It's A Finish!

Happy Bugs

42.5 x 51

It's a finish!

It started with a baggie of some bright 5 inch squares butterflies, lady bugs, caterpillars that someone gave me last year. I added in a few squares of my own little creatures. 

It always seems like I have a lot of green bits and pieces so I used green 2.5 inch pieces for frames and made Happy Blocks in January of this year. 

I quilted it on my DSM with a dark green thread. I quilted along the green seams horizontally and vertically.  And now that I'm looking at the picture it looks like I missed doing a vertical line of quilting in the middle column. Oh, the stories a picture can tell!

Sometimes where there's a lot of insects there are a lot of frogs so frogs hopped on to the back. I had to add a little strip and just happened to have a little scrap wide enough that someone gave me with frogs on it.   The binding is a green checkered homespun. 

And sew on...

CELEBRATE! (my word of the year)

August 11 - I harvested a few apples from my apple tree. Seems kind of early for apples to be ripe but they are. It is an old apple tree that I haven't kept trimmed so I can't reach most of the apples. Well, I made a big batch of fried apples with lots of cinnamon/sugar.  Yumm. They are kind of like a cross between apple pie and chunky applesauce. Back in the day I used to have 4 apple trees. All but one has died off over the years. I used to make apple juice, dried apples, applesauce, apple butter and such when the kids were little. Seems like only yesterday....

  The weather was beautiful so I also was able to clear a big patch of wild raspberry brambles. 

August 12 - I hate to drive. Actually I don't really like to leave my house. Well, I had to drive an hour away to take hubby for an appt. at the University of Iowa hospital and clinics. I saw that rain was predicted for the day and was really dreading the drive. I was also a little anxious about finding the place and getting hubby from the parking ramp into the clinic for an 8 o'clock appt.   Well, I managed to get through the rain and fog and get hubby into the clinic on time. Whew! You know I still have dreams (nightmares really) of forgetting my high school and college schedules and missing classes! I have to say I'm a real worry wart. Wish I was just a wart. 

August 13 - Box of scraps arrived from Sue! Lucky me! I got out my little ruler and sorted all the strips by width size. What fun!  Also we are still having beautiful weather although we could use a bit of rain. I harvested onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and beans. This is the first year I have tried the heirloom bean called Dragon Tongue. Gosh they are delicious! I will have to try to remember to leave some beans on the plants for seeds for next year.   I also grew Red Swan beans; however, insects and deer devoured those before they even had time to blossom. I probably won't have any beans to freeze this year, darn it. 

August 14 - I had appt. with periodontist. At age 74 I still have all my own teeth that are in pretty good shape but I do have a bit of bone loss in the jaw they have been monitoring as well as a few deep pockets. Thankfully I have been able to maintain status quo for several years and still have not lost any teeth and none are loose. I have been taking calcium and vitamin D for a long time and I also had read a long time ago that Vitamin C is good for healthy teeth and bones so try to eat a lot of foods high in Vit C like tomatoes, strawberries and broccoli. And see a previous celebration where I mentioned I drink a glass of grapefruit juice almost every day. Maybe that helps...maybe it doesn't. Maybe I'm just lucky. Who knows?        I also found my grass clippers! Somewhere along the line they fell out of my garden stool.  They had been missing for a long time. 

****Edited later in the day...I am 72 years old...my hubby is 74. Gosh, what was I thinking??????