nature

Granddaughter's wedding day........... from Exuberant Color

All of the travelers made it here safely. I'll be busy all day today and might post later in the day tomorrow than usual. The humidity has finally dropped to a comfortable level after a sweltering week.

My plumber worked hard on my emergency yesterday and I have a drain that is working and a whole new huge PVC pipe in place of the black pipe from the 1950s.

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 1 day, 14 hours ago. under nature

The good and the bad.......... from Exuberant Color

Yesterday was a day of baking, hemming a lace and chiffon matron of honor dress, and getting together with my son's family. All was going well until I came home and started mixing another batch of goodies. The kitchen sink was totally stopped up, 8 p.m., no warning. I made a quick trip to get a drain clog removal liquid but so far it is still clogged......
family gets here from out of state for the wedding later today.

So on a brighter note, the photo above is the Sedum with a moth with wings closed and this ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 2 days, 14 hours ago. under nature

Charley Harper stars........... from Exuberant Color

I had a very busy day yesterday but I needed to sew something last night. Since the Charley Harper fabrics were already pressed I cut the squares and triangles and made 3 blocks. I have 13 blocks for this quilt now. They are 9" so I probably need either 48 or 63 blocks depending on how large of a throw quilt I want to make.

Here are some of the smaller prints in the other Charley Harper line that I mentioned yesterday. His designs are printed on Organic Cotton and were $16.50 a yard when I bought the first ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 3 days, 14 hours ago. under nature , solid color fabric

Next in line......... from Exuberant Color

Yesterday morning I helped a friend with several projects and then we went to lunch. I spent the afternoon deep cleaning my living room. The dining room will be today's project. Last night I chose 3 more fabrics to cut for my solids with prints series of quilts. This is the first line of Charley Harper fabrics. I have another line which is sea creatures and the prints are smaller so they will probably be the next group to cut.

This beautiful cluster of 6 tomatoes ripened on the vine without a squirrel having one bite. Amazing! I think ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 4 days, 14 hours ago. under nature , stash

Caterpillar parade.......... from Exuberant Color

Two friends I hadn't seen for quite awhile came by yesterday. He wanted a couple milkweed leaves and I mentioned that I hadn't seen any caterpillars for almost a week and I was about ready to pull out the milkweed. He came back in the house all excited and said I had 3 caterpillars on one plant. It is on the one I called Swamp Milkweed and he said it is also called Butterfly Weed.

While I was looking at those 3 he spied another one on a little milkweed plant right next to the sidewalk.

We kept ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 5 days, 14 hours ago. under nature , solid color fabric

Garden walk........... from Exuberant Color

I have 3 different colors of Rose of Sharon in my front round flower bed.

This one is more pink than the one above.

I was surprised to see a white one there since they are around the other side of the house. Something must carry their seeds around.

I have 2 different kinds of Sedum, lots of one and only one plant of this one. This one was in a back garden that was over crowded and it rarely had blooms back there.

This is the other variety which I keep splitting and putting different places. I still have ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 6 days, 14 hours ago. under nature

The County fair, post 3............ from Exuberant Color

There is always a wide selection of Christmas items entered in the fair.

The bottom row here is Christmas afghans and quilts. The second from the left is Sarah's and is a One Block Wonder laid out like a huge Christmas ornament. Maybe I can get a better photo to show you if she brings it to my house some day.

This is one more section of quilts with an interesting variety.

Today is the last day of our 5 day fair.

My row of zinnias is doing well. I'm so glad we didn't have many Japanese ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 1 week ago. under miscellaneous , nature

Which Came First? from From the Strawberry Patch...

Which came first-- the dog or the quilt? Well, definitely, the dog came first; last month he celebrated his fifteenth birthday, but, he assuredly inspired this quilt pattern, don't you think? There's been a LOT going on in the sewing space these days, so much so, in fact, that I am woefully behind in posting to this blog. Hannes hangs out with me here in the studio and yesterday, when I looked

added by Mrs. Goodneedle 1 week, 3 days ago. under directions , finishing projects , hannes , nature , recipe , table , wildlife

Which Came First? from From the Strawberry Patch...

Which came first-- the dog or the quilt? Well, definitely, the dog came first; last month he celebrated his fifteenth birthday, but, he assuredly inspired this quilt pattern, don't you think? There's been a LOT going on in the sewing space these days, so much so, in fact, that I am woefully behind in posting to this blog. Hannes hangs out with me here in the studio and yesterday, when I looked

added by Mrs. Goodneedle 1 week, 3 days ago. under directions , finishing projects , hannes , nature , recipe , table , wildlife

3 more star blocks......... from Exuberant Color

I think maybe I will make this whole quilt with novelty type prints combined with the solids. Lynn's inspiration quilt is 81" x 99" (99 blocks). I think I'll stop at a large throw or twin size depending on how many cute prints I find (and I have a lot of them). Click on photos to enlarge and see the novelty prints.

