Betsy lives in Vermont, and we met years ago on the J&E Riggin windjammer, which sails out of Rockland, Maine. Betsy was volunteering to help cook for that trip.
I offered to let Betsy spend the nights she was off the boat at my house, which she did. She saw my quilting, and the rest is history now.
Betsy’s husband Bill gifted her with this quilt kit Christmas before last–and she has now finished it. Can I just say that there is no way I would attempt this challenging project!!! And, that I am so proud of her as she has now gifted so, so many beautiful quilts to family, friends, and babies.
Betsy is keeping this quilt though and is going to hang it in her house. She should, as it was a gift from her husband.
Betsy accompanied me in taking Tara’s Faughnan’s “block” online class this past winter. We had such fun making our blocks and sharing them with each other as the months went flying by. Indeed, there are only a few nights where one of us doesn’t send a picture to the other one late at night. Often, Betsy sews then, and I’m usually in front of the tv with a hand sewing project.
Betsy sent a pic of this quilt she just finished for a friend only the other night. This quilt looks easy, but it isn’t as there are block orientation issues. What followed when she sent this picture was a discussion of what binding to use. (Her longarm quilter does awesome work, doesn’t she?)
Tuesday night’s meeting of the Charleston Modern Quilt Guild was a lively, fun meeting. Among the many visual treats, Cathy Beemer showed us the quilt she had just picked up from her longarm person. Cathy is teaching us how to make these blocks at our monthly Sit and Sew meeting. I have 1/4th of one of these blocks made and need to slow down and make at least one other 1/4th. They are so fun to make and use up solid scraps. Cathy has taken many classes with Maria Shell, and this quilt shows that influence. After it is bound, this quilt is meant to be a gift for Cathy’s nephew, which is “Wow” What A Gift of Love and Care.
I went back to Hidden Pond Nursery also on Tuesday, to look for a plant for this vacant spot in the garden. I came home with this rose–a floribunda called “Popcorn”–and three perennial Lantana that are the same color. All these plants will spread out–but not get higher than 2 feet.
It took the Maddox and a shovel and lots of will power and energy to dig the hole for this rose as there was a large vein of black clay running right through where I wanted to put it.
Hidden Pond has BEAUTIFUL container pots these days. I came home with this one so I could repot these Kalanchoe plants (Calandiva is a hybrid) my sweet neighbor Teri gave me for my birthday. They have NOT stopped blooming since mid-March.
And, I had a visit with the three hens that were loose in the Hidden Pond gardens today. Like most hens, these were very social and started hanging out with me as I walked around–making me miss the days I had some chickens of my own in Maine. These gals were very vocal and encouraging about keeping on walking.
The honeysuckle is blooming in the woods now. On my Tuesday walk, I stopped to smell this honeysuckle plant. It was heavenly–and qualifies as savoring one of the quiet moments in one’s day.
This little wildflower is growing along the sides of the path here and there. I can’t figure out what its name is.
And the very fragrant Ligustrum shrubs are blooming now. Some like this plant’s strong smell; some don’t. I do.
Wednesday was a dreaded dental day–but all went well.
And today I spent the whole morning outside–planting “Popcorn” and the Lantana and repotting the Calandiva. I fertilized, trimmed, and watered the roses and the new plants. When I came in, I showered (boy did that shower feel good) and had my dinner on the porch with my book (Jan Karon’s second in the Mitford series, A Light in the Window). Neighbor Teri came over for a porch visit catch-up, which was nice.
We have three large ponds and 1 smaller one here in my neighborhood.
I think I told you about a neighbor seeing an otter in the big pond in the back of our neighborhood a few weeks ago. And I may have put a link to information about river otters in South Carolina, but I can’t remember if I did or if I just sent the link to my son after telling him about it, and I don’t see a post where I might have talked about otters in our area.
Well! This neighbor saw an otter again–this time in our front pond. And she got a great video before it “took off.”
The video is absolutely adorable when the playful otter comes toward my neighbor (who had two dogs with her) and comes out onto the bank–about halfway through the video, which is a little over 2 minutes. The beginning is where my neighbor is training the camera on the right side of the pond, and the otter comes, finally, from the left.
