Roses

Now that the harvest is finished we are getting sunny weather again. Later tonight I will have to water some of the flowers. Have not done that for quite awhile. On Sunday we visited Jenny and she took us to Niagara for our anniversary. We had a great meal, overlooking the falls. I had thought that it would be very busy on a Sunday, but it was not. No problem finding a parking spot. I have been busy getting some new samples for workshops. This one is totally finished. Even the binding is on. The flowers are 3 dimentional and made with 1 inch wide shaded wired ribbon I just noticed now, that I should have turned the close-up a quarter turn. The leaves are fussy cut out of a fabric with bigger leaves.The green and black check used to be black and white.I dyed it last year with some left over dye and it wished I had done more.

I machine quilted it, using a variegated thread. Total size is about 21 by 21 inches.

Next week I should have another workshop[sample to show you.I want to make one more 2 day workshop, again with orchids and sashiko. Up to now, whatever I drew did not work, but this afternoon I managed to get something drawn up, that might work. I even found all the right fabrics, so tomorrow bright and early I will start on that one.

It will not be quite as busy on our farm for the next few weeks. By that time the white beans (of pork and bean fame) will be ready. So this will give me the time to work on the applique of the orchids, in this case yellow lady slippers. I did get a program to edit my pictures, but I think I need a tutorial to figure out how it all works.

The year of the gladioli

The last few years I have noticed more farmers trying to sell , mostly flowers, at the end of the farm lane. Last week I counted and in the 16km stretch I drive on the 86 to get to Wallenstein I could buy flowers at 18 places. The biggest is almost a farmer's market, where you can buy flowers, vegetables, bedding plants , eggs and summer sausage. This cart has an over abundance of glads and for 3 for a dollar you can't go wrong. It is not often, that I do not stop for a few.

The busiest corner is just before you reach Wallenstein. At that intersection there are pails in 3 corners with flowers, each with their own margerine container to put your money in. Now to the quilts. I found the pattern of this small wallhanging in the January edition of the AQS magazine. It talked about raw edge applique, something I have not done often. I had just the right piece for the mountains, so I gave it a try. I have to say, that raw edge applique does not turn my crank. I prefer to work by hand, although this is much faster.

I did quilt this on the machine. As you can see I still have not figured out how to crop the pictures with the new computer. There are a few other things that I will have to learn, but mostly everything seems to work.

We are still in the harvest. And we still get lots of rain. We are finished with the winter wheat here at home, but now Laurence is combining spring wheat, barley and mixed grain for the neighbours. But we hope to be done by the end of the week.

Where is summer?

At times is looks like we are in the tropics. Not temperature wise, but precipitation wise. We get up in the morning and soon after the sun will be shining. By the time the dew is burned of, the first clouds are rolling in. Then around noon or a little later the rain is coming down. Usually not much, but enough to prevent us from combining. So we still are not done. Last evening Laurence managed to do 2 hours worth after supper. Only one more hour......but it is raining again. Instead we put our farm sign back up. After 15 years it broke it's posts this spring during one of the storms. This time we thought we were smart and got pieces of iron to put in the ground. The posts would be bolted to these pieces Problem was, that when we put the posts in years ago, we put lots of stones around the posts to keep them straight. And those stones are still in the ground. What should have taken an hour took all morning, but we got done, right before the first rain! The orchid quilt is finished. I put the binding on, with a narrow green piping and the sleeve in the back has been sewn down. It was a lot of work, but I'm happy with the results.

And the canning has started. I used to do this way more when the kids were home and we had agricultural exchange students for the summer. At that time I used quart jars, but now I'm back to pints, or 500ml. We have our own harvest apple tree and even with a very poor crop, we still had enough to can and freeze. The rest are salad beans. Now some peaches and tomatoes yet. Nowhere near the few hundred jars of years past, but it will do.

Last week I could not get pictures to show up (new computer) but to my amazement I managed this time. My "tech support" is coming Saturday, so by next week everythings should be working just fine.

I have more projects to show and I'm working on another workshop. And guess what........it is raining again!

New computer

Our old computer could not do the job anymore, so we updated to bigger and better one. But with it has come all kinds of problems. We are not what you call computer literate,so we have to wait for our son-in-law to come back in a week. We just hope that he can answer all our questions. But what works, works very well. I love the bigger screen and the speed. I even managed to get the pictures on Picassa, but that's as far as I got. So I hope to have better luck next week. The harvest is still going, slow on most days. This is the first day this week without rain. This makes it very hard and frustrating. Say yesterday. Laurence started at 11 and it was a beautiful sunny day. Combining went well, but by 2.3o it got dark and soon after the rain came down hard. End of combining for the day. Instead we ran some errands in Kitchener. This morning again was sunny, but by this time, 7 in the evening, he is still going. Not only makes it for a long harvest, the quality does not improve either. From the best, grade 2 it went to grade 3. And for some to the dreaded "feed" category with a decrease in pay. One more long day would finish here, but then he has to combine for different neighbours. I'm at home doing the chores and do whatever I'm told to do, from bringing meals to fetch parts. When not needed there is time to work on quilts. I planned to show a new workshop, but that will have to wait till next time. Also put the binding on the orchid quilt, even made piping!! I want to make one more 2 day workshop, but I have not been able to come up with the right idea. I hope I can post lots of pictures next week.