I have 8 blocks sewn with 34 more sets of solid color triangles already cut. This amount would make a quilt 54" x 63" which isn't large enough. I want it to be at least ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 1 week, 3 days ago. under nature , solid color fabric

Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge from Mama Spark's World

On Monday hubby and I decided to check out a New to us, wildlife refuge. It was fabulous. Part of the refuge borders on Lake Erie. We went for a 4 mile hike and saw so many cool things. Some I was able to get pictures of and some not so much, LOL. We saw a bald eagle but it didn't land where I could get a good picture of it. So that was kind of sad. I did get a photo of one

added by Mama Spark 1 week, 4 days ago. under magee marsh , nature , ottawa national wildlife refuge

Cool weather projects............ from Exuberant Color

I live in a one story ranch style house but I have a stairway to my attic. Yesterday morning while it was cool I was up there vacuuming up all of the grit from the roofing job. My house was built in 1953 and they used tongue and groove boards on the roof instead of plywood so there are cracks between them for the grit to sift through. Late in the afternoon I mowed the grass since it was still comfortable out.

Last night I cut 30 more fabrics for my colorwash360 kits. It is pretty obvious that I have ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 2 weeks, 3 days ago. under colorwash , nature

Really Mr Squirrel?.............. from Exuberant Color

I knew my granddaughter was stopping by to pick up some things yesterday morning so I opened the front door before she got here and this is what I saw. Mr. Squirrel brought his walnut all the way from the back of my lot to my front porch to chew off the outer coating ...... and of course walnut leaves a stain so I have some dirty looking steps now.

This is not an extra large Milkweed leaf, it is a teeny tiny Monarch caterpillar. I didn't see him later so I'm not sure if he is in a ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 2 weeks, 4 days ago. under nature

Binding time............ from Exuberant Color

I decided I needed a day of rest so I sewed the binding onto the x and + quilt and have started the slow hand stitching.

When I went out to get the newspapers early in the morning I saw the 2 Monarch caterpillars munching away on the remains of the milkweed plant nearest to the house. The bottom one is on the remaining center stem/vein of a leaf that is totally eaten.

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 2 weeks, 6 days ago. under binding , nature

Cutting kits............. from Exuberant Color

It's time to start cutting colorwash kits for my projected Sept.-Oct. online Colorwash 360 class. (Details coming soon) First I cut a piece off yardage 8 1/8" wide, then trim the fold line off.

That is then separated into single layers of each fabric, 6 fabrics deep.

Then with 3 passes through the die cutter one of those piles of 6 fabrics is cut into 24 kits. I will be spending at least 3 hours a day every day until the kits are all cut. I don't work 8 hour days anymore....

I put the end ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 3 weeks, 5 days ago. under colorwash , nature

Still quilting............. from Exuberant Color

I'm about 2/3 done with the quilting on the X and + quilt. I should finish in a couple days.

When I was filling the bird feeders I saw a stem half broken off of one of my Brown Eyed Susan plants so I broke it off the rest of the way and brought it in the house. I never think about picking a bouquet of these and there are certainly enough that I could and it wouldn't look like anything is missing on the plants.

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 3 weeks, 6 days ago. under machine quilting , nature

Fabric therapy................. from Exuberant Color

This is the season where Kaffe just recolored some of his older prints but Philip and Brandon came out with some new designs. The 2 black and white are Brandon's and the one on the right is called onion rings. These designs are huge!

Philip Jacobs Geodes and Brandon Mably onion rings.

These are Cactus Flower by Philip Jacobs and I think it is 2 new colors of an older print.

I got some small pieces of Kaffe's recoloring of Spot and paper fans.

And here is the second Zinnia to bloom.

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 4 weeks, 1 day ago. under nature , stash

Michigan - cool picture! from Abbi Mays

Image may contain: outdoor, water and nature

added by Linda Hazekamp 1 month ago. under nature

Basting done........... from Exuberant Color

I finished thread basting the African fabric quilt. Now I need to finish quilting the X and + quilt with my straight stitch machine so I can start quilting this one.

I pressed the last batch of scrappy batik Hunter star blocks and decided to see how they all look up on the design wall. This is a long term project started last year and in no hurry to finish this year. I'll keep cutting blocks as I have batiks out to cut for other projects.

I washed the black and white quilt that I used the Warm and Plush ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 1 month ago. under basting , black and white , hunter star , kaffe fabric , nature

Ditch quilting............. from Exuberant Color

I guess this presser foot would be called a straight stitch walking foot. The ones on my zig zag machines have the wide opening between the toes. I love this narrow one because it zeroes in on the seam a/k/a the ditch with nowhere else for your eye to be drawn to.

The foot control on this one is so good too, no jumpy fast speeds when you are starting up, very nice and even slow speed (without a speed control switch). I love the Las Vegas light strip that I added for extra good sight lines.

I ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 1 month ago. under machine quilting , nature , sewing machines

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