nature

Still hot.................. from Exuberant Color

It's been too hot for me to think about a new project so I'll just continue sewing these squares for Broken Dishes blocks.

With all that I sewed yesterday and Thursday, I have plenty to start sewing into blocks. I pressed all of them so I would be ready for assembly last night and today. I sewed 32 blocks last night and added them to the 39 already sewn. They are 6" blocks.

I watered the tomato plants and then went to the front garden and watered the bushes. This is the Zinfin Doll Hydrangea finally starting to ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 8 hours, 12 minutes ago. under kaffe fabric , nature , triangles

Teeny tiny.......................... from Exuberant Color

I pieced the squares into this little top a couple years ago. This heat saps my energy so all I was able to get done was layering and quilting this. I will finish the edge soon.

I had this piece laying with the top so I guess it was meant to be the back.

A couple days ago I took this photo of the Creeping Bellflowers. They are getting closer to the time to be pulled out. These are actually in the grass along the edge of the flower garden.

I watered my tomato plants and then tackled one area ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 2 days, 8 hours ago. under kaffe fabric , machine quilting , nature

Less humid, still hot.................. from Exuberant Color

The first shaggy red Coneflower is fully opened now. After losing the first one of these plants, I'm happy to say this one has survived 3 years.

I should have a bunch of blooms soon.

The yellow Coneflower is taking its time blooming. I think there will be several blooms at the same time on this one too.

The Blackberry Lily is blooming now. It is in a deep shady green area so the bright color is welcome.

The first flower is blooming on the Speedwell or Veronica plant. The front garden is so burnt from the hot sun ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 3 days, 3 hours ago. under nature

A day of playing with stash............ from Exuberant Color

I didn't do much yesterday, another day over 90 with high humidity. I picked the first tomato rather than leaving it to be completely red and to be squirrel bait. I had a golf ball to use for size comparison. Tomato plants like temperatures 72-80 the best and we have had high 80s and low 90s. The tomatoes haven't grown much but the number of days to ripeness was here.

There are a few sunflowers growing in the area of the bird feeders. This one is about 3 feet tall and has a bud. The squirrels sometimes climb ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 5 days, 8 hours ago. under nature

Finished a small one................ from Exuberant Color

I made the top for this quilt in February, using the 6" Bow Tie dies so the blocks are 3" finished. All of the fabrics in the blocks are Kaffe Fassett collective prints, a large variety in the larger piece and in the triangles. I think I would call this exuberant pastel because of the large scale prints which appear darker. It is 34.5" x 45".

The cute print on the back is flannel that I found on sale. The binding is a gray print I found in my stack of grays.

I used Hobbs 80/20 batting in ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 6 days, 8 hours ago. under baby quilts , flannel quilts , nature

Quilting a small one.................... from Exuberant Color

This baby quilt is only 36" x 45" so it didn't take long to ditch quilt it in both directions yesterday. There is a lot of variety in the Kaffe collective prints for this one, small scale and large scale, very light pastel, and bold pastels. There is a variety of greens and turquoises in the little triangle corners too. I'll trim it today and choose a binding.

The tall Ox-eye or False Sunflower is blooming in the back garden now. They are at least 4' tall. There are purple Coneflowers back in that area too that will ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 6 days, 23 hours ago. under machine quilting , nature

Nature walk....................... from Exuberant Color

I went outside around 4 yesterday to take a few pictures of my crispy plants. This Coral Bell was a pretty deep green and purple until 2 days ago. The plant will survive but it will be scarred for the rest of the summer.

The Hosta on the right is starting to show signs of crispy areas but the other one is still looking OK. They are in the east sun until around noon.

This Hosta is in the shade about an hour earlier than the other 2 and has a flower shoot already.

The porch pots are doing pretty ...

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

Quilting and nature..................... from Exuberant Color

I have continued quilting on this baby quilt and am almost finished. It is all ditch quilting and I just need to put a few more stitches in the background. I hope to get it trimmed today and choose a binding fabric.

I went out early yesterday morning and watered everything and cut some volunteer tree/bushes that have been bothering me.

These are the Creeping Bellflower spires. All of these are in the grass line along the edge of my back flowerbed. It will be a mass of purplish blue flowers for a couple weeks and then they will ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 1 week, 4 days ago. under machine quilting , nature

More nature......................... from Exuberant Color

I went out to see if anything needed watering and the cucumber plants have almost doubled in size since yesterday.

This is the tallest of the volunteer tomato plants. No blooms on this one yet.

The smaller of the 2 volunteer tomato plants has 2 blooms on it. Soon I should be able to tell if it is a Sungold plant.

I put the rest of the volunteers in small pots. There are 2 in one of the pots. I should have separated them.

I found one tomato started on one of the Rutgers plants. It is a little larger ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 1 week, 6 days ago. under nature

Crooked Cobblestone finished.............. from Exuberant Color

The binding was finished around 7 last night. I took many photos, and even though the sides and top are straight, they look curved or slanted in every photo. I finally had to give up and just select one to crop and post. I think this is #13 of the batik Crooked Cobblestone wall hangings. The blocks in this one were made in 2016 and this was the selection left after making #12. I finished designing and sewing the top in January 2024. I started quilting it in March this year but put it aside for awhile before finishing it ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 2 weeks ago. under cobblestone series , nature

No more markers...................... from Exuberant Color

Do you see any safety pins marking centers not quilted? No, I don't either. I finished all of the quilting yesterday. Now I need to trim it and hopefully the piece of fabric for the hanging sleeve is still where I think it is. Right now I'm thinking some shade of green might work for the binding. That would go well with the backing fabric too.