And here’s more info on river otters in South Carolina.
Lynette, a reader of my blog, suggested I might like Erica Bauermeister’s book The School of Essential Ingredients after reading my post about a movie about which I recently posted: The Taste of Things.
Boy was Lynette right on. I love this book. I am listening on Audible, but I found the sequel on my library app and have already downloaded it. I only have about an hour to go now, and I’m already planning to sit and finish sewing some binding while I listen to the last of this book.
The link below has a link the recipes taught in the book.
I’ve spent some time this week thinking about all the small moments where I’ve slowed down and appreciated something small–and realized that in that moment, there was joy and peace.
So, I’ll share a few of these moments of mine with you today.
Roses on the kitchen counter…alongside a “minion” piece made and gifted by a granddaughter. AND, now that I look, a glass all filled with filtered water and a straw.
The view from the porch that revels in the roses, the shells, the lush green grass. It’s hard to leave this view when it is time to leave it.
The sight of “Happy” on the floor as I make sure that I don’t have binding joins at the corners. BTW, I read recently on Bonnie Hunter’s blog that she DOES put on the binding of a quilt that she is hand quilting. So, that’s what I’m doing. Except for the border, I’m half done now. And the binding is all sewn down.
Noon dinner and supper all organized and each bowl including slices from a roasted lamb rack and freshly made low-country organic stone ground (rough version that takes a long while to cook) grits–alongside freshly roasted carrots and peppers and steamed fresh broccoli–with half a Honey Crisp apple for dessert.
Dinner on the porch, next to the beautiful flowers that my neighbor gifted me for my birthday–these flowers are new to me but are ones she knows from her life in California. The brown jug sat on my Georgia grandmother’s back porch and was locally made…so long ago. (I told you she loved brown.) There is joy too in the espresso freshly made.
Then there was the moment where the stove top had been scrubbed and scrubbed where I let the grits overflow AGAIN–making an awful mess. (You can’t turn your back on them for a moment until you get the heat right so they just simmer.)
And the moment when the dishes were all cleaned and the kitchen set to rights.
The sight of my current fiction book on the table as I walked past. I’m so enjoying it–the first of Jan Karon’s Mitford series.
Or my DIL Corinne coming over to help me plant the camellia she and Bryan and the girls gave me for my birthday–which also contained our fun visit to Hidden Pond nursery. I was so happy to see her as the chosen spot for that plant was SOLID clay all the way down. It took both of us using the Maddox and the shovel and water to dig a hole deep enough to line it with sand and compost. We sweated, we laughed, we got all dirty, we persevered.
And LOOK at the Asian jasmine this year. It’s off and running now every where I planted it.
The sight of how happy the six hollies are now–after a year of care and love. They are lush and green and all fluffy and are forming LOTS of new berries for the fall.
Or the time spent with new friends at a local Sit and Sew Saturday morning–where a very talented member of this modern group is teaching us a new skill.
You know…
I’m realizing that I could go on remembering these moments of peace and joy of these past few days. And I’m feeling so grateful.
And my hope this morning is that you, too, will slow down and think a bit about these moments in YOUR life.
My Georgia grandmother once told me that the Brown Thrasher was her favorite bird. We were sitting in the back yard, which was all covered in pine straw, and each of us occupied a chair in the permanent ring of chairs where family and visitors often sat–especially mid-morning when it was maybe time for a cold coca-cola drunk from the little bottles that held that liquid back in the day.
I think now that my grandmother’s favorite color was brown, and that her eyes were such a lovely dark brown. And, I think that the Brown Thrasher is a big brown bird with an amazing vocabulary of sounds.
I saw TWO of them today as I walked–widely separated by distance. Each flew into the underbrush as soon as I came near, which is how they are described in the first link below, which also has sounds.
My Georgia grandmother had several big camellia shrubs in her garden–one was a gorgeous red. Camellias bloom in the fall and over the winter here in South Carolina. I remember times when my Air Force dad needed to fly to keep his flight hours current, and he’d fly to Warner Robbins AF Base, which is near my mother’s Georgia home place. He’d come home with boxes into which my grandparents had placed local food treasures (like lovely smoked bacon) and, if blooming, an array of the red camellias would be nestled into the top of the box. When we were in Omaha, Nebraska, in the middle of winter, the sight of these beautiful flowers was a sight to behold.
