My Garden is blooming Hexagon's!


At our home, the Bleeding Heart is in bloom.


We have two gardens, one in the lower garden which shows you the garden development and most of this went in the ground on May 18th Canadian Long Weekend. This photo shows the garden early into the growing season of the fabulous Northern valley. In our area, we can get an overnight rare frost so, we keep cloches and veggie covers handy. 

Our front garden has another little growing climate all its own, dryer soil and has had lots of previous years composted chicken manure. This year not any other than a slight covering of compost on the strawberries patch in the heavy green leafed area to the right of this photo is our strawberries patch.


My husband is notoriously camera shy, shows only his moccasin-ed feet and blue pants at the top of the screen below. We are very happy to be back gardening, even though you need to have bug dope on most days until around the beginning of July, then its almost a rare occurrence, so don't worry if you travel through July through July and September, bug season is May and June.


Its clear to me that rhubarb and strawberry's are buddies and like to live together in our region.



My greenhouse is very exciting for our tomato's and they are growing so fast. I've got a flower on my only green pepper we are trying out. We have a very primitive method of opening up the ceiling and at the bottom of both ends of this greenhouse. But its working so far!!


This new greenhouse is an excellent way to adapt an retired chicken coop to a new life. 

 Then in all of these happenings, my back has become a "rest-time, sitting for a spell kind of activity base." I am refreshed and can go again sometimes. Sometimes, my back isn't ready to start moving around again. So, I stitch!

I am so glad that I know how to move from one activity based quilting construction to another kind, one that is reduced standing and reduced walking. This is my life and while I'm  not one to " sit around and cry about things, I can sit around and quilt a round, you know?"


This quilt is not my work at this stage you see here. I paid $25 for this quilt several years ago on EBay. It is 132 inches long and 86 inches wide. Its not your average  bed quilt length, unless the maker was making it for a bed, where she would fold under a portion of the bed covering under the pillows maybe or for a custom sized bed or maybe for some other reason altogether, we'll never know.

I posted about making Hexie templates and English Paper Piecing so you can get the idea of how much time this must have taken the maker and why its unusual size?

I posted "What's on my bed" and showed this hexagon cheddar and brown quilt, quite dated in colors with the wild, bold expression of the early 1970's this quilter made this whole quilt over several decades I believe. I have examined this quilt, hexie by hexie as I took the entire quilt apart!



 This cheddar orange reminds me of our two  little boys and camping in our old VW Camper Van.


Yes, I literally took the whole quilt apart, stitch by stitch, it started and slowly I began seeing the brown yarn that the finisher used to tie the quilt when it was put together. I patiently cut each single yarn which tells me again that the finisher knew less about quilting than the maker. 

This is the mystery of it all, I suspect that the Hexie Flower maker was an experienced but getting on in age quilter, who passed away. The finisher was a beginner in quilting, but eager to start with simple stitching and it was quite an accomplishment for this finisher to have done this. The sheer size is daunting to me, let alone a newbie who inherited this.

On my backyard washing line, I air dried the top and back, being muslin, it was in fairly good condition. I filled the bath tub with warm soapy water and immersed the quilt top in it, soaking and massaging the quilt in the water for 6  hours, then slowly pushed out the water, hanging outside for extra freshening. I intend to re-purpose both top and back, I'll keep you posted.



The stitches are inconsistant, being quite steady and even in stitching with the start of the huge project, with changing to unsettled stitching as the quilt was constructed together. 

I know for sure two people of different skill level put this together. I wonder who they were and how old this quilt actually is? Goes anyone recognize this quilt or the heavier cotton twill that the brown and orange are?


Removed the lightwieght and pieced batting from this lovely and will give both a great new home.

Thanks for the new followers who have decided they like what I write about and thanks for reading on this on July 4th, way to go for taking some time for your blogger friends posts.

Thanks so much and Happy July 4th!

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