Summertime..and the Livin' is Easy!

Summer arrived with a vengeance here on our red dirt road. This week temperatures are around 100 and the sun is blazing!! We usually don't reach 100 until July and August so I'm hoping this isn't an usually hot and dry summer. Thank goodness for a water well that will keep the flowerbeds and garden watered.

Sewing time gives way to taking care of garden produce as my sweetheart has been MOST SUCCESSFUL with the garden this year. We moved to the country a little over two years ago so last year was the first year for the garden. Over the winter, sweetheart worked very hard on enriching the soil organically and this year we are enjoying the "fruits and veggies" of his labor!!! We've been eating onions for weeks and the tomatoes are beginning to ripen. We're getting mostly Romas and cherry tomatoes right now but the big tomato plants are loaded. We're eating sweet green peas and green beans. Peppers, squash and radishes have started coming in as well. I'm freezing what we can't eat quickly and looking forward to garden goodies all year long. My sweetheart is already planning how to enlarge the garden for next year.

Meanwhile, we're enjoying eating our own fresh veggies produced by my sweetheart's labor of love.






We did have a fun outing a couple of weekends ago when we went to Pawnee for the Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show at the original Pawnee Bill's Ranch.

There will be several sewing projects and new quilt blocks to show soon.

Keep cool and happy stitching!!!

Shop Hop

Last weekend was the annual Road to Oklahoma Quilt Shop Hop and Maggie and I had a great time visiting nine quilt shops! We started in Norman and the Oklahoma City metro area and went all the way to Waynoka and Alva. We logged over 700 miles and enjoyed the scenery and the shops. We also stopped at Eischen's in Okarche and had some of the best fried chicken in the world!!

Here is this year's quilt shown at Completely Quilted in Ponca City. We bought a block kit at each shop and the finishing kit at Completely Quilted since we loved the appliqued butterflies, flowers and trees. I think Maggie and I are going to have our own quilt-a-thon and our quilts made quickly because we both love the blocks and the pattern. Can you see the little cow peeking out the barn doors?

The ladies at Completely Quilted took our picture. This was our last shop to visit and we were totally exhausted! Looking at fabric and spending money is a big job!!!!

We did find some wonderful goodies at the various shops. I love 30's reproductions and old-fashioned scrap quilts so these had to come home with me.

And I was very taken with these charm packs, fabrics and patterns. I had been looking for one of the Dresden Plate templates featured on several blogs and found one of those as well.

The interesting fabric with the black background will appeal to a special person who will giggle when she sees this.

Now with all these new goodies, I need to get busy. I'm almost finished cutting ALL my scraps into squares for nine-patches, strings for spider webs and other shapes for future projects. It's so nice to get that huge tub of scrambled scraps into some organization. My reward for all that cutting will be to do some fun sewing.

Hope everyone is well and happily stitching away!!!

Is It Really June??

My goodness, I didn't mean to be absent from blogland so long!!! While I wasn't blogging or reading, I wasn't sewing either. I miss visiting with blogging friends and seeing everyone's new projects. But sometimes it's nice to step back awhile and be busy with other things...gives a fresh perspective and renewed energy.

What I have been doing is working with my sweetheart to get the garden well underway and the flowerbeds planted and blooming. We're eating green onions and should have ripe tomatoes by the middle of June. Peas, beans, squash, radishes, corn and lots of fresh veggies will be coming along. Yum...yum!!

These are some of my favorites in the front flower garden!

We've also been organizing our barn/garage. Everything is now in its place and all the things I couldn't bear to do away with are safely stored. We still had some boxes to go through from our parents' homes. When my sweetheart's father passed away, I got some of the boxes from my mother-in-law's sewing room. In them I discovered some real quilting treasures. Here's some of the blocks that were in a box. I'm not sure if the fabrics are from feedsacks but they are old. And the block fabric has turned brown on the edges. There are 14 blocks finished and another 13 that still need to be appliqued.

The applique stitches are so tiny and even. I don't know who made these though it might have been my sweetheart's grandmother or great-aunt. I know I can't match the background material so I'll have to figure something because it must be finished. It's too pretty to leave in a box.

There were also these unusual butterfly blocks.

There are eight of these so they would make a sweet wall hanging.

There are more treasures but I'll save those for another day.

I hope to visit some of my favorite blogs in the next few days. Hope you have a wonderful day!!!