I found 2 more small Peony blooms while roaming through the backyard garden. I didn't remember that I had a white one over by the southwest corner.

I'm seeing buds ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 2 weeks, 5 days ago. under batik , cobblestone series , machine quilting , nature

Errand day.................... from Exuberant Color

Sorry, nothing to show for yesterday. I did grocery shopping and watered the volunteer tomato plant at my neighbor's house because she is out of town for a few days.

I had 2 sessions of quilting around the centers of the Crooked Cobblestone blocks, 23 for the day's total. 52 to go.

We had something between a mist and a drizzle yesterday. There was enough to wet the grass and the leaves on the plants but not enough to measure. We are in a moderate drought area and towns just 30 miles away have gotten rain when we ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 3 weeks ago. under nature

Odds & Ends from Becca's Crazy Projects

I haven't been sewing as much in the last week or two. I have done some art, like this collection of heart-shaped balloons.

I painted the background on this rock that I painted a heart on more than a year ago.

I took a walk by the pond and saw these turtles stacked up in the sunshine.

And I bought a box of So Fine thread from Superior threads to replace colors I had used up. What have you been up to?

added by Becca 3 weeks, 1 day ago. under 2025 , adventure , art , nature , paint , painted rocks , painting , superior threads , thread

A little progress................. from Exuberant Color

A friend came over yesterday and we planned a quilt that we have both made before, both of us have gifted the quilts, and we both want another that we can keep. We had Subway sandwiches for lunch and had a lot of fun.

I got 8 more centers quilted after I wrote yesterday's post and then got 10 more quilted last night.

I'm just adding 3 closeups of some blocks in the quilt because there isn't much else to show.

Now I have more than half of the centers quilted, 86 done, 76 to go.

I ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 3 weeks, 1 day ago. under batik , cobblestone series , machine quilting , nature

Quilting and digging in dirt................. from Exuberant Color

I was spending a lot of time looking for the centers of blocks that needed to be quilted around. I decided to mark all of the unquilted ones with a safety pin, all 94 of them. Then I counted how many I have quilted around and there were 68. I'm not even half done; I'm disappointed by that for sure. Those numbers were after I quilted around 8 centers last night.

When I dug up the largest of the volunteer tomato plants yesterday, I found out it was 4 plants growing very close together. I also dug up ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 3 weeks, 1 day ago. under cobblestone series , machine quilting , nature

A little quilting................... from Exuberant Color

I'm back to quilting my Crooked Cobblestone wall hanging. I'm ditch quilting around every center of every block. At the lower edge I'm ready to quilt 9 light color centers, quilting one and then dragging the thread over to the next, etc. Then I will trim all of the connecting threads when I'm done with that area. I'm using the backstitch feature on the machine and Invisifil thread so the tie off is almost invisible.

There are 3 tomatoes on this one plant and I got them all into one photo. The sun shining on ...

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

Oak Bay – Her View from Home from Kim Hanson Quilts

Good day everyone. I’ve had the good fortune to be published on the Her View from Home website again. It’s always thrilling to have your words published and gratitude fills my heart.

My story is about a visit we made to Oak Bay in Victoria, B.C. (If you’ve already read my story on Facebook, I apologize that you’re getting it again via my blog post.)

You can read my essay here.

I feel my time spent there was transformative, and I can’t wait to go back.

Take care. Thanks for reading.

Kim

added by kimhanson 3 weeks, 4 days ago. under b.c. , grief , my son , nature , oakbay , personal , photography , stories & essays , travel , vibrations , victoria , writing (Comments)

Empty design wall problem....................... from Exuberant Color

Yesterday morning I was looking for things to take to the thrift shop and that ended up being a dusting project. I have said before, I dust twice a year whether it needs it or not. Guess what, it needed it.

Then I headed to the studio and the bare design wall was getting to me. I had a pile of small Kaffe scraps that needed to go in the project box, and I found it to be overflowing. I took out all of the parts that were sewn and put them on the design wall, mostly for a little ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 3 weeks, 4 days ago. under kaffe fabric , nature

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

As I was gazing out at my back garden I noticed 2 Evening Primrose blooms. There will be lots more. Those pointy yellow things in the background are more buds. This is a self spreading plant and I find it popping up many places. It is also one of the favorite foods for Japanese Beetles but last year we didn't have many and the majority of the plants lasted all through the summer.

When I got out to the backyard I saw the first bloom on a Stella D'oro lily. They are in the flower bed under my ...

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

Binding choices..................... from Exuberant Color

The search was on for the green/coral mottled batik for the binding of this table runner. I found 1/4 yard of it.

I wasn't sure what I wanted for binding on this placemat. I took it over by the shelves of brights, stripes, and novelty prints and decided yellow was just right for it. The back of the placemat is orange with purple dots so this one will look good on that side too.

Since I'm keeping this one, I sewed the binding on all by machine. It ended up having double batting in it. The ...

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

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