sewing and other stuff

I've got some random stuff to share with you, since I haven't been posting regularly it is a hodge podge.  I often do things, or take pictures, with the thought that I want to blog about it.  In fact, I kind of compose part of the words I want to write in my mind.  Then the moment passes, I get wrapped up in stuff, and it doesn't happen.  Today I'm clearing out some of the backlog!

Last summer I had a nice big outdoor planter dish full of thriving succulents.  By the time fall came, I brought them indoors and started a few smaller plants from the cuttings.  Part of the main plants still did well indoors, others not so much.  With the weaker light and short days of winter, they weren't real happy, but most survived.  In the picture below, that big healthy jade plant in the middle is from the last summer growth.  I uprooted all the rest and replaced them with all the little ones around the outside of the bowl.  As soon as we get more warm days, they will go outside again.  And I have more pots started with more cuttings.

When we cleaned out the garage, one of the more nostalgic finds was our original old tent, purchased in 1976, I think.  Still intact, and we even set it up in the yard to see what it looked like.  It brought back lots of nice memories.  Now it has gone to Goodwill and will hopefully bring more memories to someone else.

Yesterday was an exceedingly good weather day, plus Earth Day!  So I did a little digging and started getting rid of some of the old winter scum of dead leaves and even new weeds popping up.  I found a little bit of asparagus showing up!  Yum!

On the sewing side of my life, I am working on finishing up 2 things that will be offered as classes this summer.  One is called Mini Rings, and I don't have a picture here but if you look at the Bear Blog tomorrow you will see a bit of it.  And I'm nearly done with it, just finishing up the binding.  

The other is the big star quilt shown below.  I saw this on display last fall when I attended Quilt Market in Houston, and I was very impressed by the use of color and design.  It's called Star Storm and is by Victoria Findlay Wolfe.  The fabric is also her design, called Meadow Storm.  We have complete kits and the patterns for this at Bear Patch.  Now to get it quilted!

Since you had a bit of grandson overload on the last posting, I'll toss in some info about things that I made for little Leo's nursery!  I found some fabric that pulled together some of the colors that Brita wanted to use, and here's what I made:

A "boppy" pillow cover--it gets a lot of use with just about every feeding time!  With the first grandson, I bought the pillowform and it had directions on the wrapper to make the cover.

A little pillowcase (travel pillow size) that matches,
but for decorative purpose only at this stage of Leo's life. 

Matching crib sheets to spruce up his crib.
He's still sleeping in a little cradle in mom and dad's room,
 but will eventually move onto his own mattress.
Use this link to learn how to make them.

And his name banner, not finished in this picture but you get the idea.
You also get the idea of how many threads are stuck to my design wall!  

Last Sunday, Easter, Bob and I had the afternoon to ourselves and decided to visit someplace we had never been before but not far from home.  The Mississippi River is maybe 10-12 miles west of here, and there is a big dam and park that we have never visited.  It's called the Coon Rapids Dam Regional Park on our side (the east bank) of the river, and we walked across the dam to explore the trails on the west side, too.  The dam was much bigger than we expected, so I'm glad we went there.  We came upon an area that has had a lot of recent beaver activity, in this picture you can see all the trees that they have been gnawing on.  Lots of carefully made wood chips!  We saw lots of people walking, some folks fishing in the river, and some osprey watching us!