Puffins and Penguins is a Finish

It seems like I've been away from blogging for a long time,  and I guess it has been.  Recovery from covid and Lyme disease took quite a bite out of my energy level, and that is still not where it was before they struck.  But I'm finally back to doing a bit of quilting and have finished another donation quilt destined for the annual camp benefit auction.  

"Puffins and Penguins" - the second edition of black and white triangles finished at 72x72 inches.  I'm thinking of billing it as an I-Spy Quilt for All Ages, there's a lot going on in many of the prints.  I do like working with the equilateral triangles, though when cutting directional fabrics every other cut results in an upside down pattern.  Not really a detriment though since if the quilt is flipped around on the bed, there's always a lot of prints that read right side up.  

I think I prefer seeing it with the black triangles pointing up, don't know why.  

There are a few older prints in  this, dating likely to the 1990s, though I think most are newer.  I think that little medical/stuffed animal print in the top row in the above photo might be the oldest one. You can probably spot it if you enlarge the photo.

I really lost interest in the hand quilting project started early this year.  It sits on the table next to the recliner untouched now for several months.  Not sure why because I really liked this little top.  Thinking maybe it's time to set it aside for a bit and pick up something else for evening hand quilting.  

Yesterday I dug out this small top I received last fall and found a backing fabric and got it pinned and put into the floor stand hoop.  Finally, I'm finding joy in hand quilting again!  Nothing fancy, just some curving lines to hold things together.   The beauty of this top is in the piecing and machine embroidered motifs. Working on it in the afternoon when the light is good. This will also go to the camp benefit auction this year.  At 35 inches square I should have it finished soon.  

This is the entire quilt top:

As I pinned this it felt like the quilting would be difficult as most of the fabrics are batiks and the backing fabric is slightly heavier than usual.  But thankfully the needle is going through surprisingly easily, one stitch at a time.  Really happy I chose to hand quilt this rather than attempt to figure out a good machine quilting design for it.

The garden is growing, especially the weeds of course.  Some critter came by and ate our first banana pepper plus most of the plant.  We have cucumbers almost ready for harvest, thankfully there are plenty of prickly leaves protecting them.  Tomatoes will likely begin ripening in August and hopefully we'll have jalapeno and banana peppers for the salsa we like to can.  Blueberries are ripening now, we'll freeze any that aren't eaten immediately.  Gibbs loves to wait while I pick them and chow down on the less than perfect ones.  He would probably eat them right off the bushes, except these are very old and large bushes now and the berries are all too high for him to reach (thankfully).

I'll leave you with the prettiest blooms we have right now.  A couple years ago Barbara from Cat Patches sent me a few seeds from her purple poppy plants.  Her plants did not survive for a second year, sadly, so I didn't expect much when I planted the seeds last spring.  We had a few rather scrawny plants that each had one blossom and that was it.  Well, those few blossoms cast their seeds all alongside our back porch and we ended up with these beauties this summer.  This is at the northeast corner of the house, getting only an hour or so of sun each day, with a lot of snow and ice all winter.  Unlike the red poppies, these apparently don't like full sun.  Who knew?!  

Full moon this week.  I love when the nights are clear and the moon shines in the bedroom windows. Somehow sleep comes easier under the light of the moon, and that's where I'm headed soon.

P.S. Blogger is suddenly not allowing me to reply to individual comments on the blog post page, so if I do not have an email address for you I may not be able to reply.  But, I appreciate your comments whether from old blogging friends or those of you who might be visiting for the first time.  Thank you!