Quilt Binding

When I go to Gretchen's house to drop off a quilt, there is always a lot to look at. She is a longarm quilter and her own projects and the quilts she is working on are spread around her studio space like a gallery show. The one on the machine was so pretty. It was nicely pieced, had great colors and Gretchen had made it even better with her perfectly patterned stitching. It even had the binding attached... and it came to me, slowly. "You can sew the binding on, too?" 

Yes, please! 

Best Freshman

Ray received two awards at the recent high school Band Banquet:

and

 We are so proud. He does have very nice hair.

Stats for the baby book: 

6 feet tall, 145 pounds

Reluctant Gardener

Year by year, I gain a little ground in the garden. I have no real drive to grow things; the best I can hope for, it seems, is a feeble urge in the spring time to do what is necessary to keep from being overtaken by weeds.

2008

2012

I don't consider myself a real gardener as I don't actually "garden". I do yard work. I weed. Sometimes I pull stuff out and put other stuff in. Maybe I am just a fair weather gardener or a gardener with a bad attitude. Maybe a half-baked gardener? Yard boy?

Every year, I vacillate between hopeful enthusiasm and disappointed resignation. Magazines and seed catalogs display lush images of lavish flower beds, rich with color, and bountiful rows of plump, shiny vegetables, and I get lured into believing that it might be possible to create that here. But, really, I am too lazy and cheap and too easily confused by my failures. I also give up quickly. Once the seeds are in and the new plants settled into their spots, I expect them to thrive and then produce. Give me flowers! Berries! Fruit! Food! Instead, the bunnies and deer and slugs sneak in and interfere with the bountiful harvest I have imagined. There are insects, there is wind, the soil pH is too high or too low, and who really knows how much to water and when to fertilize. Not me.

Smallest tomato ever!

I could keep learning about it all and I could build a animal proof fence to protect the vegetable beds (see above - cheap and lazy) but really, I am shooting for a yard that takes care of itself. The poppies have taken hold in the spot for poppies and there is progress in the raspberry patch. Sedums do well (eventually) and I like to grow beets and tomatoes. I will embrace my own procrastination and admit (reluctantly) that my so-so yard and my good enough garden is really just fine.

Family Fishing

Captain Gary

Dave's brother organized a family fishing trip to Alaska. We didn't go but we are having fresh King salmon for dinner tonight. Yum!

Bud and Carolyn

Lauren

The Ladder Stitch

Rose Star Half Blocks

These blocks were rushed - I wasn't really feeling the love when choosing the fabrics and combining the colors. "Let's just get this blasted quilt finished!" But impatience comes and goes and now I am happy again, just plugging away on it, step by step.

There was also some small difficulty in picturing the construction of the block sliced in half. Visual people are always helped by a diagram - I'm glad to have a jar of colored pencils around and a copy feature on the home printer.  

Progress and Tedium

  
The blocks are all connected now but I am getting a little tired of this project. Six half blocks are needed for the sides and they are coming together all right; there just isn't any great enthusiasm at the moment. 

It is time to put it aside for a bit but I want the side blocks assembled and attached first. A good stopping point sometimes makes a difference in picking something back up again. 

And who knows? I may feel like pushing on through after all.