Longing for Autumn

Here in southeast Texas, our little acreage is just about burned up. We received 1.86 inches during July and only 1.15 so far in August. Compare that to last year at 8.12 in July in 2.11 in August! Temperatures have been hot, not record-breaking, but combined with no rain makes for miserable weather. Our garden is crispy. We do try to keep the zinnias and arbor plants watered for the butterflies and birds.

It has been too hot to sit outside and enjoy the canopy

and sitting area my husband set up. Hurry up autumn!

This has also been the August from hell for my health. Bronchitis and an upper respirator infection have knocked me out. It started with an occasional sore throat in early July and became a heavy cough by the end of the month. The coughing has been the worst! The sofa, heating pad, a box of Kleenex, Aleve, and Zicam have been my friends. The one thing that has NOT been affected is my appetite! In spite of food tasting different, I eat with gusto. Hopefully, I am finally on the mend.

Rosie helped me do a little crocheting.

The current status of my sewing room is "anticipation" (Katy is holding the cover down over my pressing mat). I have SO many UFOs I want to finish and new projects to start before Christmas, and August was a bust. I'm hoping today I can finish trimming the same pile of Quilty Stars HSTs I mentioned in my last post - hah. I am crossing my fingers my next post will show progress on something!

Recipes Organized!

White Chocolate Fruit Tarts from my For Goodness Sake Catering blog

Since I've had a summer cold for about 3 weeks, I haven't felt much like sewing or crocheting. My cough has been so bad that I pulled something in my side, so now it hurts to cough! I haven't been sick for years, so this has been rude shock to my system. The only activity in my sewing room has been to sit and organize the recipes from this blog and my two former blogs - For Goodness Sake (my catering blog) and The Katy Rose.

You may access my recipes by clicking on the tab right under my header (or clicking here). Once you land on the Recipes page, there are categories listed so you can "jump" to each category, or you may just scroll through at your leisure. I tried in vain to make a nice blog table with thumbnails of each recipe, but it was just too time consuming, and I was lazy!

Inside Out German Chocolate Cupcakes

Every time I look at photos from earlier blogs, especially those from 2008-2012, I have to laugh at my attempts to create "bokeh" (blurry backgrounds), which was the rage back then, along with backlight (see above photo where I tried to do both!) So be aware the photos aren't as straightforward as my simple iPhone photos are now.

This morning I felt like trimming some HSTs for the Quilty Stars quilt by Emily Dennis. I see others post on Instagram proclaiming how fast it goes, and I'm sorry folks, it takes me for-EVER to trim HSTs! I am opting for the twin sized quilt.

In other news: We have watched storms and showers go east and west of us for weeks, but yesterday the heavens opened right on top of us, and we received .66 inches of rain - hallelujah! It's too late for my poor garden, and the trees have dropped leaves from stress, but we are so grateful.

I hope you are having a great summer!

Farm Girl Friday SAL Week 5

I'm still a bit behind in my blocks, but as Lori Holt says, "You are the boss of your own quilt!" This is the Butter Churn block. This was my first time making "flying geese", and I was fascinated by the process. I measured wrong on two blocks and had to redo a step, but I finally got it right.

I decided to try my hand at the 6 inch size, because the 12 inch blocks are so very big. The photo above shows the difference in size. Unless I change my mind, the remainder of the blocks will be 6 inch - I really enjoyed making the smaller size!

Choosing fabrics for another simple block quilt using 5 inch squares occupied the better part of two days this week. I plan to give this one to the sweet wife of my nephew!

And on another note, according to the National Weather Service in Fort Worth, the state of Texas has received 35 trillion gallons of water during the past month - enough to cover the whole state up to nearly eight inches deep. (Gah!) Our rain gauge has captured 13.40 inches since the first of May. The photo above was taken the day we received almost 4 inches. The water never got close to our house, but we did get another 3 inches the next day. Many Texas towns, including Houston, have experienced catastrophic and historic flooding. I'm sure we will be wishing for rain in the middle of summer, but for now I think we've had enough!