Canning Season is Underway!

I picked 2 buckets of beets this morning, giving me 9  pints of canned beets and 2 quarts and 1 pint of pickled beets.

 

While the beets were cooking, I made a strawberry cheese pie. It has a layer of cream cheese, a layer of strawberries, and a layer of lemon pudding and dream whip. It looks delicious, and I can;t wait to try it out.

 

After luch, it was out to the garden to pick peas. Fortunately I had some help.

Jessica and Jasmine helping to shell peas

 

 

 

 

 

We had peas for supper, and I put 10 cups in the freezer

Yesterday, July 16th, was my mother-in-laws 92nd birthday. She has dementia and I don't think she was quite sure what all the fuss was, but we managed to get a few pictures.

Mildred with granddaughter Amanda, and 5 of her great-grandchildren

Mildred with her son David and his wife Glenna, who came over from Nova Scotia for a visit

The Gardens are Growing!

For some insane reason, we seem to plant bigger gardens every year, even though there are only the two of us that enjoy the fresh vegetables. This year we have our own 2 gardens, plus 2 plots that our neighbor wasn't going to use this year.

This is garden #1 - onions, lettuce, spinach, carrots, beets, swiss chard, parsnips

This is garden #2 - turnips, asparagus, peas, beans, zucchini, cucumbers, strawberries

Garden #3 - tomatoes, peppers, and pole beans

Garden #4 - buttercup and butternut squash

Today we had our first feed of beet greens

I have been knitting up a storm lately, trying to get some things ready to enter in the provincial exhibition in August. Here are a few pictures of what I have done so far.

These will be my entry for fancy mitts

These are my entry for hat and mitten combo

My entry for work socks

My entry for fancy socks

We had a couple of grandchildren spend the night last night, and today our son Russ and his 2 children came over for a visit too.

Jessica, Emily, and Lincoln

Lincoln and Hayden

Russ

Hayden and Russ

My hubby, Dale

Say It With Flowers Blog Hop

Today is my day for the Say It With Flowers Blog Hop.
 Spring has been very slow arriving here on the east coast of Canada, but we do have a few flowers appearing in our garden.

Pansies

Bleeding Hearts

Tulips

Azalea

Now you know who we have to thank for this hop; don't you? ....yes; our wonderful Madame Samm, and the fantastic Carol.....and don't forget our  sponsors,  Andover.
Let's get to what I made for this hop. I wanted a couple of placemats to use when we eat outside on the patio table, so I made a couple of tulip placemats. The pattern for the tulips is from Bee in my bonnet

 And because knitting is my other passion, and I have three co-workers who are expecting babies this fall, I made this cute little baby hat with a flower.

Please be sure to visit all the rest of the lovely blogs that are participating in the hop:

June 3^rd

Marla’s Crafts

Hanging On By A Thread

Moments

Lixie Makes It

Tied Up In Ribbon

Made By Me In Red

Nanny’s Nook (you are here)

Sew Incredibly Crazy

Cindy’s Crafty Creations

                                                                    Meadowbrook

It's been awhile

It's been awhile since my last post, but I have been keeping busy. I am back to work every Friday at Kindred Spirits, and I just found out that the owner, the manager, and one of the housekeepers are all pregnant! That means I am knitting and sewing baby things. Hopefully one of the babies will be a girl. I am going to make a little hat and maybe booties to go with this sweater. After this outfit is done I will make one for a boy, and by then I will know the sex of at least 2 of the babies, so I will know what else to knit.

I finished a couple of little cross stitch projects. These are going to be made into Christmas tree ornaments.

On the sewing/quilting front I have started a long term hexagon project

These flying geese blocks are my May blocks for Block Lotto. These would make a great border for a quilt.

This quilt has been on our bed for several years now, and I just realized that I didn't have a picture of it.

We have started planting our vegetable garden. So far we have planted onions, spinach, lettuce, swiss chard, beets, peas, turnips, carrots, parsnips, and radishes. I have peppers and tomatoes started in the house, and they are coming along nicely

Peppers

Tomatoes

Our azalea bush is in blossom, isn't it pretty?

Bird Blocks for Block Lotto

These are the blocks I made for this month's Block Lotto. Aren't they cute! I'm crossing my fingers that I am one of the winners this month, as these little birds would make a really cute little quilt.

On the home front, we are facing the difficult decision of whether we can continue to look after my mother-in-law here at home. Her dementia has increased dramatically in the last few months, and she has also been diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Right now we are awaiting an assessment by a gerontologist, to determine what level care she really needs. These pictures of her were taken on her 90th birthday, almost 2 years ago.

Starburst is finally finished!

I finally finished my Starburst quilt. All I had left to do was the binding, but I never seemed to take the time to get it done. Since hubby is home this week with a sore back, I took the plunge and got it done. The fabric is 1930's prints, and the back is pieced with 1930's fat quarters. The tutorial for this quilt is available HERE

Family updates, some knitting, and a few quilts

Things have been a little hectic around here lately. Mum (mother-in-law) has been diagnosed with heart failure, and her dementia has increased dramatically, to the point where we probably won't be able to care for her at home much longer. We are waiting for some more testing and needs assessments to be done, but for sure she is going to need some nursing care from now on.

Hubby is laid up with a bad back, so much so that he called work today and told his boss he couldn't leave to go to work tomorrow (he's a truck driver). He has to be hurting pretty bad to not go to work.

Last night we learned that my brother-in-law had a very bad accident while working in the woods. A very large tree branch came down and hit him on the face, shattering the left side of his face. He is facing some major surgery and reconstruction.

I haven't done too much in the sewing department, but I did get some knitting accomplished. My daughter Amanda came over today and did some modelling for me.

 ZuZu's Petal, pattern is available HERE

Pimpelliese, free pattern is available HERE

I don't have any quilting to show you, but Amanda has been very busy making quilts, so here are a few pictures of her accomplishments.