Great pictures tonight!
********
If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Saturday Night, 11-15-25
Country Threads Chicken Scratch
Farm life
Great pictures tonight!
********
If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.
I just love the plaid trees! Wonderful quilt idea. All the cats are precious too.
It’s turned cooler here. We had a wonderful fall day yesterday in low 70s. Today only around 50.
Cats and quilts; nothing better!
The pine tree quilt is mine. Glad you like it!
My quilt was made years ago, starting with about 10 blocks I won in a quilt guild block drawing. The guild had provided a pattern, the pastel background print and a brown piece for the trunk, and we were asked to use plaid for the tree. I wanted to make an interesting quilt, and not just set the blocks in a grid. I bought more background and trunk fabric, made a few more trees from my collection of thrifted shirts, and added the blue sky and the cabin made from shirts. The outer border was shirting fabric I inherited from my mother. It’s hand-quilted, so it doesn’t have the dense quilting of today’s quilts.
There is no pattern. I put the blocks up on my design wall and moved them around to get a good balance, designed a cabin, and then cut squares, rectangles and triangles of the backing and sky fabric to fill in the gaps. The arrangement is on a sort of grid: no strip is narrower than 1″ wide, and the background rectangles and triangles are also mostly the same size as used in the original block.
The border quilting is 5-needle pine sprigs. (If you look closely at the photo of the border corner, you’ll see a whisker from Rusty, my orange cat!)
I’m sending a hug to you, Fran, and wishing you continued peace. And thank you, Mary, for this lovely place you have created.
Great blog post today, Mary! The kitties are gorgeous, we’ve never seen Abyssinian cats – what long legs! Beautiful cats. The barn kitties are precious as well. Love the Christmas tree quilt – a great use of madras fabric and I love the fabric used for the trunks! Beautiful day here in New England. Sun is shining and it’s going to be warmer today. We closed up the camp in NH on Friday, it was freezing!!! Glad that chore is done. I’m going to look up kettle corn recipes! Jan in MA
Enjoyed the blog with coffee. A cup of coffee and then final prep for retreat tomorrow. The car is packed half full. No cutting out a new project for this retreat. No time and busy. Yesterday I helped my (ex) son-in-law clear out the remnants of what my daughter left. She not only had sewing stuff galore but 2 small sewing machines, a cricut, tools, and soap making supplies. I took most everything except the soap stuff. I was embarrassed but wanted to help him although my back was killing me. It will take days to go through the stuff and most will go to a guild and my quilty friends. It’s piled in my garage for now. There was even some things my mother had given her in the mess. SIL paid to ship 10 containers to FL for her just to get her out. She claimed she could not come to get the stuff! But it’s done! Over and done! Heartache but now peace.
Great pictures. Theresa, what a wonderful garden you are working on in BC. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine life in Canada. You must have milder weather near the coast.
I, too, love the trees in snow quilt!! So pretty.
And the cats! It’s fun to see the pictures!
Morty and Hank are a cute pair. She seems so happy and adjusted at your home.
We’re headed back to cooler temperatures.
Love the blog and all the chatter.
Hi Carolyn, yes we have mild weather here. You are right It is because we are so close to the coast. Our weather is very similar to Bellingham, WA. We can have snow, but mostly in the fall and early winter we have rain. We sometimes have snow for Christmas but for us it seems our snow comes in late January or February. We have had some years where we got snow in December and it lasted till March but that is very rare. The hardest part for us here is quite often we will have a lot of rain so the ground is soaking wet and the. We get freezing temperatures so we get ice and that kills some plants. Many years a winter goes by without any snow. Apparently where we are living now is in a little snowbelt. I’m town they won’t have snow and we will so it may be different for us this year. Our previous home was at sea level so when others up the hill had snow we didn’t. Our summers are tolerable, in the 80’s F, but we seem to be getting hotter over the past five – 10 years. We have perfect growing conditions for blueberries, raspberries and strawberries and many vegetables.
Teresa – it sounds like perfect climate! Makes North Iowa sound like a foreign country – extremes in every season! And right now we could use some rain to keep the vegetation healthy thru the winter. Pet those kitties for me!
Mary, I will pat those kitties and cuddle them for you too. We do have pretty good weather here I must admit. I sure wish I could send the rain your way, I’m truly sick of it. That is the only thing I don’t like, the fall and spring rains, they always say we are a rainforest here and it’s so green, I know it’s from the rain but sometimes it lasts for weeks and can be depressing. I guess it gives me time to sew instead of working outside. Lol. Gotta keep positive about these things, especially because we have no control over the weather. Have a great day/evening – depending on when you read this.
Sadly, I am very allergic to cats. Seeing those Abyssinian cats sent me down a rabbit hole—apparently some are hypoallergenic.
Roxanne – you should check that out! I follow Winston on FB – he’s an oriental shorthair – maybe another possibility?
