Under the Needle: July

 I was in my sewing room quite a bit this month, but I wasn't always sewing. 

But this month I managed to get my Land of Enchantment top together. I had made all the blocks earlier, but it had a pieced border so I completed that this month. I've been trying to use what I have, but I didn't have anything even close for a backing and I caved when I saw this fabric online and had to have it.

I didn't get a lot of sewing done this month because I started cutting into my scraps. Tackling a 32 qt tote of scraps was a daunting task, but I stayed focused and emptied the bin! Some of it has been used, but all of it has been pressed, cut down into usable sizes, and I've made notes for how I intend to use much of it. Hopefully I can stay on top of things and not let it pile up like that again. It was a lot.

I am currently binding this Farmhouse Summer quilt in the evenings.

And I went ahead and cut the leftovers into 5" squares that I'll stitch into HSTs for a bonus quilt.

I've been making Bonnie Hunter's 4-Patch Fun blocks as leader-enders. I've just made 10, but as I was working through my scraps, I cut and clipped 50+ together so they are ready to stitch

I picked up 2 quilts from Jackie and stitched the binding to the fronts.

I dropped off 2 and finished 2 this month - Blustery Day

And Gingham Farmhouse

I feel like most of the month was spent processing my mountain of scraps, but I'm so glad to have those cut down and ready for some fun scrap quilts. I didn't have any low volume fabrics in my scraps tote, although I do have some in my 2.5" strip bin, so the stacks of low volume prints were all cut from fat quarters or yardage

I started with this quilt

From this book

There are 2 different blocks and I made one of each to see if I wanted to commit to making an entire quilt. It uses 2" strips and squares which isn't going to whittle those scraps down very quickly, but it's fun to revisit these fabrics and get them out of the tote and into these cheerful blocks.

I also cut scraps down for this quilt that uses 1.5" strips. 

Again, I made one block before I cut pieces for the entire quilt. It was a slow process, but I will stitch the rest of the blocks in an assembly line fashion and that will make them come together much faster.

I also cut a variety of strips, including 5" strips (not pictured because I already put them away).

Sewing continues, but I am stepping away from the rotary cutter for a while. Making scrappy quilts creates a huge mess, but it's all part of the process and despite the piles, it's an organized chaos and I'm looking forward to moving these projects forward.     

                       

Summer Snapshots

We've been thoroughly enjoying our 1st mountain summer. We've been blessed with numerous summer showers that often roll across the mountains in the afternoons. We've lived in the desert long enough to know that's not always the case. When the clouds roll through and the drops begin to fall, DH and I will congregate on the deck to soak in the view. That means it's been good and green and the horses are living their best life. 

As is Skeet!

That rain I mentioned has been a double blessing because I saw this as I headed to bed on the 22nd as a storm rumbled outside

That's a fire on top of Capitan Mountain. Thankfully, the rain extinguished it.

The hummingbirds are eating us out of house and home. Doc and Janie, said they'd leave us the feeders if we'd feed the hummers. I have 3 feeders out that will hold 4 qts. each. I think we've got 30-40  birds and we're filling at least 1 feeder a day. Needless to say, I buy my sugar at Sam's in 25# bags.

I'm cleaning windows...always, because there are A LOT of windows but you won't hear me complaining (even though I do not like washing windows)

And I'm still taking care of our little patient.

She's doing incredibly well! Here she is just before she dashed off to chase a butterfly

I underplayed her injury in a previous post. I don't want to post a picture because it's sure to upset some folks as it's pretty significant. It is not evident in these photos because it's on her tummy and down across her back legs, but I look at it and cannot fathom how she is acting like an uninjured kitten

I let her out of Skeet's crate 3 times a day and she follows me to the barn and visits with her littermates for 30-45 minutes

I am keeping her wound clean, continuing with the antibiotics, and applying Vetricyn 4 times a day. I imagine it'll be at least 2 or 3 months before  her skin grows back, but you'd never know it, watching her

Neither DH nor I can figure out how she was hurt, but she seems to be healing well.

A blog reader commented that they have issues with feline distemper and recommended we have Allie vaccinated. That's not an issue here. We are very rural. The closest neighbor is 5 miles away on a ranch. It can also be transmitted by fleas, but we don't have those either. We've always had barn cats on the ranch and they are always wild and have never been to a vet or been vaccinated. 

We live in a forested wildness and there are lots of predators. We have snakes, owls, hawks, coons, skunks  fox, coyotes, mountain lions, and bear. 

We've always ranched and we've always done our best to tend to the livestock and critters entrusted into our care, but it's just a fact that we will have some attrition from time to time with this lifestyle. We're not heartless. In fact, I'm probably too soft-hearted to be a ranch wife and we've all shed our share of tears over sick and injured livestock and any number of critters and heaven knows we do all we can to save our 4-legged patients. I wrote a little about it at the bottom of this post

                                                             Spring Branding with a Little TLC

I found our 1st egg from the new chickens we brought home in March. It's safe to say that with 26 laying hens, we'll soon be overrun with eggs.

