After being on vacation for a little more than a week, its been tough trying to get back into the swing of things. We had a great time visiting my parents at the lake and I was able to show my Mom how to use her "new" Bernina (at least it was new to her). We had a good time sewing together and we even got her garden cleaned up a bit.
While on vacation, I was able to completely finish hand sewing the binding on quilt #6 (I'll hopefully post a picture soon) and I've gotten 9 of 48 blocks completed for our queen sized quilt. They look really good and I only had to rip out a few seams to make everything line up just right.
We also put up a garage door opener while on vacation. We've been in our house for almost 3 years and we FINALLY put in the automatic opener. Now I won't have to get out of the car in the rain and snow to open the door. It took two tries to get the thing working as we found out (after everything was put together) that the circuit board on the first motor was shot. Back to the store it went and thankfully they gave us a partial return so we didn't have to unbolt everything that was attached to our garage already. The second machine worked fine and its definitely nice to not have to lift the door anymore.
We did find out, unfortunately, that the deer have finally decided that our neighborhood is safe again. Our neighborhood used to be just woods and when the construction started, the deer took off. However, Tuesday night I had MANY roses on my rose bushes, but Wednesday morning about half of them were gone. Deer LOVE to eat roses. Thankfully my mother-in-law used to have a huge deer problem in their last house and after many years of trying different things, she found an easy mix that you can spray around your property and it keeps the deer away. Since we started spraying, we haven't lost any more roses. Here's the recipe:
1/2 cup milk (preferrably spoiled)
1 large egg
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon lemon scented dish soap
1 gallon of water
You simply mix everything together (get the cheapest milk, eggs, oil, soap and sprayer you can find) in the sprayer and start spraying around your property. We essentially drew a line around our entire yard with the mix and used the remaining amount to really douse the wood chips beneath the roses and around other plants we didn't want eaten. When you spray, its best to spray on things that are going to stick around for a while (bushes instead of grass, wood chips instead of the actual plants). You do have to re-spray after it rains and if it doesn't rain, about once a week.
Anyway, the quilting has been progressing, somewhat slowly, but at least its still moving forward. I'm still somewhat annoyed at my triangles within a square, but its just because the cutting is taking a really long time to make sure I get everything "just right". I still end up having to fudge the end blocks a little bit, but its pretty close. Maybe by the time I get the 48th block made I may have it right. ;-)
As far as my other projects, I haven't made much progress on the needlepoint as all I have been doing is quilting. I think I'm going to have to devote at least a few hours a week to doing needlepoint so that keeps going forward, too.
Oooh - I also got turned onto some quilting books this weekend. My sister-in-law lent me the first five books in a series by Jennifer Chiaverini. The books are all based around a group of women who quilt. They actually pretty good and if anyone is interested, you can find information about them here: http://elmcreek.net/index.php/main/books/. The first book is The Quilter's Apprentice and its really a good story. I definitely recommend them.
Time to get back to work now that lunchtime is done.
Happy Quilting! Sarah
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