gardening – Amherst Quilters Guild

so many of us enjoy this hobby as well

June 14, 2014

I’m back!

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. I’m back from my trip to Disney with the godsons and family. I am so glad for this WNY weather. The heat and humidity in Florida were beastly in my opinion. Temps in the low 90’s and humidity around 60-70%. That is not for me, thank you very much. Of course both kids and adults got a bit cranky from the heat, so we would return to the hotel pool each afternoon for a cool off. But I must say the Disney crew sure has everything under control; everything so well-organized and running like clockwork, as we said in the old days. Now with everyone relying on phones instead of clocks for keeping time, what new saying will arise? Running like phone-work just doesn’t have as nice a ring to it. Before I left on my trip, I asked for comments to my post about […]

May 16, 2014

What to write about today?

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. How do I find something to write about nearly everyday? Strange how the mind works. Usually I’m just commenting on something I got in my e-mail or that has recently happened in “life”. For example… In today’s e-mail I got my blurb from “The Quilt Show”, the Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims adventure. When they first put the show up to the web, I paid for a subscription so I could watch the videos like I used to enjoy Alex’s Simply Quilts show on HGTV. Now though I just do the free stuff, since there are so many free videos available all over the web. Today in the e-mail there is a slideshow of free patterns from Bonnie Hunter. In it you’ll see 2 of the blocks Bonnie will be teaching at the fall seminar for us: Boxy Stars and Pineapple Blossom. Also shown is […]

July 28, 2013

looks too good to resist

Hello all, Mary Ellen again. Was trying to catch up on my e-mail and blogs this morning and came across a photo of this recipe at Pat Sloan’s blog (our upcoming seminar teacher). (BTW have you signed up for your class yet? We’ll be mailing supply lists out soon, if you want to get yours the easy way please register this week!) Anyway this recipe really appealed to me. I have loads of fresh basil in the garden waiting for the right recipe, and have been overdosing on fresh spinach in my toss at salad bars. If you made your own bread crumbs from Fiber 1 cereal (click here), this could be a very WW friendly recipe. Have a look at the photo and see if you can resist. click here. The text in the blog entry that goes with it is amusing too. I think the ingredients will definitely […]

June 13, 2013

what goes on in our heads?

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. I’ve been sitting here with my coffee watching the rain come down. It’s such a rarity these days. (NOT!) Actually I think I’m watching my grass grow. I missed my opportunity to mow yesterday and will now pay the price for procrastinating. That lawn will be too heavy to mulch it, so I’ll be emptying the mower bag repeatedly whenever I am able to get out there. I only have only garbage can which I dedicate to yard waste and my lawn will over fill it. I either need to mow more often, or buy another can. The compost bin is full so that will not be an option til I use more of it. Oh well..this makes for a great day to sew! I’m working on some fabric scarves from an Amy Butler pattern. She calls for voile but I’m using some regular quilting […]

June 10, 2013

there’s an app for that…

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. How many times has a tech savvy, usually younger, person said to you “you know, there’s an app for that”? Well here’s an app that you might find useful if you are one of those folks who collects apps like the rest of us collect fabric. It’s an app from Schmetz needles, that will tell you just about anything that you might need to know about sewing machine needles. What size needle should I use with this fabric? on the app What kind of needle for this project? on the app What’s the difference between all these kinds of needles? on the app I often get asked needle questions while making demonstrations or teaching classes and this app answers just about all of them. See what you think: click here. I last wrote about the skirts I was making from the “Cute Skirts” pattern from […]

April 14, 2013

some new books

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. It is a beautiful morning here in the neighborhood-truly, not tongue in cheek this time. The canine and I had a great walk in the sunshine, and by the end I had taken off my gloves and hat. (whisper-I think spring is in the air) When we returned home, I took a circle around the garden in the spots that aren’t too squishy wet to see what’s up. It’s time to do some clean up of the parts I can reach from the paths–too early to walk on the beds. Don’t get overly anxious you gardeners out there. It’s not good to pack down the dirt walking on it too soon. Lots of leaves are in the beds from our Snyder trees-no matter how late the last fall raking occurs, more leaves come down after. The daffodils are looking great, the hellebores too. Starting to […]

June 5, 2012

twofer Tuesday

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. If you love making purses and bags, I’ll bet you would enjoy following this Purse-palooza 2012. Reviews of patterns, giveaways, etc. Try this link. Remember when Darlene Zimmerman visited us not too long ago? Gave a lecture at a meeting and class the next day. She has been designing quilting tools for 20 years for EZ quilting and a celebration is underway. I have her Dresden Plate ruler which I have used many times, not always for dresdens. It works great as a tumbler template too. Here’s a link to a challenge, with goal to use that ruler, that is running through the summer. Great prizes to be awarded. If you’re working on a dresden, or want ideas for one, here’s a great inspiration blog hop to follow. Perhaps you’ll want to enter the contest-perhaps just use it as eye candy. It has only been […]

May 4, 2012

Adding to the Fabulous Friday…

Hi everyone, I think Fabulous Friday is not bad at all! 🙂 Or at least that could be the first part of it? Anyway…I have couple of surprise-extra hours here at work , can you believe it? (well that’s enough for me to make Friday fabulous, lol!) Its just that normally we have a lab meeting on Fridays from 10 to noon and today’s one got cancelled- me not knowing about that, came to work early to set all the experiments ahead of time…and voila! – some free time! So while checking my email, in the newsletter from Better Homes and Gardens (highly recommend that one!!) I found this – and since we are all in the gardening mode now I had to share: Isn’t this cool?! A nice bench made from just cinder blocks, with so many “extras”! Love the idea of planting some herbs or flowers right in […]

May 4, 2012

Fabulous Friday

Hello all, Mary Ellen here. Marija and I have a flexible agreement about posting-not a schedule exactly but Monday is her day and Friday is mine. Just an easy arrangement to make sure that at least twice a week, something will get posted here. So far we have had no problems keeping up the flow of “information” to you, but if we ever don’t have something to say (LOL), we each have a once per week assignment! Since Friday is my day, I’ve wondered if I should come up with a theme for the Friday posts, and perhaps a catchy title. I know, “Fabulous Friday” doesn’t really do it for me either. I’m hoping you’ll help me come up with something. I might have written about this website, Colourlovers, at our previous blog. I really enjoy exploring there when I have time to spend. It is designed for all lovers […]

May 3, 2012

a bit shady

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 […]