It's A Top! Harvest Baskets

Harvest Baskets

It's a top! 

64 x 84

In 2023 someone gave me the fruit and veg triangles.  I decided to put the fruit and veg into Baskets aka Cake Stand blocks.  I decided to use brown woven looking fabrics for the bakets and cream for the backgrounds.  I wish I had used something a little darker than that zig zag fabric. It doesn't show up very well when I look at that clothesline photo. But then I remember that this is a comfort quilt and no one is going to be hanging it up to look at it overall. 

I used the warm colored fruits and veg and still have some green and a few purple triangles to deal with but not sure how yet. 

I used basket looking browns for the side setting triangles. 

"Baskets" has been the theme in my sewing room this month to move UFOs forward. Even though I have spent most of my time in the garden this month I'm pleased with the progress I have made with "Baskets".  This is my third top of baskets assembled this month plus I have made 32 four inch Cake Stand Baskets for my collection plus I have used some Baskets as the center of a medallion quilt and added a few borders but need a couple more. 

And sew on...

Finished Or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts

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REMEMBER, TREASURE, GROW, READ (my words of the year)

Remember.    A lot of my husband's family were in town this week for my grandniece's wedding. We also had a sort of mini family reunion that included four generations. Every year family members camp at the county park down the road in cabins and campers. We reminisced about past reunions when our grandkid's generation were in diapers and find it difficult to believe our grandkids are now getting married and having kids. There's always lots of food, fun and games. We used to have an RV and go over and camp and take the kids and then in later years the grandkids. A few years ago we sold our camper because John is unable to drive. I'm glad the park is just a few miles away so we could go visit with everyone for a few hours each day.  Everyone was glad to see John in better health. Last time they saw him he was underweight, very weak, using a walker to get around and his speech was difficult to understand.   A few weeks ago the pulmonologist saw something "suspicious" on an X-ray. He prescribed an antibiotic and steroid and then ordered a CT scan for two weeks after that. Hopefully that spot has cleared up. We are waiting for results. John is always at risk for aspiration pneumonia.

Treasure. Donna sent me a box of fabric and scraps. It's all sorted and ready to use.

Grow.  Roses and peonies are going to be in bloom soon in the cottage garden. I've been spraying with Bobbex to hopefully keep deer away. One of these days I need to get out to take pics of some things in bloom.  I've been eating lots of salads of spinach, lettuce, mustard greens, green onions and radishes from the veg garden. I'm tired of eating asparagus and have given lots of it away. I have rhubarb to harvest and I think I will give most of that away too. I usually make a dessert or two each year and freeze a little but since John can't eat (he gets his nutrition via G-tube) I don't want to make a whole dessert just for me.   Soon I hope to have snap peas and potatoes and the strawberries, blackberries and raspberries are in bloom so I may be harvesting those things soon. 

I like butterhead lettuces the best! 

Little and Big Baskets

4 inch  (finished) Little Baskets (aka Cake Stand blocks). 

The theme this month in my sewing room to move UFOs forward has been "Baskets". 

I now have 61 blocks toward my goal of 110 Little Baskets. These will alternate with 4.5 squares in a quilt. 

In 2023 someone gave me a bunch of fruit and veg triangles - 10 inch squares cut on the diagonal. I decided to make the warm colored ones into 15 inch Cake Stand blocks. In 2023 I made 6 blocks. My goal is 18 blocks. So maybe in the next few days I'll complete my goal. Maybe...

And now I have 9 blocks toward my goal of 18 blocks. My cup is half full! 

And sew on...

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

***

I have been spending most of the month in my gardens but I have recently finished a couple of books- Faulty Bloodline and Sin City Treachery. They are books 2 and 3 in the AJ Docker Series by Gary Gerlacher. The thrillers are described as M*A*S*H* meets detective Harry Bosch. 

 

Brown Stuff: Baskets

"Brown Stuff"

is the theme in my sewing space this month.

In April I told you about some fruit and veg HST parts that were given to me.

This month I'm putting more of those fruit and veggies into brown baskets. I have a lot of brown scrap chunks (less than a Fat Quarter [FQ] and greater than a six inch square) that I decided could be used to make baskets. 

Actually I'm putting the fruits and veggies into 15 inch (finished) Cake Stand blocks. 

I have a few fruit and veg fabrics I think I will add to the mix so I can get those used up.

And at first I thought quilt but now I think these will make a nice tablecloth.

In the real world I don't use baskets to harvest my fruits and veggies.  I used recycled plastic containers. 

My asparagus patch has been put to rest for the year but I'm still harvesting some rhubarb and still need to make some strawberry-rhubarb jam and maybe another quick bread or muffins to eat for breakfast with my yogurt. 

Despite the hot and dry conditions I have been harvesting salad crops almost every day -- mustard greens, spinach, lettuce, green onions, radishes. 

The strawberries are smaller than usual this year but at least I was able to harvest some (and get a lot of exercise picking them). Early on some critters were eating them but they were nice enough to save some for me. 

I picked some Snow Peas. They are good raw or in stir fry or lightly steamed. I have found the variety Green Beauty to be the best Snow Pea so far.   I also have Sugar Snap peas (Sugar Daddy) but they aren't ready to harvest yet.   I was lucky this year. A lot of years the deer or rabbits eat the pea sprouts, the plants get stressed and then don't produce much. The critters left the plants alone this year. 

Garlic scapes.

I have a lot of rocambole garlic planted here there and everywhere in the flower and veggie gardens because it is supposed to repel deer and rabbits. The garlic basically grows wild now because if it is not harvested and left alone it produces bulbils at the top that fall over and plant themselves or they can be harvested and planted where you want them to grow or used as garlic. The first year after planting a bulbil produces a "round" garlic below ground. It can be harvested and used or left in the ground to produce garlic with cloves.   Garlic can also be used to make a lot of sprays to repel bugs and other critters.   And garlic has a lot of health benefits. I love it!

Back to the garlic scapes.  Those are the tops of the garlic before the bulbils form on top. We harvested those yesterday and sauteed them with a few other veggies to use on top of our homemade pizza last night.  

 

Fruit Basket Upset

15 inch Cake Stand Blocks

or what I'm calling Fruit and Veg Baskets

Someone recently gave me a lot of large fruit and veg triangles and I immediately thought of making them into baskets so actually tried my thought out before I lost that thought. Yes, that will work. I'll make all the baskets brown and the backgrounds cream. I even have a few fruit and veg fabrics I can add to the mix.  And since I already planned for June's theme in my sewing space to be "Brown Stuff", well, I'll move these basket blocks into my June plans because I have a lot of brown scraps I think I may be able to use for those baskets. 

AND

I'll probably use mostly the red, orange and yellows in this bigger quilt and maybe make more colorful baskets on a more colorful background and only use fruits and make a smaller child sized version called "Fruit Basket Upset" because that old childhood game immediately came to mind after I made the baskets. 

And sew on...