believe my luck. The same day I found the 4 smaller matching windows on the right.  The room is quite large (about 12'x30')    

This room became an all-purpose work room during the nursery years... I build things for the garden in it such as benches and arbors etc. during the winter... In early March when plant seedlings began to arrive it was transformed into a potting center and May 1st the nursery opened... Friday, Saturday and Sundays it was open to the general public and during the week it was open by appointment.. So on the weekends the room was gussied up as a tea room with overflow from the gift shop..

During the week it was transformed for workshops and lectures...

 This was another accidental shot... I was getting the room ready for the weekend not realizing I also got a picture of the original drain in the floor which carried all the cattle waste out of the barn...I kept it covered with old carpets.  All someone would have to do is shovel the gravel out and it would be ready to use again...  

Then when the nursery finally closed it was transformed again into my big sewing room where I sewed garden smocks, aprons, etc. to sell at garden shows... I finally got tired of bending over sewing machines and quit.

Unfortunately I didn't quit checking the yardage at thrift stores and kept hauling it home and piling in this room with the plan to make totes and purses someday. In addition to what you see here there is a long counter on the inside wall which has many bins under it. This is what it looked like when   my neighbor "Super Woman" Liz came and helped me get ready for Cathy Kizerian's visit.

We got all the fabric folded and sorted on the rolling racks and actually found the cutting table. One rack has tapestries, one has cottons and one has home decor fabrics...

Even though it was a January thaw, the wind was blowing and we needed the big propane heaters. It's not the best place to sew as it is most often too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer...impossible to keep clean and of course, there's the mice...

But the light is incredible... and it is surrounded with old-fashioned rose bushes.

I still needed to attack the other end of the room not seen in the tidy photo... it is where there are 5 sewing machines, ironing board and another big rolling rack... all buried in fabric.. Liz went home with lots of goodies....  .

There are three sewing machines and two sergers.  The blue machine is a Sail-rite which is great for denim.

Since I was doing crazy quilting I had way more "fancies" than I could ever use and Cathy Kizerian flew up one February.  I kept what I needed and she kept what she wanted and we filled several large trash bags to take to the retreat to share.  The weather was as decent as you could expect in February and we were able to work long days with the big propane heaters going...

But a frigid front moved in and the last day we were working all bundled up.   Even the big propane heaters couldn't keep the room warm. All the wall bins are filled with trims and lace.

But we finished and it was great fun watching all the gals at the retreat cutting the fabric up even more. Ever so often I will see a piece show up in someone's block.

About a year and half later Susie Wolfe came and we spent almost a week working on our BoHo  bag project and putting together fabric packs for bags.. and the big fans were going and shade cloth was on the windows to keep the room cool.

There is an adjacent room which used to be the gift shop where I have more supplies and an ironing board set. up...It's a cute room with rosy wallpaper, lace curtains and barn wood cabinets.

So I think 6 or 7 women could easily work in the barn at the same time.  I seldom work out there by myself anymore preferring the comfort and convenience of the house... Maybe when I get enough CQers here in Spokane we could have a retreat of sorts..

When we do finally have to leave the farm and put it up for sale, it will be fun to watch people's reaction to this side of the barn...  Well anyway the rest of it is still a REAL barn....  I have a fantasy of someone buying it and turning the sewing room back into a milking room for cows..  Wouldn't they be contended cows surrounded by roses and such a great view?