Bad Manners and Brimstone

Well, my current project of decluttering my craft stuff is a partial success! I m having a really hard time being as brutal about getting rid of stuff as I had planned. There's so much stuff I forgot about, and some of it is useful for quilting too (stencils particularly, as quilting motifs). I am letting some of it sit for a day, then will go through it again with hopefully more realistic eyes.

I did spend a couple of days cutting up the rest of the scraps, mostly strips. I have one pattern (Garlic Knots) that is super easy that I like to use for charity quilts, and out of all that cutting, I have enough squares for three quilts! Well, the coloured portion of them - I will have to cut the background fabric later.

I don't remember if I mentioned that I finished all my black and white strata blocks. I am not going to sew them togther yet, so no picture of that for now.

Next project - grind some coffee beans to fuel me for the next few days!

Okay, I don't remember if I posted this quilt yet and am too lazy to check, but now the baby has arrived! She's 11 days old here.

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Thank you! She is a real sweetie. I look forward to watching her grow up - so curious to know if she will look like her mom! Her mom doesn't look much like either her own mom or dad. Actually, none of my friends' kids look much like either of them, though the other two daughters (sisters of the mom) look a lot alike. Funny how genetics go!

My brother (like me), is a typical "Kleene" [paternal family] - I've had people in the street/on buses ask if I'm "Harald's" granddaughter, it's that obvious - and yet brother's son [who looks nothing like him] is the spitting image of my aunt [Mum's sister] as a child.

And now people are saying to me "don't you look like your mum?!"*, so yes, genetics is weird!

But what a gorgeous quilt for a gorgeous baby: thanks for posting the pic with the recipient, too!

* Unless we're at a gathering of the Kleenes, and then it's screamingly obvious who is related to whom [apart from one truly lovely cousin - who takes after his mum].

Yours doesn't look even close to the grey one in the link. Yours is MUCH nicer.

Quote from: Rho on May 10, 2020, 11:37:08 pm

Yours doesn't look even close to the grey one in the link. Yours is MUCH nicer.

Thanks! I didn't like her grey one either. I don't know where the picture went of her original one, she seems to have removed it from that page, but here's a link to a picture of someone who did a very small one that is more like what I first saw. Except this small one is nicer! In Pat's original, she had used more scraps in similar colours, so it didn't look as fresh and scrappy as this small one: https://fresh.inlinkz.com/entry/db7748a1f025453da26ce5b67e3ebbd8 I would like to do one more like this, maybe some day when I have collected enough little squares again.

Does this mean you need to go stash-replenishing?  I thought you were like the rest of us, and admitting 'one has more than enough stash for two lifetimes'.

Quote from: Chez Miriam on May 12, 2020, 11:26:36 am

Quote from: Pattycake on May 11, 2020, 10:06:40 am

Quote from: Rho on May 10, 2020, 11:37:08 pm

Yours doesn't look even close to the grey one in the link. Yours is MUCH nicer.

Thanks! I didn't like her grey one either. I don't know where the picture went of her original one, she seems to have removed it from that page, but here's a link to a picture of someone who did a very small one that is more like what I first saw. Except this small one is nicer! In Pat's original, she had used more scraps in similar colours, so it didn't look as fresh and scrappy as this small one: https://fresh.inlinkz.com/entry/db7748a1f025453da26ce5b67e3ebbd8 I would like to do one more like this, maybe some day when I have collected enough little squares again.

Does this mean you need to go stash-replenishing?  I thought you were like the rest of us, and admitting 'one has more than enough stash for two lifetimes'.

No, no stash replenishing! It's getting the squares cut. It's when you are finished a project, you need to cut up the scrappy bits so they will take up less space. It takes a while, but over time you will have a whole bunch of ready to go squares. I hate sitting down and chopping up a bunch of fabric for squares as it's so time consuming. It took me a week or so to cut up all the scrappy bits that someone else gave me!

Ah, got it!  I was imagining an excuse for shopping.  I can see why cutting up lots of little squares of a project you have already finished could drop down the "To Do" list.  My half-finished hats have been stuffed in a crate where the moths can't get at them, and I can't see them [gosh, they nag! ], and will happily remain untouched till I can't put it off any longer.

We are building garden beds out of retaining wall stone.  We are insane.  If I end up starting a company for selling produce, it is going to be called 'Crazy Half Acre Produce' because the property is half an acre and we are crazy!

When we moved here, we decided on two beds down either side of the property.  Then I realized it was really hard on my back to pick the strawberries on the ground so we built a bed for them, with rhubarb down the middle.  And the dogs could pee on my herb bed so we built a small raised bed for them.  That was it!

Not even a week after finishing the herb bed, when he cursed the entire time trying to figure out the angles to finish off the top layer, DH says, 'We need one more garden bed."  We what???  He explained his thinking and I agreed but said that we needed two beds so I didn't have to walk around the bed to get into my garden shed.  We bought the stone for that in the fall of 2018.  It didn't get done last summer due to other projects.  Then, when the pandemic hit, we had trouble getting a few things and DH decided that we needed even larger beds so the two straight beds became u-shaped beds.  The first is done and planted.  The second just about has the base row set - which takes the most time.  We can build up the rest rather quickly.  It might even be done tomorrow and then we just need to get the dirt into it.

So in the process of building it, we had to raise one side up on some base material to keep it level.  And now it needs a retaining wall on the one side to hold the base material in place.  And the other side affected?  We're building a bed for the rhubarb that is taking over the strawberry bed.  This second bed also has a big enough space in the U that we are going to build a small bed in the middle that is going to be our asparagus bed.

The final bed is going outside the backyard fence on the property line with the neighbour to be a food bank/community garden bed.  And we have to build a retaining wall along the ditch in the front yard so we can build up the yard and flatten it out a bit since it is quite sloped.  The company we buy the stone from just loves us.  LOL. 

Hefting all this stone?  Who needs a gym?