Three Quilts Basted

This has not been a productive summer quilt wise.  I have had too many other things going on.  I had previously held two "basting parties", although it's not really a party if you are there by yourself!  I basted several quilts each time and have them all quilted.  I started that process again.  One basting party was in this post.

For my design wall my One Block Wonder is still there.  Check it out here.

I am trying to get back in the quilting mode, but of course school started and I had to go back to work last week!  Hence, the basting so I don't have to think when I get home from work and there will be a project ready.  I need to do more, but I need to get the bottom one quilted first as it is part of a quilt along.

These are the three quilts I have basted so far.  Two of them are OLD, OLD UFO's!

My younger daughter came to visit for the weekend and brought her 21 month old twins Finn and Remy.  Her husband stayed home to do some house painting.  Much easier to do without toddlers underfoot!  The kids were not totally impressed with the farm equipment.  They each got a truck ride to the field and saw the combines in action.  We have home storage and the truck was dumping food barley in the bin.  It is used to make items like Fiber One granola bars.

I did post a quilt a day on Instagram for August, so if you are not a follower follow me there @julie.huffman .  A very original handle!

Linking up with Design Wall Monday.

City Sampler blocks

I am still working on the tree skirt and decided to not show progress right now. I am not happy with it at this stage and I know it will come together, but I need to keep it to myself awhile longer!  Since I am doing it in sections, it's hard to visualize it altogether. I need to have it to my cousin to be shipped to DC by October 1st.  

In the meantime I took a bunch of wheat from our field and met her for lunch Friday (she lives 3 1/2 hours away and we picked a town in between). She thought she was getting wheat elsewhere and I happened to post a picture on Facebook of one of our combines in the wheat field and she contacted me right away.  She is making ornaments out of it along with the thousands she has in progress with her committee of all kinds of state symbols.  She brought some for my students to assemble as well.  This is the project she is working on.

Here is the pic I posted.  The next day I was actually driving this combine!  We have been farming for 30 years and I have never had to drive before.  Both of our hired hands wanted the day off.  I wasn't about to drive the semis!

The tree skirt is extremely time consuming, but I have managed to keep up on the Modern City Sampler on Instagram, 100 blocks in 100 days. Here are the first 20 blocks.  Totally not my usual colors!

Today I made relish out of my garden cucumbers, zucchini and peppers.  I usually have onions but had to buy those this year.  This relish will last a couple years!  I also made zucchini bread.  I have some food allergies, so this is the recipe I used. It is really good and I forgot to take a picture!  I am severely allergic to dairy and eggs.

The first week of school was interesting, and I was exhausted!  Hopefully we will get into a routine soon.

Following a theme of color

I did some yardwork today in the beautiful weather we had and my husband and son were out in the fields working. Farming season has begun! I also did some machine quilting, but I'm not ready to show that yet.

Apparently in the mid 90's I was following color theme. I showed one of my favorite quilts yesterday and here are two more in those colors. This kaleidoscope was also based on a quilt I saw in Quilter's Newsletter. I just made mine a lot smaller! I don't recall if I paper pieced it or sewing all those odd angles. I know I had a ruler so who knows! It's hand quilted and made in 1993.
This was a free pattern by Marti Michell before she started all her templates. It came with a magazine renewal or a calendar. I changed the pattern since I didn't like a couple of the designs in the original. It is hand appliqued and hand quilted in a cross hatch pattern and made in 1995. A photo of this quilt appeared in a magazine special called Applique Quilts in 2003 with the pattern designer credited correctly. There was a little write up about me and another of my quilts as well. That will be shown at a later date.

Farming

I just thought this was a cool perspective picture. I saw it flashing across as one of the hundreds of pics my son has as a screen saver on the other computer and said I needed a copy. He is 17 and takes pictures galore. We seem to own three of this type of tractor, that would have been even a cooler picture! The Great Plains drill is in front, don't ask me what the implement is hooked up to the second tractor is though. I can never keep all those straight.

However farmer boy sure knows his stuff. When he was 7 or 8 I had to drive grain truck for several days due to my FIL's medical emergency. I had no clue what I was doing, so Brad would ride along to tell me what to do and when to shift into those lower and upper gears. After several days we had some company and he wanted to play with his cousins and asked if I could drive by myself! Of course this is also the kid who drove a pickup when he was two! DH put the pickup in gear in the field and Brad stood on the seat and steered while DH sprayed weeds from the back!