Industrious!

That is what I have been lately. Because summer is almost over that means the vegetables planted this spring are spent. Time to get the garden ready for fall crops. My time has mostly been spent pulling up old plants and getting the beds ready for new seeds. Last Saturday I spent the morning out in the garden. Monday I spent 3 hours out there since I didn't have to watch my grandson. I got a lot of seeds planted.

Monday I was busy from 6:30 am until 8:30 pm.

 I like to plant beans that I can dry to have for the winter. This year was so disappointing. The vines were growing great but while I was on vacation we got a lot of rain. So much rain caused the pods to get moldy and many of the beans started sprouting right in the pods. These two jars was all that I could salvage. I spent a couple hours checking each dried pod to get these beans.

 This is the summer for butternut squash. Last year it was green bell peppers. I only planted one plant of butternut squash which is still producing. Most of these other squash came from volunteer plants. I guess I will be looking for new recipes to try out using these squash. If you have any links for good butternut squash recipes I would love for you to share them with me.

Sunday I took some time to sew. I decided to pull out these log cabin blocks that I started the beginning of the year. Nice to just sit and chain piece.

 I picked two more little pumpkins. Still not big enough to get any pulp to cook but there is another one growing that might just deliver.

 I love growing basil in the garden too. I like to make lots of pesto. I freeze it in ice cube trays which I can then pull out a few cubes for recipes.

Time well spent but I am ready for Autumn so things slow down a bit.

With Passion,
Carrie P.

Not to Shabby

This is the newest block of the El's Kitchen BOM I am doing from one of my local quilt shops. This block made me a little nervous because I haven't ever done anything like this before. Not to shabby, if I say so myself.

Just had to share this photo of my grandson enjoying a book.

I wanted to share something with you all. Even though my Bertie's Year BOM looks like wool it is die cut flannel which came in the kit. (previous post) Each flannel piece comes with iron-on adhesive on it which is great. The flannel is called Woolies Flannel. Check out this video so you can meet Bonnie Sullivan, the designer of Bertie's Year BOM and the flannel fabric. She also talks about the die cut pieces. Shabby Fabrics has a new BOM designed by Bonnie which also features Bertie which is so cute. The video shows a neat technique to make half square triangles too. I am not trying to sell you on these blocks but just wanted to share.

I also wanted to say that if you wanted to try to machine applique real wool you might want to put iron-on adhesive on the back of the wool. Iron it to your  background and then machine applique it down. I think the iron-on would keep the wool from slipping around as you try to sew the edges. I haven't tried this yet, just a thought.

With Passion,
Carrie P.

Machine Applique

Sunday I continued stitching down the fusible die cut applique pieces of my Bertie's Year BOM. Some is hand stitched but I decided to use my sewing machine on some parts. I tried straight stitches.

 Zig Zag.

 Buttonhole.

 and more zig zag.

Now on to more hand stitching.

With Passion,

Carrie P.

Vacation Handwork

While on vacation I was prepared to do some handwork in  the evenings. One day it got up in the 90's so I stayed in the condo and work on some projects.  In the evenings I would sit on the baloney watching all the activity on the beach and listening to the waves crashing on shore. While sitting there I worked on my Bertie's Year BOM. I embroidered all the green. Sunday after I got settled back home I work on sewing the half square triangle borders on the appliqued pieces. I still have more hand stitching to do.

Yesterday I spent some time machine appliqueing all the brown and gray parts of the tops. Others I am going to do on my machine. I have a pretty neat feature on my new machine which allows the pressure foot to rise up when I am ready to pivot the piece. So convenient.

 I got the cornucopia embroidered on this BOM.

 I crocheted three more granny square blocks.

 The September BOM arrived in the mail the other day so I decided to get the pieces ironed on. I machine appliqued the bird, acorn tops, and the squirrel tail. Last night I hand stitched the leaves.

 I went out to the garden when I arrived home. I found these two pumpkins which I had hoped would be bigger. I planted cooking pumpkins which are smaller than some varieties. These two will make nice fall decorations. I have a few bigger pumpkins still on the vine.

The yellow thing is my one and only spaghetti squash. While on vacation the squash bugs destroyed the vine so that is all for this year. I had been growing pinto and black beans to dry and have for winter. All the rain we had caused some of the seeds to sprout right in the pod. I am trying to salvage what I can. I am going to be cleaning up the garden this weekend and start planting for the fall garden soon.

With Passion,
Carrie P.

OBX

I just returned home from a week long stay at the Outer Banks of North Carolina with my family. That is what the OBX stands for in the title. We weren't so sure we were going to have good weather. We left in the rain and came home in the rain.We stayed on the third floor of a condominium right on the beach. Our first evening we enjoyed this double rainbow and 

 and this golden sunset.

 During the day I spent time watching Mr. P and #2 son surf.

 We smiled as we watched Damien enjoy his first experience at the beach. He loved the water.

 From our balcony I could watch little children make sand castles.

 See small planes fly by with advertisements trailing behind it,

 Bi-planes flew by with sightseers,

Pelicans would fly atop the ocean, and

 down below were some kind of  black birds which hung out in the sea oats.

 Our last night we went to the top of Jockey Ridge. There were hundreds of people visiting.

 Our last sunrise! The beach empty of people and colorful umbrellas. It turned out to be a great vacation with most days in the low 80's with a north breeze blowing along the beach so it didn't feel so hot.

I did take some hand work with me which I was going to share with you all. Today is dark and rainy in my part of North Carolina so I can't get any good pictures. As soon as I can get somepictures I will share my handwork.

With Passion,
Carrie P.