Yard Work, Family Reunion, Family Wedding, And Quilting

     I've been busy cleaning up my yard for the past month.  It was a complete mess.  I have tons of leaves to shred for mulch, big sticks to take the chain saw to, and at least 32 big black plastic bags of yard waste ready to go out to the curb.   I spent every night and every minute I could out in the yard during the month of May.  It was not fun.  And then to top it all off, it was really dry the month of May and with all that dry weather, the pine straw started falling as soon as I finished raking up last year's leaves.  I had to rake up all of that pine straw and I filled up another four bags of yard wast.  I mowed the grass last night and I'm all caught up with big yard word.  Tomorrow I'm going to poke around and do some weeding in the front beds.  Easy work after all the raking and bagging.

     Another easy outdoor project I have to do is get some some summer flowers to put in this big lovely pot.  My daughter gave this to me last month because of the sea turtles on it.  It was nice of her to think of me when she saw it.

     

    At the end of May, my DD and I went travelling.  We flew to Colorado to attend my niece's wedding.  It was also a mini family reunion, meeting up with both my brothers, their wives and one of my first cousins and her husband on my Dad's side.  Daughter and I always have a good time when we travel and meeting up with family this time was really special.  All of us out-of-towners in our immediate family gathered at the hotel on Friday night, May 31st. to decide where to gather and eat some dinner.  We went to a fun bar and grill and had a great time catching up.  The next day we were on our own until we had to go to the late afternoon wedding.  My niece was radiant and her husband must be a great guy to want to marry into this family.  LoL.  They both are very happy.  Her father, my brother, was so happy that the wedding was over, he was jumping around on the dance floor like a nut.  It was a fun reception.  Everyone danced and enjoyed themselves.  It didn't hurt that there was an open bar.  On Sunday our family, my sister-in-law's sister and husband, and the groom's parents gathered for brunch at a fun local restaurant for a lovely meal.  Then our family spent the afternoon at my brother's home talking, laughing and eating pizza.  It was a lovely way to wind down.  DD and I had to leave early on Monday.  It took all day to get back to Florida.

   This week I have been working on my Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt this week.  I finally finished row four.  The quilt top is officially half done.  Here is a picture of my progress so far.

 

     The last time I posted a picture of this quilt with three rows done was January 16, 2019.  That's a long time in between rows.

    Now I'm basting more hexagons to make the rest of the flowers for the last 3 rows.   I need enough hexies to make 14 whole flowers and 2 half flowers to finish those last rows.   Time to get this done.

Silky Scarves From A Half A Yard of Fabric

  I bought a yard of three different light polyester fabrics last fall and it's taken me until now to finally cut each piece in half to make some scarves for me and my daughter.   I did a rolled hem on each piece to create the scarves.  To make the rolled hem on my sewing machine I used a youtube video tutorial, link here.  These scarves are a great size and so easy to make.

    Here are the fabrics I used.

Sewing Skirts Before Evacuating

   I had to leave my mobile home before the Hurricane Irma came calling on Sunday and Monday.  So I spent part of my Saturday sewing up two more skirts with the fabric I ordered.  It was a great way to be creative and relieve a some of the stress.  I couldn't tell how bad the storm was going to be or whether I would have a home to return to so I packed the kitties and the essentials (including my Janome 7700 because I had to save at least one sewing machine) and I went to stay at my daughter's house which is not a mobile home.  We got through the storm without losing power and I came home this morning to find my house the same as I left it.  A few sticks and small branches fell out of the trees but nothing more.  I was really lucky and really happy. 

   Here are my new skirts.

   While I was away I did get to spend some some time making flowers and half flowers for the second row of the Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt.  Row two is not even half done but I'm working on it.  I should be able to show something soon.

Found Two More Fabrics To Make Skirts

I went to the Thousands of Bolts website this afternoon and found two more fun fabrics to make two more skirts for myself.

This is Serengeti.  I love animal prints.  This reminds me of my cats bellies.  I have two bengal cats and they have lovely spots in their belly fur.

This is Feather Your Nest.  This is just fun.

Both these fabrics were $4.95 a yard, I bought two yards of each and the shipping is about $6.95 for all four yards.

I Found A Use For Some Old Scrap Wood And A Broken Bird Bath

   Last week I was cleaning my old iron bird bath and the base kind of fell apart.  The screws had rusted and pieces had fallen off the base so I couldn't keep the bowl fastened to it anymore.  I replaced it with a bird bath from the front yard and bought a new bird bath for the front flower bed.

    I was going to take the broken bird bath to the iron scrap place and get a few dollars just so it wouldn't be left in the yard with no purpose.  While I was trying to decide whether I wanted to scrap the entire bird bath or use it as yard art, I saw a pile of scrap wood left over from a fence support project done a while back.  

   These pieces of wood are fat and no piece is the same length so I had fun putting them together to make a base for my old bird bath bowl.  I was going to use some adhesive to put it together, but I realized the base would too heavy for me to move and it works great with the pieces just stacked together on a level place under the trees.  I hope the birds like it.

 

Yard Art Complete.

Okay, so I sanded the bowling ball and then I filled the finger holes with some of the adhesive that I used to glue the glass gems on.  I had read that one person filled the finger holes with cement but I think the caulk is fine.  I let the caulk dry for 36 hours and then I leveled the caulked holes.

On Saturday, I painted the bowling ball silver.  It's hard to spray paint in the wind.  hehehe
I let it dry for overnight.

On Sunday I glued on all the glass gems covering every bit I could.  I was surprised how long this process took because I had to let each section dry for about an hour before I could move the ball and do a new section.  I worked on this from 11:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m.

This is the finished piece of yard art in my gazing ball holder.

This one is done and that ugly bowling ball looks pretty in the garden now.

I'm Working On Yard Art

    This project will probably take me about a week to finish.  Tonight I'm sanding a bowling ball.  I'm preparing to make it into yard art.  This is a project that has been waiting patiently for 7 years.  It's time to get it done.

   Back Story:

   When I bought this house over 7 years ago, I did a lot of research on yard art made from other items.  I found a site where it showed how to make a bedazzled ball from a bowling ball using sand paper, caulk, spray paint, silicon adhesive and glass gems.  It's supposed to resemble a gazing ball.  After I mention this art project to dear daughter, she gives me an old bowling ball for Christmas so I can create this yard art.  That bowling ball has been sitting in my extra bedroom since then.  I bought the glass gems on-line about two years later and they have been waiting for me to use them as well.   I bought the silver spray paint a few weeks ago when I was buying paint for my barn quilt because I knew I wanted to get this project done.  All I needed was the clear silicone adhesive.  I bought the silicone adhesive today, so this project is ready to start.

  So to make this bowling ball into bedazzled yard art I have to sand this ugly bowling ball, fill the finger holes with caulk and let that dry, then spray paint the ball, let that dry, then use the silicone adhesive to glue all these crazy glass gems onto the ball.

   Here's a link to the picture of a purple bedazzled ball someone made and posted on the web.  Purple Bedazzled Gazing Ball

    Bowling ball all sanded.

  See you at the end with more pictures.