Turning the Page

Last morning cup of coffee on the porch.

Locking the door

Leaving the keys for the new owners.  

Taking all the wonderful memories and wishing the new owners the same happiness here!

Bunkhouse Sixteen Patch II

Well here it is 8:45PM and I have finally finished sewing and pressing this top.  

I know the colors don't look like much by the lamplight but I feel like I have been sewing and pressing and picking off threads for hours.

Actually I started it early this morning but it was just too warm in the sewing room!

Our 10 year old AC has been acting a little strange theses past few days- of course it is when we are having our first 90 degree days - and yesterday evening when I got home it was 82 degrees inside. 

At 8 AM I called the Heating and Air Company that installed it and their technician, Eduardo, came  out about 10 AM. 

I guess he wanted to spare me the sticker shock as he commented that "it was probably low on Freon and that I probably knew that the price of Freon was currently about $100 a pound".

I wondered if  Eduardo knows that fabric sell for about $12 a yard. 

 Well Eduardo topped off my AC Unit with Freon and soon my sewing room was comfortable again.

Probably will have to consider a new unit in the future as they are phasing out the old type Freon which is harmful to the atmosphere (hence the high cost). And they added some Freon to the unit when they were out here a couple of years back.

Extra thankful for the creature comforts during these hot sticky days.

Partiotic Greek Cross & Backyard Roses

On the way out to my little house to load this quilt something caught my eye.

  

The sun was shining brightly and the grass was still really wet with dew.  I really didn't want to get my shoes all wet but oh well.....................

This is a Rugosa rose that I planted when we moved back here in 1997,  Over the years the other shrubs have gotten so large that the only way it can shine is to climb up and up and up.  I think it must be about 12 feet up on the shrubs.  

I see I missed getting all of what I call Virginia Creeper out of there a couple of weeks back when I had a rare gardening session. 

I love single roses.  The butterflies were pretty happy with them too.

I'm at the point in life where my flowers don't get the attention they deserve. 

They kind of  have to duke it out with the weeds.  

But I am thankful for all the enjoyment they give me.

Greek Cross & Roses

 

I finished the quilting on the Greek Cross donation quilt.  I will have to trim it and sew on the binding.  I will  donate it to the Pine Tree Quilters Guild in the fall for whatever use they choose.

The quilt is 46 by 58 inches.

The backing is not as dark as it looks in this picture. 

This has been a great year for this old rose bush.  It has been moved from Alabama to Georgia to New London, NC and then to it's present location 20 years ago.  It's not the best place for a rose bush on the north side of the workshop but it has survived.  

You can see the yellow roses in the background.

It was given to me by an employee of John's when my mother passed away in 1991.  

  His name was Howard - It's an offshoot of his mother's rose bush.  

I thought that was such a sweet and caring thing for him to do. I'm sure he could have sent a florist's arrangement if he'd wished but he took the time to come and visit and bring this special gift.

I have no idea what variety this is  - it is fragrant but the blossoms are very short lived.  The Japanese beetles enjoy them a lot too.

Sixteen Patch Blocks

First of all pardon that I didn't crop and edit the photos properly.

I have been sewing the blocks over the last few weeks.

I made up a kit so that I would have something to sew when I went to bee etc.

But they are so easy to sew sometimes I just end up sewing on them at odd times and now I've just finished sewing all 123 blocks.  Enough to make an 88 x 88 inch quilt top.

How will I arrange them?

I thought about the old way of grouping like colors but I will probably go with the random as I like it better.

I love this bed of yellow roses that John planted for me a few years back.

It smells heavenly out here!

That is my gift for being out here in the hot weeding and spraying - the best things in life are free.

Greek Cross & Corn

A few evenings back I had just enough time to load this donation quilt on the quilting machine.

Even though it was pretty warm when I got home yesterday PM, I went down and did the top border and first row.  I had decided to do feathers in the border but wasn't sure about the center.  A happy little feather circle popped into my head and it is working out really well.

Corn was on sale at a few of our local grocery stores Memorial Day weekend.  I was chatting with a lady a few years older than myself and she said she was getting 15 ears of corn and was going to freeze them as she cooked corn (her favorite vegetable) every Sunday. 

 I was just getting 5 ears because they looked so fresh.

A couple of days later - a different grocery store - I had almost the same conversation with a lady from a neighboring town.  She also told me it was the most economical place to buy it.  She gave me the run down on how she prepared it for freezing so what was I to do.

I bought 25 ears for 5 bucks. The store had a bin so you could shuck them there (BONUS!)

So I washed the ears and remembered this cool gadget that Molly gave me for Christmas (on the advice of my sister Barb).  It takes all the mess out of freezing corn.  You just run it down the ear and all the kernels fall into the tool.  Then just cook the corn five minutes, cool and place in freezer bags.

Corn on the cob always makes me think of John

John lived for fresh corn on the cob - I swear that was the reason we went to NYS in August.

 He thought the best corn was grown in New York State.  There was a farm near my Mom's that had a variety called Sugar and Cream.  The ears were huge. 

 Everywhere we went in NY, we had corn on the cob.

  Many times we'd be on the way to his sister's or my sister's and he'd have to stop at a produce stand and buy fresh corn to be sure they had some! 

I'd try to give him a little grief about how not everyone wanted to cook corn on the cob for him

but most times they already had corn waiting for him.  They all knew he loved corn and they loved him.

And that's all it took to make him a happy camper.