Gardening

 The effects of my chest cold linger on, lots of coughing and very little energy. In spite of my lethargy I have managed to do a few things.

I needed to get my garden in order, mainly because on a trip to Jamestown I couldn't resist some seedlings, and they needed a new home rather badly. My garden has been reduced to a 4m stretch just outside my door. I'm not supposed to handle potting mix, or dig in the garden, but the gardening habit is hard to break. My flowers bring me so much happiness, I'd hate to do without them entirely. I wanted to help preserve the plants I have, which have survived several harsh summers, and scatter in some new autumn colour where I could.

The seedlings were shifted into small pots to grow on, and with Mereth's help I moved a lot of old pots around, chucked heaps of things that were just rubbish now, and tried to design a layout that would enable me to have the most garden in the least space. That meant going up, and I've stacked smaller pots on top of the largest ones, and made shelves from bricks and wood that elevate troughs so I can see what's happening in them. 

Setting up the infrastructure of a garden is time consuming, plus I didn't want to spend anything if I could help it.  I just gathered together all sorts of stuff that's been lying around, and gave it a new purpose. The terracotta pots we got for 20cents a few years ago, and when I trim my geraniums back I'll put the cuttings in those pots. They're on an old metal hospital table that used to go over the beds. I picked that up from the side of the road about 15 years ago, and it's had many uses since then. I've been at this for days but I think I'm close to planting out what I want, and that will be the fun part. I have to wear a mask when I'm near the potting mix but once it's all finished it will just require watering and fertilizing, and I'll be able to handle that.

Mereth has always loved growing vegetables best, and I am a flower grower. I do have a few things like spring onions and peppers, but it's the flowers that make my heart go pitter-pat. And while it's all been fun, I need to get back into the sewing room, because playing with fabric also makes me happy. 

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Back again

Where was I? Last time I posted I was busy rummaging in my scraps, then I had a flurry of quilting at the shop, then I had to go to Adelaide to help Seonaid's family before the school holidays. Seonaid organises the school sports day, all the fundraising and catering. It's not something I'd ever volunteer for, but she's been in Events Management for a decade or more, so it's something she's more than qualified for. I was just there to babysit kids while she did the work, and I'm still qualified to do that 😀.

I brought Isla home for 5 days, so we could sew and visit with family here. We made a pillowcase, and microwave heat bags, and a nightie, so Isla gained some more experience with the sewing machine. I had to ask her to thread the needle on more than one occasion, my eyesight being what it is. 

Then we went back to Adelaide, and I stayed a few days longer, so I could babysit the kids while Seonaid went to some meetings and a dinner. It's so much easier to look after older kids, thank heavens; they help get dinner, help clean up, shower themselves. Isla even reads to the younger two, so I'm just there to break up fights and make them brush their teeth, basically. And hold their hands while they go to sleep.....

I came back exhausted anyway, with yet another cold picked up from Finn. It takes me ages to get over a cold, so it's been very slow progress in the sewing room since then.

I'd left a stack of pieces for Log Cabin and Disappearing 4-patch blocks by the machine, so I sewed all them together when I felt up to it. Eventually I had 56 blocks up on the design wall, and I'm slowly sewing them in groups of 4. I considered just putting them in a container and going on to something else, but I would not look forward to arranging them all on the design wall again, so I'll just spend a bit more time on it and get it ready for borders.

The 1.25" Log Cabin blocks now number 80, and I think I might just put them aside for now. The blocks are 6.75" finished ,so they would only make a 54 x 67" top. I don't know if I'd be happy with that size, I usually like to make tops a bit bigger than that. I need more pieces if I'm going to make more blocks, I've done a good job of cleaning out the strip box; I will amass some more scraps and see how I feel then.

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I do love Log Cabins!

And I made a sample block with 1" strips, but I'm not sure I want to go down that rabbit hole just yet.

I had a bundle of rejected strips that I kept moving from place to place, so I sewed most of them into this 20"paper-pieced star. It's not something I want to make more of, so I'm going to border it with HSTs and a few more reject fabrics and call it a wallhanging.

And now that I'm in the process of finishing one project, and shelving another, I'm looking at concentrating on the tiny 9-patches.

I'm going to set them together with 1.5" strips, so they have a bit more breathing room. This makes a 12" block, and I'm really happy with how it looks. It's going to be hard to find a suitable sashing fabric, but I'll deal with that later on. 

Miss Isla is 8 years old now, and allowed to be in charge of the knife for the cutting of her birthday cake.

She's quite the young lady now; I miss baby Isla, but I've always loved spending time with her at any stage. Here's hoping she turns into my quilting buddy.

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