I’m also allergic to cats, and I don’t believe there is a truly hypoallergenic breed. Even hairless cats have dander, and their saliva contains allergens. Many years ago, I tried desensitization shots (once a week … ick!), but they didn’t help at all. I’ve used an inhaler for years, since I’m also allergic to dogs, though not as much. I’m very much a cat lover, and that’s why I love that Mary shares so many pictures and stories of hers. Thanks, Mary! I love the madras trees quilt too. I’ll have to dig through my patterns for one I have of madras stars. I always intended to make it, and I’ve even got some plaids that would be perfect. Maybe now would be a good time to start.
Candy, those shots are the pits and have not helped my symptoms a bit (I tried 3 different times). A cat is probably not possible for me—oh, I do think they’re amazing.
Your kettle corn looks so good, it sure wouldn’t last long here. I love it! Thank heavens I can find some skinny pop kettle corn at the grocery so I don’t feel so guilty when I scarf it down in just a few sittings.
I love those brown kitties. I thought the first one was part Siamese because of the cross-eyed look. I have never seen that breed before and they are adorable.
I think God sent you Mortie, she is so much at home that she was meant to be yours. That’s just like Minnie, she might be little, but she has taken over this house. She even visits my husband which no other of our cats will do. He tells me all the running and jumping she does when I am out but he really loves her.
We had three beautiful, warm sunny days in a row and now it is cold and snow is predicted. The snow last week broke so many branches off our trees and brought close to all of the remaining leaves down. We recycle leaves by blowing them back into the woods, we are to old and would not be able to rake everything on our acreage.
Hoping everyone has a happy and healthy day. Blessings!
Linda – we have to tackle leaves today but we’re going to try something new. We’re going to blow them to the center of the yard, open the gate and Rick will moved them outside the fence with the tractor and loader. They can blow away out on the road and parking lot! Ha! I hope it works because we’re too old to rake leaves! You should look up Abyssinian cats. Also go to FB and look up 5crazycats and you’ll meet Winston – he’s an oriental shorthair and I just love him.
I’ve made so much kettle corn in the last 35 years that I’m not even tempted. One year we took a whole garbage can full to market and passed it out in individual shallow trays to our customers. We were very popular that year!
Those Abyssinian cats are absolutely beautiful. Love the long legs and cougar-like fur. Read they are an Egyptian breed. Now we all want one.
Love all the pictures of animals and quilts. The pine tree quilt is adorable. Thanks Rita for sending in pictures of your Spooky Sampler quilt. It’s supposed to be really windy here in Michigan and the temps have cooled down. We had some beautiful days recently.
Hi Mary, l recognize the Tupperware container on your bench! Hank and morty seem to be friends,shs has settled in so well. Will send photos tomorrow of a couple of charity quilts l have made,love the Madras trees,nice to see someone else quilts vines in the border even though they may not be seen. Take care everyone, best wishes from Sandy
Sandy – that Tupperware must be almost 50 years old!
I agree, JudyE, thank you for this blog Mary. I look forward to reading it every day. Great quilts today too.
An update from my mother in law – Gerry. She is still getting cards for her 90th birthday. A big Thank you to everyone that sent a card. We visited her today and she said “I love looking at the return address, and I think to myself, I don’t know anyone who lives there” and then she said “that’s right I’m getting cards because of Mary’s blog.” Today she asked me to look at your blog so she could understand what a blog was. I found the post about her birthday and showed her pictures and then read through a few more. She really liked me sharing your blog.
The first two pictures are mine – the first is the progress of what will be my veggie garden. We’ve planted 2 apple trees (one has 4 apple types grafted onto the trunk) and we planted 1 plum tree that also has 4 different plums grafted onto it. I built and have the 3 metal raised garden beds ready for soil in the spring and am now weeding the wild flowers out of the four garden beds that will be veggie gardens as well. We also have bought 16 blueberry plants that need planting. Blueberries grow very well here. We usually freeze 40lbs a year to use in the winter. I’m hoping we can just pick and freeze our own in a few years.
The second picture is of two of our four barn cats. Arty (the black and white male is a sweetie) and Patsy the female is already hunting bugs. They are both really friendly cats. We just got two more kittens, Janet and Cam.
We are exhausted with all the work we are doing but we absolutely love the move we made.
Thanks again Mary and have a wonderful day everyone.
Teresa – I envy you your mild weather – still gardening this time of year! Love your new kitties!!
I love the Madras Christmas quilt too. What a great use for Madras!
Love,Love the madras Christmas tree quilts.
Where can I get the pattern anyone know?
How do you make your kettle corn and keep it from getting stale?
Mary, thank for all your effort in providing us this wonderful blog each day. You certainly have a gift of making quilts, taking photographs and love for animals!
Judy e – I have a large commercial popper and when it cools I package it in different sizes of zip lock bags – maybe it just doesn’t last that long around here but I make gallons at a time! I give most of it away