Wednesday, April 17, 2013

What I've been doing...

Spring is always so busy with the addition of outside work. It's been a while since I posted. Dave and I took a 5 day trip down to South Carolina to see his parents. I'm now looking at a stretch of 6 days with nothing on the calendar. Love that! I have a lot of catching up to do with house cleaning and quilting. I still haven't started machine quilting those quilts I mentioned in my last post. I did get the backing stitched for the crumb quilt but I'm not sure how I want to quilt it. So now I want to get started on the 9-patch.
I managed to stitch 3 hexagon flowers on the South Carolina trip. I thought I'd get more done but was getting a little car sick as I stitched. I have 34 completed and not sure how many more I will do - probably at least 16 more. Here they are on my dining room table I painted back in January. My dining room set was my grandmothers and it was looking very worn out. I was ready for something refreshed and brighter. I'm really happy with how it turned out and will reveal all when I finish the other two pieces of furniture in my dining room. Here is a peek at the chairs I just finished up last week.

Here is a little look around our yard-
 grape hyacinths under the maple tree

 silverberry tree in bloom

spinach and lettuce

It's been a while since we planted vegetables. I was feeling a bit guilty about my husband doing all the clearing and planting and then I remember I'll probably be the one weeding when the weather turns hot and humid.

I made this little cushion for my computer chair today. It took less than an hour and I love how it turned out. Why did I wait so long to make this? I painted the chair back in the fall. It annoys me when I keep putting something off that doesn't take long to do.

I'm still putting in a few hand quilting stitches on most evenings. This shoofly is getting more quilting than the last.

This past Monday was our tour of Polyface Farms. We took back roads instead of taking the major highways.
It was another overcast day. This time rain instead of snow. The redbud trees put on a show for us. They were all along highway 340.



Here we are at the farm-



 Farmer, Joel Salatin, gave the tour.


 These hens were quite noisy.

Entering the "eggmobile".

As Joel talked, the cows munched on grass. They moved around a lot. Dave said that must be where the phrase "the grass is always greener on the other side" originated.

 the pigerator

 I can't remember if he called these pullets or poults - they're just chicks to me.

This is the first time I've tried to add a video to a post. Was easy to do - hope I did it right.

 Downtown Staunton Virginia. We had a nice lunch at Cranberry's Grocery and Eatery.



I hope to be back soon with progress on my 9-patch. Hope the weather is good where you are. It's lovely here today.