Greens and Jeans

First Blooms 2019

Emily — Tue, 09 Apr 2019 02:01:06 +0000

We’re noticing signs of spring! Most of the snow has melted, flocks of robins are in the field, and our first snowdrop bloomed on March 30th.

The first crocus followed on April 2nd.

First bloom 2018: March 27
First bloom 2017: April 5
First bloom 2016: March 10
First bloom 2015: April 13
First bloom 2014: April 14
First bloom 2013: March 31
First bloom 2012: March 19
First bloom 2011: April 4

100 Days Project

Emily — Wed, 03 Apr 2019 01:14:09 +0000

I’ve decided this year to participate in the 100 days project. The idea is to work on something creative consistently for 100 days. I’ve decided to focus on some of my long term unfinished projects including my rainbow quilt, hexagon quilts, cathedral window.

This doesn’t mean I won’t be doing other sewing projects (I just started on dresses for my girls for Easter), but I will try to work on one of these long term projects every day.

I’ve opened an Instagram account for this project and you can follow my progress @emilylewis5446 or with the tag #100daysofunfinishedprojects2019

Bear Coats

Emily — Tue, 30 Oct 2018 13:37:01 +0000

This year’s Halloween costumes are bear coats from Twig & Tale. This is the same pattern I used to make the Dragon Coat last year. I made them with remnant yardage from wool woven material, lined with quilting cotton and batting so we can get a lot of use out of them. The girls have been enjoying them for the past month already. On both coats I got to use buttons from my great-grandmother’s button tin. It was fun to dig through to find just the right ones. I’m sure she never imagined when she saved buttons from old clothing that her great-great granddaughters would wear them someday.

Garden Harvests 2018

Emily — Sun, 28 Oct 2018 01:32:10 +0000

As usual, the garden was filled with crab grass by the end of the season. But we had some successful harvests including a good year for cantaloupes, lots of dried beans, and a good year for tomatoes. And my girls enjoyed eating peas from the garden, shelling beans, and digging potatoes from the dirt at the end of the season.

Our new compost bins built last fall produced great compost that is spread on most of the garden now and we’re almost ready for the snow that started today. I can forget about the weeds all winter long, and get excited for another try next year.

(Since I don’t think I posted a photo of this amazing compost bin my husband built last year, here it is when it was first built. We keep the center filled with leaves and add our kitchen scraps to one side while letting the other compost).

Peonies

Emily — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 14:11:00 +0000

A few highlights from our peony blooms last month. This plant is a Mrs. FDR peony and it always produces over 30 buds. Each stem has about 4 of 5 buds with the smaller ones blooming later into early July.

My coral charm bloomed for the first time and was stunning!

June 30 Garden

Emily — Sun, 01 Jul 2018 02:10:16 +0000

It’s amazing what a few weeks of sun, heat, and finally some rain will do. The garden is growing well. We have our first peas, plenty of kale. The tomatoes are blooming and peppers are about to as well. I recently harvested all the garlic scapes and hilled the potatoes.

The chicks have moved permanently into the coop. They have a safe space with their food in the dog cage that only they can get into. They stay away from the bigger chickens as much as possible.

Star Quilt

Emily — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 19:25:18 +0000

This was a recent gift for a baby shower. I modified a block pattern our quilt group uses for comfort quilts and increased the block size to 12 inches. Then I made 6 with blue scraps and 6 with green. The star is in a light gray.

I machine quilted it with straight lines on the diagonal and it turned out OK. At least I didn’t feel like I ruined the quilt top with the machine quilting like I sometimes do.

2018 Garden & Chicks

Emily — Wed, 13 Jun 2018 01:52:30 +0000

I finally planted squash seedlings, bean seeds and cucumbers this weekend to finish the planting of the garden.

The garlic and potatoes are coming along well. We enjoyed a good season of asparagus and now are eating lettuce and other greens. Our chicks are over a month old. They spend days outside in a crate on the grass. We started them sleeping in the coop this weekend, but still in the crate to protect them from the larger chickens. This is my daughter’s favorite, named “Yoke.”

And here is “Chipmunk” and “Princess of all Chickens”. Not pictured are “Cardamom”, “Cloves” & “Licorice.”

Baby Chicks

Emily — Fri, 11 May 2018 02:45:35 +0000

We’ve added to our chicken flock twice since we got our first batch of chickens in 2011, but both times they were pullets or adult hens. Our little girls like to take care of the chickens and the last batch of pullets are not as tame as the others we’ve had. So this year we decided to add six chicks to our current flock of four.

Here they are, names are to be determined.

A Barred Rock

A Black Sex Link

A Black Australorp

An Easter Egger

A Buff Orpington

A Dark Brahma

Rainbow Checkerboard Quilt Top

Emily — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 14:19:16 +0000

In the last week I finished the quilt top for this scrappy rainbow quilt I began on January 1st.

My original plan was to do bright colors at random with the white alternative squares. But as I started cutting strips, I kept wanting to group things by color and decided after sewing up a few test squares to cluster the colors.

I decided to piece a rainbow backing for it as well. It’s a queen sized top.

After basting it this weekend, I’m started on the hand quilting. We’ll see how long it takes!