The Event ~ Strawberry Season

Strawberry season is usually meaningless to me because I have never been able to raise a good strawberry patch.  I hear stories of  Grandma Katherine Stricker's overproductive patch in a gravel hill.  I currently can share in the joy of Janel's small strawberry patch bearing a productive harvest.  Usually this time of the year I can only buy those not-quite-ripe-white-on-the-inside strawberries offered in the store.

However, recently on the evening of July 3rd we joined cousins Connie and Rich for a July 4th bbq at their farm in Hemingford.  It's always fun to go there in the summertime and view her beautiful yard, flowers and garden because she is such a green thumb talented garden tender.  Connie has a productive large strawberry bed and she let Annie and I pick strawberries while waiting for the food to be ready.

 

Annie and I each picked a bucket full of fresh strawberries.  On the morning of July 4th, we spent time in the kitchen together making strawberry jam and sauce.  We also added jalepeno peppers to the jam, which everyone seems to like. 

Then we picked an armful of rhubarb and made rhubarb punch and rhubarb sauce.  In addition to the jars of jelly Annie and Cash were able to take back to Denver with them, Annie also took a bunch of rhubarb home with her to make some crunch and pie desserts for Cash.  It was a fun, eventful bonding time for Annie and I in the kitchen. 

To follow that, this past Saturday I returned to Hemingford to go to the country quilt shop and Connie invited me to pick the last of her strawberries.  So I brought another bucket home and made seven more pints of strawberry jam.  M-m-m-m, so good!  Connie says she has like 15 gallons of strawberries in her freezer waiting to be made into jam this winter! 

We had waffles with fresh strawberry sauce and real whipped cream for supper Saturday nite.  This was a real treat for us.  Thank you Connie, for sharing your strawberries!

The Event ~ It's a Mystery, I'm Clueless

For most of the years that I have been actively quilting, I always seem to start a new project in the spring and summer.  Haven't quite figured that out because winter is suppose to be the time to work on projects like that.  Maybe it's because I'm not fond of outdoor yard and garden work, and my quilt projects pacify me in place of active outdoor gardening.  While most people are beautifying their yards with flower beds, I shudder at the thought of trying to make my yard beautiful with flowers.  It's a lost cause for me for the most part.  I struggle with yard work.  It puts me in tears every spring!  I have appreciated so much anything Cash has done in my yard through the years.  He enjoys it.  I don't. 

Anyway, that has nothing to do with the mystery alluded to in the title above.  But has everything to do with quilting in the middle of summer.

As I am finishing up Cash and Annie's quilt ~ which is turning out remarkedly beautiful for a scrappy patchwork, I'm also embarking on yet another quilting project.  I usually don't finish one and start another so close together.  But the quilt shop was hosting a summer mystery quilt project.  I've never participated in a mystery quilt project before, but decided I would do this one.

Instructions were to buy certain yardages of fabric:  a medium print focus fabric with lots of color; and a light, medium, and dark complementing fabric.  Instruction clues are given once a week for six weeks.  The last set of instructions being options of how to set the pieces together for the finished product.    I have no idea what the pattern is, how it will look.  It will be pieced together mysteriously as we are given clues (instructions) a little at a time.

So I've purchased the fabric, and cut it according to the first clue.   It sits here now, as I wait for the next clue. It's a mystery to me, and right now I am clueless.  I am pleased with my fabric choices.  Just hope I am pleased with the finished project!  Stay tuned.

I am not a die hard quilter, but it is something I enjoy.  To my own amazement I have actually made well over 30 quilts throughout the years.   Many of these quilts are pictured in an entry dated May 24, 2010.  Each of my kids each have at least two or three, including their own baby quilts, and each of my grandkids have at least one, and a few have received two.   It's an eventful hobby.