Meet Kip

 

He's here. The birth was traumatic. But Dr says babe is good. Mom is in a lot of pain. I'll take the kids to meet him after Lexi gets home from school. 

New Baby

 The new baby will be here tomorrow. Unless they change their minds his name will be Kip Augustus. I'll start babysitting when he's 8 weeks old. So I've been getting ready for a new baby too. I had a couple burp rags but wanted more. I had some cloth diapers I had bought for a gift and never used, and turned them into more burp rags. I think they turned out pretty cute.

 

I picked up this gauze blanket at the thrift store. It has tiny little robins on it. Again, cute.

And I'm working on a quilt for him for my house. It'll be a simple quilt that I'll put minky on the back. That'll be so soft for snuggling a new baby.

Have a blessed day, Sue

Emerald City

   Emerald City is a quilt pattern designed by Bonnie Hunter. She is my favorite designer and I've made many of her design patterns. This is what it's supposed to look like.

  Here's where I am at.

  And this is after working on it some every day this month.  I have so many UFO's. I follow along with American Quilting Society UFO project. You make a list of your unfinished projects, then each month they choose a number and you work on that project. This month is Emerald City. I've been working on this for two, maybe three years. I thought I had it almost ready  to start sewing together, but I was mistaken. I had the green strip blocks done, and half the neutrals ( I thought I had them all done). Nope. I knew I needed more HST's. But I needed like 800 more, not just a few. Then onto cutting out hundreds of additional small pieces. The smallest is 1 1/2" . I am tired of looking at this project and plan to put it back in the box. I may finish it this year, then again, maybe I won't. I did order a fat back for it. I often piece the backing, but figured this one has enough small pieces that's it's going to be a heavier quilt. 

  Summer has left us. Literally. It was 86' on Wednesday, then got down in the 40's that night. Crazy Ohio weather. 

  New grandbaby will be here Thursday. They are naming him Kip, after my brother.    Kip Augustus. Will he be another redhead like his brother?

My sunflowers

 This year I planted two varieties of sunflowers. The first one has bloomed, faded, and I chopped it down. Literally. I didn't know their stems would be so thick. I could not pull the roots out. The second ones are even prettier, with multi colored petals. But the best part is the gold finches. They love these sunflowers. I get to see them everyday as they come to peck at the seeds. Did you know they even hang upside down to reach the seeds. At first all I noticed was a bird singing that I didn't recognize. I've never had gold finches come so close to the house. It's fun to watch.

Pretty, right?

Oh My Goodness

 Oh my goodness. At the beginning of the year I had 16+ unfinished quilting projects. Way too many. I follow along on All People Quilt for their UFO list. Every month they list a number 1-12. It corresponds to my list of projects, and that's the one you are to work on for that month. So far I've completed 6 quilts, 3 just need binding, 1 is at the quilters now, and 1 I've decided I just don't like and will be donating to the guild. Of the six I finished, three were for donation, 2 for my grandson, Mac, and the other will probably go to my daughter-in-law. I forgot to take pictures of the donated quilts. Here's the two for Macster. A small throw size for my house, it's another Bonnie Hunter pattern called Wild Child. And a larger one for his bed at home. I had been working on a different quilt for him, but when he saw my Neighborhood Remix quilt, he said he wanted it instead. So what's a grandma to do but give it to him.

Wildchild made with scraps

Neighborhood made with Remix

This month is #8, Emerald City. It's a Bonnie Hunter quilt with like a gazillion pieces. I started this quilt last year, or maybe even the year before. I thought I had lots already done, I'd made the green string blocks, half the neutral string blocks ( I thought I had made all of them). I cut hundreds of pieces only to find out that I have way more cutting to do. 1008 HST's, plus  more than a thousand or two of other pieces to cut. As I said, oh my goodness. I don't know if I'll even get to the sewing part this month. I cut for a bit, then rest, bending over hurts if prolonged. Good thing I have other stuff to do. I could always do some housework, but it is so low on my priority list.

I love to be outside. This year I enlarged my flower garden out front. I bought a few new plants, but mostly relocated some old ones. The soil must be fabulous because it grew and grew  and grew. Even the Cosmos were taller than me, then during a rain storm they fell over. I went to remove them and had to just chop them down, I couldn't even begin to get the roots out. it turned out so pretty. Except, there's lots of Black Eyed Susans, which I think of ad a back yard plant.

My vegetable garden is doing very well also. It was supposed to be a collaborative project with one of my neighbors. She bought some plants, helped me plant some of it. But then disappears except to harvest. I've done the upkeep, the weeding, the watering, etc. So as things have ripened I harvest and process, or give the produce away. She no longer comes down to harvest. My attitude is that if she was helping she'd know when stuff was ripe for the picking. Right?

I plan to enlarge my garden so I put down the blue tarps to kill the weeds and grass. Next I'll put down some cardboard, then build up my soil. I'm thinking blueberries. At the back of the garden I'm going to plant a couple fruit trees.