The Four Generations Quilt is Done

 Hello, everyone.

For the last months, well, a lot of months actually, the Four Generations Quilt has been slowly approaching its completion.

Now it's done!

This is only a photo of part of the quilt, folded and lying on the quilt stand, as we don't have stray extra people to hold it up at its full size for the photo.

This quilt was begun in the late 1950's or early 1960's by DH's DGM. She was working with the usual type of cotton prints for the time period and she was making applique blocks. This is raw-edge applique with the black blanket stitches both serving to hold things together and to decorate the butterfly edges. She added embroidered antennae to each butterfly. The muslin squares, each of which holds four butterflies, are approximately 18 inches across.

DH's DGM passed away before she finished the squares. They laid, unnoticed, for many years in a box, until her daughter, my dear MIL, began going through the things and found them. She took up the project, using the fabrics and templates in the box until she ran out, and then obtaining more fabric pieces from me to complete the butterflies.

One day a box of butterfly squares arrived in the mail.

I added the sashing (black) and borders (blue fabrics) and some smaller butterflies around the edges to accent the big ones. Then I tried hand quilting the project. 

Unfortunately, life was much too busy for a hand quilting project of this size, and so the quilt languished, again, for years before it was taken up again.

The first hand-quilting stitches are still there, but I finished quilting it with my machine. (Most of the quilting was by machine.)

I added the initials of the other ladies who worked with me on it to the quilting in the borders. (My DD also did some stitching on the quilt.)

It is a privilege to have worked together with these ladies of the family on this project.

In a future post, I might put up a photo of the whole thing stretched out. After enough other folks are around to hold it up!

A pieced bowl filler

 Hello,  everyone. 

I am excited to make my first project from a book my DM gave me, about making pincushion from scrap fabric. 

This is the new bowl filler (I don't actually need a new pincushion but cute bowl fillers are always good) posing on a side table.

I added the little posy from my bead stash. 

There are at least a couple more to come in this mostly low-volume color assortment. There are just a lot of not-big-enough for regular pieced squares, not thin enough for the doggies' scrap bag, bits of whites and grays. With either red or green accent straps.

Beautiful sky view yesterday

 Hello, everyone. 

Continuing the learn-as-you-go work on the phone, I went outside before sunrise yesterday to try and see the astronomical conjunction that I had read and heard about.

It's supposed to be a lineup of four planets with the crescent moon nearby.

In my area, we're close enough to the sea that most early mornings are cloaked in clouds, which blow away after the sun comes up. I was therefore not optimistic about my chances to see anything at all.

Looking east about half an hour before sunrise, two planets were playing hide and seek, so to say, with the breaking clouds and the moon was bright enough to shine through. 

Beautiful! 

My rose is happy

Hello, everyone. 

I am learning the new phone. Today that means practicing cropping a photo.

These are some of the blossoms on my mini rose. This plant has been with me for almost three years now and it's doing well in a pot.

Thanks again to my excellent DGD and DGS for giving it to me.

Pastel de Langostino

 Yesterday, since we were only the two of us for dinner, I made the crayfish loaf that we had tried at Casa Rural El Embrujo while walking the San Salvador route last fall. The side dish on the left is corn salad. Yummy!

Posting with the new phone

 Hello, everyone. I am making my first post with the new phone. 

These are Red-winged Blackbirds,  the boys' flock, coming to our bird feeder.

When the whole bunch takes flight at once it's so beautiful it takes your breath away!

Flower season in South Texas

 Hello, everyone.

I don't have the canonical bluebonnet pictures to show, nor Indian paintbrush, but I do have a couple little things from around the place.

The Mystic Spires hybrid salvia is still going strong from last year, with lots of new growth around the base and beautiful flowers.

Dill: a little love-note to the pollinators, and to Swallowtail butterfly babies as well!

I have no idea what this little blue-leaved, white-flowered thing is. It sprouts with abandon in the vegetable garden. After a while it gets weedy looking and we pull it.

This one appears to be a primrose of some kind. It may be spontaneous. Or it may be a completely surprising survival from some wildflower seeds that were planted last spring...and then migrated from their spot? I don't know. Spontaneity seems more likely. There are a couple of these in the garden. They have the four petals of the Oenotheras but that's all I can actually say about them.

Yes, all the cracks you see in the ground are really there. It's a dry spring, and even with regular  watering the soil just wants to crack. 

This garden also has tomatoes, some of which have flowers already, and a couple of eggplants, and a Spanish pepper variety. Separately there is a large pot with three more of those Padron type peppers, which look really happy.