A Life Altering 6 Weeks of Blog Land

It looks like its been about 6 weeks since I last blogged.  

What a six weeks it has been!  

We've officially been #saferathome now for 37 days.

What's been happening around here?  Well, we are certainly into a new kind of routine.  I'll give a brief rundown for friends and family who read this here blog.

All the kids are doing "School at Home".  (I consider this much different that Homeschooling)  As such I do a lot of facilitating for the younger three to help with watching pre-recorded lectures, zoom meetings and work alone papers and projects. 

The older two are also doing online schooling, but (fortunately) don't need much from me.  They already had school issued Chromebooks, so the transition hasn't been too terrible.  Awkward for classes like choir and basic electronics, but they are making it work.  

In general mornings are school work and afternoons are outside time/yard work/screen time, etc.  

 We have 10 acres, so there is Always work to do.  Especially spring clean up.

 We are on our fifth burn pile already, this year.  We've been doing a lot of brush clearing that hasn't been done in a while. 

Everyone loves "bombfire" days because its guaranteed s'mores.

 We did a beach trip one day, but it was cold and windy by the lake, and we couldn't play on the playground.  But it was nice to be out.

 Si celebrated his 10th birthday during week 1 of Stayathome.  He was sad that he couldn't share it with his classmates.  If you're wondering the cake is from "Legend of Zelda"

 The obligatory mask picture.  I made some and donated them. 

 Ballet classes are by Zoom now, as is class meetings, string lessons and even the youth group kids hangouts.  (Husband deals a lot with Zoom at work, so its almost a naughty word in the house)

 We made a big deal of April Fool's this year to change it up and have some fun.  Lots of googly eyes were applied to foods and other kitchen items.

 The boys were barricaded into their room overnight.

 I made an April Fool's Cake - recipe courtesy of Taste of Home The frosting is melted mozarella!

 Mr. Bean made a couple of appearances in the house.  I must say the toilet one was pretty funny.

 I got a new set of bees.  Decided to try three hives this year, with hubby's encouragement.  I actually have already lost one (long story), but have just ordered another package that will come in May.  Hubby has been super into it this year, even donning his own jacket and doing inspections with me.  I love it!

I've also been doing a lot of Etsy sales. ( Riley Acres if you're interested)   So much business that I needed a new batch of thread conditioners last week.  I've also been helping WD sell antique fishing gear.  

So that pretty much catches us all up.

And, oh yes.  I have been sewing.  Quite a bit actually.  But I don't think that's because I have "so much time on my hands".  Every time I see a suggestion of what to do with my "extra time" I don't know whether to laugh or cry!  I'll start sharing some of the sewing stuff next blog post. 

A Quick Panel Quilt Finish: The Bee-Attitudes

 I quilted up a panel that I bought last year.  Are you surprised?  It's bees!  And Bible Verses!  J Wecker Frisch generally likes to put in bits of Bible verses in her designs.  This one is pretty obvious, the Beatitudes. If you want the actual list check out Matthew 5:1-12

 My biggest problem with panels is that they are never really printed straight.  To trim and bind to the printing, the quilt itself is slightly wonky.

 This is a better shot of the backing colors.  The fabric is long ago Ruby fabric from Bonnie and Camille.

 A couple close up shots of the panel.

I just did some straight line quilting and a little bit of outlining in each box with Invisafil thread.  The batting is a thin mystery polyester.

Can't wait to hang it up and celebrate spring - once St Patrick's day is done.

Bee Words, Spelling Bee Quilt, A finish!

Warning: This post has a bazillion pictures, because I'm putting up all the info and photos I had about this quilt.

It all started in 2016 when Elizabeth of Occasional Piece Quilt got a group of us doing a bee based on words: AKA A Spelling Bee.  It was improv words, each month the queen would post a list of desired words and we would make it happen.  I chose a bunch of words having to do with beekeeping because it was my first year of being involved in that new hobby.

And then, as things happen, the words sat around for a long time.  I added a couple of words that hadn't been chosen off my list, too.  Every time I would pull them out, I would put them back because I didn't know how to start.

One of the hardest parts was figuring out how to put the words together.  You see, I didn't specify a size, so they were all different. I finally figured out a layout I liked (above) and took the whole project up north with me.

Featherweight at the kitchen table.

 Pressing/cutting station on the wood stove.

 Layout on the dining room table and the bed (below)

 I built the quilt from the bottom up, cutting strips from solid browns and making the puzzle fit.

 More progress, but this is after we came back home.

 Finally a top!  I had a deadline, which was the quilt show in October, so that kept me motivated.

 Piecing the back, with skeps, bees and flowers.  The fabric at the top with the black background is special because my cousin who lives in the Philippines bought that fabric for me from one of the markets there.

 I happened to have an extra block, that conveniently said Queen Bee, so I used that as part of my label and signature block.

 Basting at church on the large tables.

 And commence quilting!  I didn't want to lose the graphic punch of the quilt, so I did "organic" straight line quilting - making occasional marks to keep from going completely crooked.

 Brief panic when I thought I was going to run out of thread.  Ordered 3 different colors off Amazon (invisifil) and got the right one!

 Stitch and roll, stitch and roll.

 Woot, ready for the hand work.

 When I trimmed it, it didn't end up completely square, so when I washed it and it was still damp, I tried to do some blocking.

Here its hanging on the line.   With clothes pins holding things together.

 And done!

 I didn't crop this picture on purpose.  Look at all that ridiculous snow.  We've had snow that has stuck 3 times already.  6" on Halloween.  Unbelievable!

The details: 83" x 67"
Batting: Quilter's Dream Orient (because its what I had)

Thread: Invisifil on the top, Aurifil on the back. 

People who participated by making words for me:

Elizabeth opquilt.com

Lisa         nymblefyngers IG

Mary     needledmom.blogspot.com

Carla      carla-graceandfavour.blogspot.com

Susan    patchworknplay.blogspot.com

Kerry     blog.pennydog.com

Simone quiltalicious.blogspot.com

Mary     maryonlakepulaski.blogspot.com

Brenda brendaandblue IG

Cindy     www.liveacolorfullife.net/

Beeswax and Bee Rescue

 When I'm not sewing or doing mom things, I occasionally deal with honeybee things.

 This past weekend I filtered out my beeswax.   For candles and cosmetic uses, it needs to be as clean as possible.  I started out by melting it in a crock pot purchased from the thrift store for this purpose.

 After melting and filtering, I poured it into aluminum loaf pans to cool.  You could literally see it cooling.

Four loaves of wax - about 5 pounds.


Also related to bees - by word of mouth, I was contacted by a lady who had wild bees in her milk shed.  She is selling her place and wants the bees rescued.



   This is me cutting a larger hole in the ceiling to try to find them. They weren't up there.

They were in the walls!   This is a picture looking up, those are combs hanging down.

 Here they are!

So the 13 combs in the picture above were mostly pollen and honey - no brood or live bees.  The above picture is pollen filled comb.

This picture is honey in the comb.

This is what a cross section of pollen comb looks like.  The bees pack in the pellets of pollen in layers, pushing it in with their heads.  This is the food for baby bees.

This story isn't actually done, because I have to go back and find the rest of the bees.  It was a pretty chilly day and I needed more/better tools to open up more walls, so I am going to go back when things warm up and the bees are flying so its easier to find them.

Stay tuned!