The chickens like their wild lifestyle too

DH has been exploring the mountains on foot every couple of days. He's averaging 5-8 miles 

returning with a big smile on his face and tales of his encounters with the neighbors

Yesterday he logged in 8 miles on foot and gained 2000 ft in elevation. When he goes horseback, they cover 12-15 miles. 

No fences or people. Just rough, wild country.

Mountain life is good for our souls.

But I do fear that our hermit tendencies are escalating. 😂

Blustery Day Quilt

 I have a soft place in my heart for Winnie the Pooh. I am a huge fan of this wise little bear and a Winnie the Pooh quilt has been long overdue.

I've hunted Pooh fabric for a long time, but this was my favorite as it most closely resembled my memories of these beloved characters.

We didn't let the chiddlers watch much television when they were small, but I do remember buying 8 tracks of a Winnie the Pooh series and apparently we watched them enough that I learned all the voices because when we read the books we had, aloud, I was able to mimic the characters. I had forgotten that until the chiddlers reminded me. Sadly, I have lost that ability, but I have not lost my love for this cast of characters.

This fabric has been in a bin for some time and I finally decided to dig in and make a Pooh quilt. I fussy cut the scenes into 5" squares and was able to get 25. I would have liked to make the quilt bigger, but 5" squares seemed to be the best size for focusing on the characters.

I decided to use a pattern I designed 8 or 9 years ago. The alternating blocks are a 2 different quarter square triangles blocks so I started with 6 1/4" squares. I'm documenting the details here because I know I will be making this design again and it will be easier for me to reference this post when I do.

6 blue

8 yellow

10 green

Those became hsts;

4 blue/yellow

8 blue/green

12 yellow/green

Then I made 2 different combinations of quarter square triangles 

16 of the left

8 of the right

 

This is a simple quilt. The hardest part is making sure the orientation of the quarter square triangles is correct in order to insure this design. It finished at 46" x 46" .

I added a 6" border and a minky backing

 Jackie's perfect blustery quilting, and blue binding  were the perfect finishing touches

I do wish I had used a softer blue and even a softer green, but it's what I had in my stash and I'm happy with the finished quilt

I don't know if I made this for grandbabies or for myself..maybe a little of both. 😉

Doctoring Allie

 One of the little barn kitties ( I'm calling her Allie Oop) was injured last week. DH was out at the barn putting shoes on one of his horses 

when we noticed her walking a little gingerly. We don't know what happened, but she had an open puncture wound and it just kept getting worse. No pictures, because it's pretty icky. I cleaned out the water trough we used for a brooder and store in the barn and isolated her in there after trying to clean out her wound. I kept a fairly heavy wire panel on top, but every morning, she had somehow climbed up and scooted the panel over enough and escaped. She was always bright-eyed and obviously feisty enough to climb out, but that had to have hurt her to climb out because she had a 2" open wound on her tummy. They are barn kitties and free to come and go and seek adventure (and hopefully mice)

I called our country vet on Thursday and took her in on Friday morning. They were swamped and told me to just drop her off. They just cleaned her wound up good and gave her a strong antibiotic, sending me home with a 10 day supply. I bought some Vetricyn and am applying that as well. We don't usually want our barn cats to be gentle because with all the predators in the mountains, their chance of survival here increases if they are wild, but I'm glad she's so sweet because it makes caring for her much easier. 

I set her up in Skeet's crate where she absolutely can't escape, hoping to keep her wound clean as she heals. She looks pretty pitiful

She is kind of giving me the stink eye here

But I bring her out 4 or 5 times a day where she likes to soak up the sun and follow me around

Welcome home

They were glad to be reunited. This is Bindi

And Charli

Every time I let her out, she makes her way to the barn (about 100 yards), but I'm trying to keep her injury clean and until that heals enough , I'm keeping her in Skeet's crate, in the garage for much of the day as well as during the night. But this is her happy place

Now we're working on putting some weight on her,

 but I think she's on her way.

Gingham Farmhouse Quilt

 A few years ago I made couple of gingham baby quilts for a friend's twin granddaughters

And soon after, I made a third that our granddaughter has claimed

And I've made another here

And when I stumbled upon this print, I thought a gray and white quilt would be fun. As much as I love this print, I will say I struggled with the strings...so many strings! It's a Michael Miller fabric and this is the first time I've had a fabric produce so many strings. Still, I loved the print enough to deal with the strings.

Sandy used a gray thread and a design called Vortex

I backed it with this print because I thought a touch of red on the back was fun and I bound it with a gray.

In hindsight, it really wasn't the best choice because the background is an off-white and the front is a true white, but it's fine.

 It was made with love and someone will love it and that's all that matters.

It finishes at 68" x 80" 

I like the simplicity of gingham quilts so I'm fairly certain this won't be the last.

This one has not found it's forever home, but the kids haven't seen it yet. 😉