Aunt Pat's Quilt

Aunt Pat is not a quilter, but she appreciates quilts given to her (a fine trait). Pat slept under this quilt when she was a young girl, and the quilt has been well-loved. Her grandmother, Anna May Nice, from Indianapolis, Indiana, made her this wedding ring quilt, we're guessing, in the early to mid 1950's.

Why do I have it? Because this quilt was about ready to fall apart, some 60 years later, and Aunt Pat asked me pretty please to repair it (only for her...) I have replaced quite a number of ring segments with found fabric (if it looked similar to the fabrics in the quilt, I used it).  I also added some very fine fusible knit interfacing (and batting) to the back where there were holes (and where the original batting was gone).

You can see the pinned segments that still need to be appliquéd in place (to cover a hole, a rip, or a shredded piece). Once these pieces are done, then I plan to add a false back (a soft white muslin), tie it with white perle cotton thread (less conspicuous) and redo the binding.  I'm hoping to turn it over to Aunt Pat this fall when she comes to Michigan for a visit. (Yikes.)

Overwintered Geranium and Fuchsias

This is my one and only geranium that I rescued from a hardware store parking lot display almost 3 years ago (for 5 bucks I couldn't resist).  I overwintered it last year with success, and again this year. I don't think it normally would be blooming at this point, but it had a vacation outside when we had those 2 weeks of 80-degree weather in mid-March, and this is what happened.  All I did since last September is give it one cup of water a week.

My "spider" fuchsias don't look as pretty, but they are due for a trimming and will go out into the garden again in mid-May. This is my third year for the one in the back, and first year for the one in the front. These, too, got one cup of water a week.  This east-facing room is about 60 degrees all winter, and the plants seem to like it OK.

Rock garden view from the deck

View from the fence (you can see the three types of coral bells better).

Rosie fishing for mice while I fish for weeds (plenty of both to be had)

Baskets: Top finished

My basket flimsy is not trimmed yet, but I had to take a photo while there was decent light. Some of the baskets are wibbly-wobbly (some tipping a little left, some a little right...guess I should have trimmed those blocks all at the same time to keep the wobble consistent). I'm not redoing them! Now on to the quilting phase.

What's on the bed?

Quilt teacher extraordinaire, Bonnie Hunter, is hosting a linky party, "What's on your bed?"
Here's what's on my bed...a 20-year-old Trip Around the World that was made by me for my husband's birthday. Machine stitched and quilted. It's starting to fade a little but still looks pretty good.

See any oldies but goodies fabrics in here (they are all AT LEAST 20 years old)?

Garden Jewels

I'm supposed to be cleaning my house for Easter company tomorrow, but I couldn't resist going outside and snapping a few shots.

Bleeding heart

Toad Lily

Tiarella "Sugar and Spice"

Grape Hyacinth

And Ms. Duck forgot her egg! (It's been sitting on the dock for a few days now.)

Applique hearts project

Hearts, hearts, hearts. This is the project where I learned to do back-basted appliqué. I had a pile of 5-inch squares from Country Stitches in Lansing, Michigan (purchased in the late 1990's, before 5 inch squares were popular) I matched compatible squares, drew the hearts on the back of the background square, and started stitching. It was my carry-along hand project "forever". It took me so long to do that I'm sure my bee members were (are) totally sick of seeing my hearts (my bee, Georgetown Circle, meets monthly). 

I still need to add borders and quilt it, probably with a combo of machine and hand quilting to get it finished in a timely manner.

Baskets: Further tweaking

Trial setting triangles

I couldn't stand it and had to add some potential setting triangles. Click on the photo to make it bigger; what do you think? I will probably have to recut these if I decide to go with them because "someone" (not me) likes everything to be cut exactly on grain and square, even though the fabric was skewed on the bolt. I have to think how to do this (maybe wet the fabric and dry it)?

Here is a close-up of one of the baskets so you can see the setting fabric better and see that the black in the nine patches is not a solid black.