2 Finishes, Embroidery & Applique

The little Houses Wallhanging is finished and is hanging on the wall! She measures 22" square and was a perfect small summer project.

This was a kit from Rachel's of Greenfield. The instructions were very well written and easy to understand. 

A view of my hand-quilting on the backside of the wall quilt. I normally don't add a sleeve to the back of my wallhangings, but I did this project.

Last winter I had pieced a Snowflake Zippy-Strippy quilt and gave it to DIL 1. I started another Zippy-Strippy in June and finished her up in July. This quilt is for DIL 2. She likes red so I choose a jelly-roll from the In Stitches collection designed by Robin Kingsley for Maywood Studio.

I changed up the pattern so she would be longer and not as wide. She finishes at 59" x 84"

She was quilted on my sewing machine. I'm getting more accurate following the marked curves. It helps a lot to slow down the stitching speed. I still did straight line quilting in the center. I have a curvy line stitch on my sewing machine and I had intended to elongate the stitch and use that for quilting. Unfortunately, that stitch did not allow me to elongate so I just went with straight stitching.

Do some of these fabrics look familiar? I'm using fabrics from the same collection to applique the Pastor's Attic blocks.

I've prepped the next block in the Pastor's Attic quilt. The thin stems are supposed to be embroidered using 1 strand in the chain stitch. I decided to go with an outline stitch.

I also decided to not use fabric stems for the other stems. The flower stems are a double row of 3 strand chain stitch. The more narrow stems are a single row of 3 strand chain stitch. I'm liking they way they look. 

There is a vase at the bottom of this block with an inset center. I was supposed to applique 1/8th" strips on the red fabric then reverse applique the vase on top. I went with outline stitch embroidery. 

I do slow stitching every evening, not just on Sundays.

This is the end of the quilt section so you can quit reading if that is all you want to read about.

My garden is doing well. The broccoli plants have been pulled and fed to the heifers. The garlic and the shallots have been pulled and are curing before being stored away. I picked 2/3-rds of a 5 gallon pail of green beans Friday, the freezing process has started. The new potatoes are delicious and cabbage tastes so much better when it comes straight from the garden.

The above photo was taken on Saturday, July 9th. We harvested the wheat the following Monday. The rest of the week was about getting the straw baled. We did it! 

In farming there are really just 2 seasons. Winter and preparing for winter.

My flowering sunflowers have started flowering. Wouldn't a whole field of these be beautiful? 

The last of the barn swallows have flown away. These 3 little fledglings were brave enough to make the plunge soon after this picture was taken.

I planted a couple dark purple phlox plants around 25 years ago or so. They crossed with some white phlox and have hybridized themselves into these lovely white flowers with a touch of lavender. I'm so enjoying my summer flowers.

My meat chickens are now residing in the chest freezer. These new chicks will grow up to become laying hens. There are two kinds of chicks; the yellow chicks are Golden Comets and the black/brown/beige ones are Auracanas. The Auracanas lay eggs with blue or green shells. The egg inside tastes the same as the brown shelled eggs.

I'm linking up to - Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching, Quilting is More Fun than Housework, Em's Scrapbag, Super Mom-No Cape, Love Laugh Quilt, Quilt Story, Esther's Wednesday WOW!, Sew Fresh Quilts, My Quilt Infatuation, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, A Quilting Reader's Garden, Crazy Mom Quilts.