Back to Miniature Flower Basket

If you were following my blog in 2009 you read about me making the two miniature applique basket quilts.  I made them as donation quilts for auctions....one was donated to the Nebraska Cattlemen's Ball and the other was donated to the Nebraska State Quilt Guild.  Back then I started a 3rd basket quilt but quit after I had the center section done.  It has been put away for a year now but pulled it out to get it finished.

Here are the photos of the two finished quilts and a photo of where I stopped working on the last quilt.

Now to get an idea on how to finish it up. 

Lynn

Harvest Finished...YAY!

The title of this blog pretty much says it all....our crops are all harvested as of today.  Yay, what a relief and time to celebrate!  It is always a little tense until everything is harvested and either stored in our own bins or hauled to the elevator.  When your whole years' income depends on these few weeks each year until it is all harvested and secure you can understand why farmers are in a hurry to get it done. 

Just because the grain is all out of the field doesn't mean the work is done on the farm.  His next job is to put up fencing around the stock fields (that is what the harvested fields are called.)  Our cows and calves are all still in the pastures and need to be brought home.  They will be put into the fenced stock fields and moved from field to field every few weeks until a couple of weeks before the cows are to have their new calves in March.  They love the stock fields, believe it or not.  The fields look like there is nothing there but there are always ears of corn that fall off the stocks before it is combined plus they eat the corn stalks and leaves too.

I always think it looks so funny to see the herd of cows and calves concentrating their time on a seemingly bare soybean field.  The soybeans stems are cut about 2"-3" from ground level.  All the leaves drop off off early in September so they are not eating too many of them.  What isn't obvious unless you get close to the field and notice, is that those 2"-3" of stems that are left have several soybean pods each.  Soybeans are like candy to the cows so they will go to those fields first and appear to be munching dirt day after day when in fact they are just in cow heaven!

Think John will be getting one field fenced right away so he can bring the cows home this weekend.  The cows still have grass in the pastures they are eating but are so tired of it and the grass has gotten tougher as summer turns to fall.  During the late summer or early fall the cows are walking the pasture fences and trying to get out to graze in more tasty corn/soybeans.  We have had to put a few back in that managed to escape the last few weeks so it is time to get them home.

Besides the fence making John will be repairing and maintaining all the harvest equipment.  We never put it away until it has been checked over and cleaned up.  He will keep busy the rest of the fall and winter but it is less intense since it is between harvest and planting. 

By the don't you love these clip art images?  They are from the following web page by Phillip Martin. Just happened onto this site and I just think they are wonderful.

Lynn

Real Mums in the Flower Bed

Since I have not started anything new I am going to show you a photo I took of one of my mum plants in my flower bed with a small bee on one of the flowers.  Aren't you impressed with how many flowers it has on it? (Even though you can't see the whole plant it is impressive.)  Usually I pinch the buds back in early July so it fills in with more flowers.  I didn't even suggest that to John as he was taking care of the flower beds while I was incapacitated  with my broken ankle.  He did a good job at weeding and watering but that was as far as he had time or interest in doing.

My oldest daughter and two granddaughters came this weekend which was another reason I didn't get any sewing done.  The little girls are 9 and 10 and love to play outside plus we played a lot of games and put a jigsaw puzzle together too.

I used Photoshop Elements to add simple filters to the photo to get different effects.  Some are really interesting and some really add to the photo.  I didn't spend too much time with each one though.  I just wanted to see what they would look like.  I would really like to take a class on Elements to learn more about it but do use the program to diddle with my photos a little to get them the way I like them but don't even begin to use the program to it's fullest.

Enjoy!

Maybe I will sew something again soon.

Lynn

Small Autumn Mums

I finished my Frieda Anderson quilt...Small Autumn Mums.  Notice the name is different than what I have been referring to it by?  I have been calling it Little Autumn Mums but this afternoon I looked up the instructions she handed out and see that it is "Small" not "Little" like I thought.

The binding is fused fabric cut with the deckle rotary blade and fused on. Two opposite sides are fused first then the last two. The ends of the last two are trimmed and folded to the back then the backside of that last strip fused down. The final touch is the top stitching around the outside edge.

I did add a sleeve to the back and that is the only hand stitching on the entire quilt. With all the machine quilting I did on it the quilt was not quick to make but did stretch me out of my comfort zone. I had never just free hand cut strips and fused the backing of a quilt together so that was a new technique for me. I am not sure I will "free" cut but do like the idea of fusing as I am designing so may try that again.

I don't have a clue as what I will work on next. Maybe I will have to get out one of my UFOs to finish.

Fused Binding - front

Fused Binding - back

Lynn