Where does the time go?

This is a bean picker, doing what it does. Seems like it took forever for things to mature this year, so much irrigating, but now, they are disappearing and there is nothing that makes me happier than the harvest. This hasn't been a great year, just too dry, but as farmers there are no choices, you plant your crop and hope for the best. All I can say is everyone needs to eat their veggies.

So you must know by now that I am constantly obsessing about skies and weather. This is what farmers do. Well here are a couple of beautiful skies (my opinion) from a week ago when the weather was cool and gray. I wouldn't want to live where the sky was a constant of anything, I like variety in my surroundings. Have even been seeing trees starting to turn. Wonder what is coming in the weather department for fall and winter?

Dan and I were sitting out on the deck the other night watching cars go by and stop to look at the field of carrot seed. You forget that it is unusual to see acres of carrots going to seed. It is drying nicely, and I will be sad when it is combined and gone. Not only are they pretty, they have a really wonderful fragrance, who knew? There are also lots of little baby calves bounding around in the pasture making for lots of entertainment.

Now, I am just about knee deep in the new paper piecing, and hope that by August 31st we will have all the details ironed out. In the meantime, I am piecing up a storm and hope to have lots of new ideas to inspire you as well. This has been such a busy summer and trying to get any quilting done has been a bit of a challenge. But that just makes me enjoy it all the more when I get the chance.

Took a short break last week and went to Olympia to spend the night with a friend. We went out to dinner, drank a little sangria, shopped a little and sewed a little, along with a lot of good conversation. Nothing like a getaway to refresh and recharge, even if it is a short one.

Time to get sewing... pictures coming soon.

Come Saturday Morning

So strange to be home on a Saturday. In fact I have the whole weekend off from the shop, oh separation anxiety! So nice to have cooler weather. The peas are all harvested, but there is hay to make if the weather allows. I drove up the road to take pictures of the pea combines a couple of nights ago, but I got distracted taking this picture of a rainbow in the irrigation. The beans are coming along, and supposedly will be gone next week as well. Interesting part of farming is that things are always in a hurry. Hurry to work the ground, hurry to plant, hurry to water, hurry to harvest, always something. Timing is so important in life.

Part of the fun of staying home is spending the day paper piecing and watching my cat "Fuzz" sleep. Now if you are not a cat person I don't expect you to understand, it's ok. But Fuzz is just purrfection on four legs. I have had him for almost two years, and he has a great purrsonality as well as being beautiful.

This is my "Five Years of Fig" honeycomb quilt. This includes all the Fig Tree fabrics for the last five years. When Lissa Alexander came from Moda headquarters last week I received a fat quarter bundle of Mill House, the next group to come from Fig Tree. So I am going to continue on my little "honey's" this afternoon. This isn't a great picture, but it is a great project. Precut goods of this group will be in the shop this week, they are so beautiful.

And finally, this to me is one of the sure signs of summer and harvest, golden grains ready to be combined. However this year, our cool weather arrived at the wrong time, but we take what we get and are happy. Farming is a big gamble every year. Some you win, some you don't, but the rewards are great. We also have lots of new baby calves romping around, and the apple trees are dropping apples for the momma cows, one appropriately called "apple eater" stands and moo's at us when she sees us outside.

Whew...

What a week this has been. Record heat, lots of farming, and so much wonderful fabric and so many things that I want to do. This is a picture of some of the fabulous thunderheads that we had this week. This picture was taken on Wednesday when the bank said 110 as I was leaving work. Too Darn Hot! But, on the farm side, there are peas being harvested, combining is happening, and hay is in the field, so there is progress. I love the time of the year when things start being harvested.

I am often reminded that there are "wants" and "needs" in life.

So right now I am trying to sort out the wants and needs to see if they can be blended together to accomplish both things at once. No, it isn't working this morning, I need to do laundry, but I want to sit on the deck and sew.

We had a really nice visit from Lissa Alexander from Moda this week. Lissa is full of energy and enthusiasm. We had lots of questions and she was very helpful. We look forward to starting our block of the month, Green Piece in September. It is a really beautiful quilt that has variation to make it your own. I am even planning on making my own.

OK, I give, time for laundry, then some stitching...