In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree

It was such a nice evening yesterday. We spent it with Erik, Mae, Matthew, Valerie, and some of Erik and Mae's closest friends in their lovely backyard. They bought their place a couple of years ago, and they've worked hard to make it a very inviting home. I loved the little seating area they set up for themselves under an old established apple tree.

From a distance, I could see the little OSU birdhouse we picked up in Rockaway last month. (That pup belongs to one of Erik's friends.)

No Ducks allowed...that's a reference to the Oregon State Beavers' nemesis, the University of Oregon Ducks, in case you didn't know.

And that tree is loaded with apples. I offered to take some off their hands. These look like applesauce to me.

They've worked hard putting in raised beds for their vegetables.

And they have quite a crop of tomatoes coming on. This is the Indigo Rose variety.

As you might guess, I took pictures of every blooming thing.

This is a very unusual oak-leaf hydrangea.

You might recall that Mae and I trekked to the farmer's market last month to pick up plants as a birthday gift to her. She was looking for shade lovers to decorate that same seating area under the apple tree. It's going to be very nice when things grow up a little bit.

This is a pink lemonade blueberry. Fun, huh?

And it was my first chance to meet my grandkittens face to paw. This is Cricket. Doesn't she look thrilled to see me?

The orange one is Clementine. They were so stinking cute.

Clementine was a little more camera shy.

How many men does it take to barbecue some shish-kebobs?

These were mighty tasty. We had chicken, beef, and lamb, and then there were lots of vegetables as well.

Mae whomped up this gorgeous plum upside-down cake from plums off their tree.

That wasn't the only thing I did yesterday, however. I had the whole day to sew, and that's what I did. First, I committed the latest free motion quilting lesson on ruler work to my sampler.

For the ruler work, I needed a perfect 6 x 6-inch square, and I realized that the top row is off by half an inch. No problem, I just moved it off to the side there.

Then I got to work quilting the sand for Seating for Two. I didn't expect to finish it in one day, but there you go.

Hard to see the stitching from the back, but I'm showing it anyway.

All that's left now is to stitch the blue areas at the top and bottom, and then the borders. I got started on the blue above yesterday, but I wasn't happy with what I'd done, and so I'm taking it out. Fortunately, I didn't get very far before making that decision.

This morning I finished stitching the latest hooping of the Gingerbread Square block.

It's pretty darned close to being finished now.

I can't quite fit the last of it into my hoop, but pretty close.

I'll be setting it aside for a day or two while I work on the next block for the Bee-utiful Quilt-A-Long. I'll say more about that in my next post. For now, I have to type fast because I'm having breakfast with Erik, who is on vacation this week.

Oh yes, but I need to choose a winner for my 6th Blogiversary Giveaway. Thanks to all of you who left such lovely congratulatory comments. It was so nice hearing from you. Mr. Random Number Generator has spoken, and the winner is:

#9--Quilting Tangent!

Congratulations, Quilting Tangent! I've written you an email, so check your inbox.