I Love Appliqué

Somewhere in the deep distant past I was advised that we can only love people, not ideas or things. Phooey on that, I love appliqué and Valentine conversation hearts and fresh mown grass. I'm at the farm this week, enjoying the sanctuary of my dock and pond (which I love) and doing the prep work (which I love) for the appliqué strips on the Boston Strippy quilt shown below, and listening to the seventh book of the Gunslinger/Dark Tower series (which I love...). In the book Roland refers to Stephen King as a Wordslinger. That makes me both a wordsmith and needleslinger, love the imagery.

I need to test drive the workability of quilt blocks that use wool as part of the appliqué. I ran across this charming quilt (pdf file, takes a minute to load) by Sheri Howard named Ruby Red Dots this morning. Way cute.

Our weekend sale went great, got to meet many of our new neighbors, had plenty of good laughs, made great money, got rid of a ton of stuff, including quilt books and wall quilts. Goodbye space takers, hello fresh new ideas.

Tuesday Thankies
A multitude of things to love
The smell of a good quilt store
The smell of a good book store

The Bee's Knees

They are here! Moving hives isn't something I'm in a hurry to do again any time soon, those boxes are heavy, and many many thousands of bees, buzzing in your ear, has a tendency to up the anxiety level.

These hives boxes are in bad shape, so once all the extras (58 by actual count) are cleaned and refurbished we'll be gently lifting out each frame of bee babies (10 per box) and place them gently in their new home. Bee suits optional...but recommended! Rob fixed up a beautiful protected space for them and I hope they will be happy here.

I was asked how much honey does a bee make in a day. Less than you would think. In it's approximately six week lifetime a honey bee produces less than a teaspoon. So if I got 4-1/2 gallons from these two hives last fall, you tell me how many working bees there are here. And you'll better understand why drones are kicked to the curb once the queen is fertlized.

On the quilting front I got a big stack of 3" yo-yo's finished last night while watching Apocalypse Redux. I wonder how many times since this movie came out I've paraphrased Duvall's classic "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning"? We were down to the Veteran's Administration a few weeks ago and they want Rob to come in for a physical, they are testing everyone from that war zone for Agent Orange. Loverly. Back to the quilt, I've had a brain bomb about the border. Details to follow~

On the bread front I monkeyed a lot with this recipe for Morning Glory Muffins from my King Arthur cookbook and they turned out simply divine. Fortunately I kept notes so I can do it again, but knowing me I'll probably mess with the recipe in a new way...

Sunday Thankies
A really funny potential gig
Gypsy culture
Great clients