Hi Y’all, Mary Ellen again.

Shady #1: The huge tree I wrote about a few posts back has been down for about a week now. A friend has been busy cutting up the majority of it for firewood. He’s down to the huge parts of the lower trunk now, so work has slowed down. You can imagine how much saw dust has been generated. My dog thinks it is a great cushy mattress and has enjoyed laying in it. His fur is the soft fine type, to which sawdust just loves to cling. Hence lots of sawdust has come into the house. I spent some time yesterday cleaning up what the loose sawdust I could-not easy because of the rain of late making it heavy and clingy. I was surprised how heavy and dense wet sawdust is-had to fill the paper lawn bags only part way full. They got to be too heavy to move quickly. I thought with the tree down, creating less shade, that the area of the yard which used to be shaded by this tree would dry up more quickly but not so far anyway. I had planned to put some plants that can take more sun into the beds near there, but I guess I’d better hold off on that decision til I see how it goes. Kind of like choosing the fabrics for the quilt block, better results when you actually put the real fabrics side by side, than when you plan it on the computer.

Shady #2 I’ve just about finished quilting the table topper I mentioned in my last post. I chose the fat quarters I would need for two toppers and had jotted down where I planned to use each fabric in the topper.  In my first one I used a lime/poison green tone on tone, which I thought would be the fabric to really stand out, in what the designer called the “dark” position. In the completed top, the green doesn’t stand out as dramatically as I had hoped. So…in my second version I made a few changes to my original plan. There is now a dark purple in that position-not what I had jotted down in my notes. Playing with the colors is part of the fun isn’t it? When they’re both complete, I’ll post the photos and you can decide what you think.

Shady #3 Would you like a quick tutorial on the shaded 4 patch? The piecing of the tops went very quickly, using the Billie Lauder trick. I can’t imagine why the designer chose to cut 5 triangles, with their stretchy bias edges!

I see the sun coming out–maybe the flower beds will dry out. Although the damp soil made the dandelion harvest in the curb lawn much easier. As pretty as the flowers are-they’ve gotta go!