BOM and DWM

BOM today means Bag of the Month.  I try to make a bag for community service every month.  The Guild makes Happy Bags for the children cancer patients and a carryall for the Rape Crisis Center to give to victims.  This month I'm making a carryall.

I've only got the lining to cut and then I'll be ready to sew it together.  It's a quick sew - less than an hour.  You can get the pattern here.

And now it's done:

Besides the bag, nothing on my design wall right now.  I"m working on those two quilts I sandwiched.

Out in the garden, the amaryllis are still blooming!

I'm amazed with how many flowers they've produced this year.  Blessings!

Applique Tuesday Week 36

I am hand appliqueing the sixth basket. Three more to go and then I'll make 27 leaves for the flowers.  Once those are stitched in place, I can add the flowers. Little by little.








In the garden, even in the depth of our drought, we are blessed with touches of beautiful color:

What are you up to?  Let me know in a comment and I'll come by and have a look. I'm linking this post to Connie's Linky Tuesday and to Esther's WOW.  You should go on over to both of these ladies and see the beautiful work they are doing.

Stash Report 5/19/13

A waxy beauty from my DH's cactus!

Went to a Sew Day at our Guild today.  We made blocks for VA quilts.  I actually got a whole top done using a panel to which I added fabric round and round it.  It measures about 36 by 42.  I pulled a fabric from my stash to be the back, so that used a yard.  I also fussy cut some squares and that used up another 1/4 yard.  Not much other de-stashing, but I didn't buy anything either.
Here are my numbers:

in 0.0 yds.; out  1.25 yds.

Stash YTD: in 6.5 yds., out 52.72yds.

Donated YTD: 26.58 yds

Net for 2013: out 46.22 yds

 

I'm linking to Judy's Patchwork Times. Join me there to see other's de-stashing endeavors. 

Favorite Things Friday 5/18/12

I'm happy to report still some flowers in the garden. This one was a surprise - a late bloomer. It is the palest purple iris I have ever seen.  I bought the tuber at a Iris Society sale of unknowns. This is the first year it has bloomed.  Lovely as it is I can see why it may not be cultivated and given a name.  The flowers only last a couple of days.  Here's another shot: 

 

This rose is one my mother rooted for me from her beautiful roses.  Last year this plant was only a stick with a few leaves and I thought I was going to lose it.  Hasn't it come back beautifully?  I'm looking for a place where I can plant it in the yard.

Last, but not least is the tomato plant that refuses to give up.  My husband has a replacement plant for the one in our grower.  I told him as soon as this one stops producing - out it goes.  But for a one scraggly stemmed plant that has a lot of dead leaves it keeps producing, producing producing - won't give up as it approaches its year anniversary.

That's it from my garden.  What's your favorite thing this friday? Go on over to Shay's Favorite Thing Friday button on my sidebar and check out what others are posting.

Oh! and if you didn't see my previous post, go back and see the already over 200 quilts that are on show.  Enjoy!

Thou shalt not Covet thy Neighbor's Garden...

Well.............., at least I can look at it!  They have done such a wonderful job!
When we look across the street we see:

and here's a closeup of the flower - they're usually at the top of the plant but this one was eye - level. 

and just to the left of the first picture and across from our driveway you can see these:

I LOVE these roses!

Morning Chorus

Most mornings I arise between 5:30 and 6:00 am.  And this is what greets me:

I call this my Morning Halleluiah chorus.  They spend about a half hour singing praises and then go on about their daily chore of finding food.  It's a great way to wake up.  It would be interesting to know how many different bird voices are included in this masterpiece.

From the Garden

My husband grows cacti for their unusualness, their beauty, their difficulty to grow, their uniqueness.  One of their bountiful qualities is the beauty of their flowers.  I was watering the patio plants and spied this one in full bloom from a distance in his shade area.  Here it is in the full sun.  It is so bright that the color looks a little washed out.

Here it is with me shading it.  You can see the color better and the wonderful centers.  Bees love this cactus.



Through the window

signs of Spring bring a smile (especially after this last very unseasonal cold spell - it got down to 37!)

poppies, geraniums and an Aeonium Kiwi bordering the abundant grass.

pink and white geraniums

three more geranium and some alyssum - do you think I like geraniums?

Some bush sweet peas and statis amongst the soon to explode Mexican primrose.  You can see three blooms of it in the top left.  Oh, yes, a miniature rose in there - white buds.

In the Garden

It's raining, so I went to clean out our dry wall on the back side of our house for the runoff to drain away and saw these.

My yellow Lady Banks Rose is starting to bloom.  Guess she thinks it's Spring already.  I'll take her prognostication any day over that ground hog.

It's in the low 50s today - a 30 degree difference from last week when it was in the 80s - typical California weather - LOL.  And here is our adenium. It has bloom all winter long.

Spot of sunshine and crumb block tip.

Have I told you it's been overcast here? Yesterday we had a break in the weather for about 10 minutes and the sun shone.  Here is what I saw out my kitchen window - one of the few spots I still have some color in the garden.  See that tiny black cloud in the sky?  Within five minutes another storm front had moved in.  It got gloomy again but no rain.  Same weather today.  On the quilting front, I made a crumb block for a demo on another list.  One thing I forgot to say in that post is that I use any bobbin partly filled with thread and any thread left over from projects when I'm making these guys.  You could say I use up my "scrap thread" that way - LOL.

Itching to be

gardening!  This is the time when not much is blooming.  And with no rain, much of the ground is brown with dead stalks and weeds.  I'm itching to get out there and start preparing the soil for winter planting.  First I'd like to prepare an area for sweet peas.  DH has resurrected our tomato plants even though we still have fruit on the old ones.  Here is our latest crop from Monday and today I picked 4 more.  Of course the twelve from monday are gone.  These are grape Romas and are they tasty!

Garden spot

The summer days continue and soon I will need to think about autumn chores to get ready for winter starts. In the meantime, I roam the yard (my DH's part) and look for photo ops of his holdings - he is a cactus and succulent nut. Found this one I like. They only bloom in the morning, but they are a nice surprise when I go out to get the morning paper:

Hello, My Name is Angie.

Hello, My name is Angie and the name of my blog lists three of the things I like to do. Here's a picture of a view from my kitchen window from back in 2005. It was a good year. I live in sunny California and it isn't always I have such a green view from the window, especially now that we are in a drought, but it is winter now so I hope to have another picture later in spring to replace this one. I'd love to see your garden view. More later!