I remember, too, once in Shreveport, Louisiana, at Barksdale AF Base, my mother putting one of these red camellias into her curly hair just before they left for a formal party.
The camellia Bryan and Corinne gifted me with is a fragrant camellia (kind of rare) that will get tall and wide and is called “High Fragrance.” She’s going to go to the shade side of the house that gets morning sun.
I planted Shi Shi at the front corner of the house, and it will fill this space over time. (I first moved the white azalea that was here to the other side of the house, where it joined the ones that were moved from the front bed.) Shi Shi is small now, but it will…grow. Here it will get morning sun and afternoon filtered sun and shade.
Here’s the Canna Lily–which is a really unusual color. Most Cannas are yellow or a bright orange or red. It, too, will fill this spot over time.
The blossoms are unusual–smaller and more tropical looking. I fell in love with it, and it jumped into my flower cart.
So, there you have the new plants.
And, I can’t leave without showing you, again, the roses, the roses, which are real show stoppers.
Bryan and Corinne gifted me with a camellia for my birthday this year, and yesterday Corinne and two granddaughters took me to buy it at a local nursery not far from me: Hidden Ponds Nursery in Awendaw.
We found a beautiful red camellia, and another one (pink) jumped into my cart, along with a pink canna lily.
There ARE hidden ponds on this property. And I so enjoyed seeing the koi begging for food.
There is also a large collection of other animals–a beautiful black duck roaming free, hens in a very cute coop, rabbits, goats, a BIG rooster in a separate pen, and…DONKEYS.
At the donkey pen, a very kind woman had come to visit with the two donkeys (a mother about 8 years old and her daughter)–which is something this very kind person said she does frequently–and she passed us carrots, apple slices, and peppermint treats made for horses–all of which the donkeys happily took from our hands.
This woman also had a beautiful dog–half Springer Spaniel and half poodle–who was enjoying chasing a ball people threw for him. But, sadly, I didn’t get a picture.
Anyway, in a few minutes I’m putting on old clothes and going out to plant the canna lily. Bryan will come sometime in coming days to help me with the camellias as they are large for me to plant.
Hmmm…
Maybe I will move an azalea that is not thriving to where the rest of those azaleas were moved–and I will put the pink camellia in that spot. It gets morning sun and afternoon shade. Perfect!
I mailed these 2 quilts mid-week. They will arrive today if all goes as promised.
“Sprinkles” is the perfect quilt for baby Jack.
Remember the cute backing? The gender of this baby was a closely held secret, but I thought while making it that “Sprinkles” would be great for a girl or a boy baby. It is all Cotton+Steel/Ruby Star Society fabrics–except for the sashing pieces. And it dates back to the ongoing project of 5 or so years that started when I cut up all this hoarded fabrics and started making quilts–which went out in droves to family members over the years. “Sprinkles” is the last one.
“16 Pinwheels” also went along for the ride as I thought the parents would like something sturdy to warm their laps when holding baby Jack. Or, just in general. They live in a cool climate with long winters.
These fabrics are from the 1920-1930 feed sack reproduction fabrics I had on hand for about 20 years and started using last winter. This quilt is the 3rd in this series. The 4th and last of the series is almost done and is on the design wall. I finished the last block yesterday and put leftover fabrics into the stash according to their colors.
Both of these scrappy quilts are meant to be used and loved and washed as they will provide lots and lots of quilty hugs for this family.
DIL Tami highly recommended the movie “The Taste of Things.”
I watched it that same night.
And, loved it.
It’s about cooking in France around the turn of the century, and it was so fun to watch two chefs, with beautiful ingredients and the help of one other person, produce the most gorgeous dishes. In what we could say was a primitive kitchen today.
The movie is beautifully filmed, and the love story so sweet.
Here’s a review by Roger Ebert. There were others praising the film as well, and you can google those if you like.
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