Hand Quilting and growing veggies.

I can't believe September's over already, so here is my final post for the 1 hour a day stitching challenge that Bonnie Hunter here was hosting. 

I didn't make it last week cause I worked a full week, I usually only work 2 days so my routine was out the window.  Needless to say I missed a couple of days of stitching.  I did try to make up the time when I could so I think I did fairly well. 

Because this quilt is so large I hadn't spread it out to check on my progress since I started in the first week of September.  I was surprised today to see that I've got half the blocks quilted.  To tell you the truth I was a tiny bit disappointed as I'd hoped I might have been close the finishing them all. 

I tried to get a close up of the quilting pattern in the hourglass blocks, it doesn't really show up very well though.  I have to mark the rest of the blocks using the quilting template, not my favorite part of the process.

I'm not very happy with some of the quilting, some of the straight lines look like the thread has pulled too tight and there are a few wrinkles in the wrong places but I hope when it is finished and gets washed it should look better.

I'm going to try to keep up the quilting, it will still be a couple of months till the weather heats up so I should by able to get a lot more done.

I decided I wanted to try growing some herbs and vegetables.  I'm no gardener but I really would like to be able to pick some fresh herbs to use when I'm cooking and some salad veggies would be great over summer.  I didn't want to get too carried away to start with so I bought some Coriander and Continental Parsley and a Tomato plant and one Strawberry plant, and some Cat Grass.  I thought the cats can have a special plant of their own, they're supposed to like eating it.

My parents came over yesterday and my Dad helped me plant the seedlings and gave me lots of advice on gardening it was very helpful.  I'm going back to get another couple of plants tomorrow.  We had big discussions about snails and Dad insisted that the sugar straw would keep them away cause they don't like crawling on it.  It worked last night I went out about 4 times during the night and there was no sign of snails but earlier on tonight I went out to find a snail in the middle of the Coriander and a slug in there as well.  There was another slug and a couple of snails on their way over.  I don't want to lose my plants before they've had a chance to grow.  Anyone have any suggestions?

I was very excited, this flower on my Strawberry plant appeared after I brought it home it is very pretty.

I'm hoping I might find time tomorrow to mark the rest of the blocks on my pink lemonade quilt, if I'm not on snail duty.!!

Happy Stitching,

Debra.