Art Quilts

This is from Melody Johnson's quilt series she calls Treehouses.  This post has a wonderful explanation of her design process for the next quilt in the series.

Walking home from errands

It's that time of year when the sidewalks are covered with petals...

Sailing across the Zumwalt Prairie

The Zumwalt Prairie in NE Oregon has been designated as a National Natural Landmark.  From OregonLive, "Zumwalt Prairie is the best example of bunch grass prairie remaining in North America, according to the park service."

from Praise Photography

It's a lovely place.  We've been there several times driving from Joseph to Buckhorn Point.  John calls it sailing across the prairie.  I think it has been too long since our last visit.

from WestVirginiaVille

from OregonLive

Here is an image search on Zumwalt Prairie.... lots of great photos.

Garden update

We didn't do a lot yesterday as we were pretty tired after spreading our three yards of mulch the two previous days.  We did make our weekly trip to Portland Nursery and brought home a couple of shrub replacements.  My favorite person at Portland Nursery helped us.  Our strawberry tree (arbutus)  is dead.  It has been slowly dying for a few years  It is a very sturdy plant and I wish I knew for sure WHY it died.  It may have been from the gutter spilling over on it; it doesn't like that kind of wet.  We liked it so much that we actually got another strawberry tree, trusting that we could fix the problem.

We are also replacing our Viburnum Carlesii with an Escallonia.  The viburnum just doesn't bloom long enough nor does it have other endearing characteristics to earn its spot in our small yard.  It does smell very good when it blooms.  Both the strawberry tree and the escallonia are loved by hummingbirds and both are broad leaved evergreen shrubs.

Escallonia "Pride of Donnard"

Here they are, sitting on the stoop, waiting to be planted.

The tulips are still blooming and looking very good.  It's been almost three weeks.  It's going to warm up quite a bit next week.  I'll enjoy that, but I bet it will end the tulip bloom.

tulips and peony blooming

The pullout cutting boards are finished

We had a pretty laid back day yesterday, but John did finish the pullout cutting boards.  He had a good time making these little stops that keep the cutting boards from pushing in too far.

This is the big one.

stop

Stop installed and adjustable (the screw is in a slot).

I spent much of the day doing hand work on my quilt while watching videos and dinking around on the internet.

We had three yards of compost mulch delivered today.  I didn't get a photo until we were well into it.  This is after our morning mulching session.

Here is the pile when we were done for the day.  We think we got about two thirds through the pile today.

Resting...

Update (the next day).... we finished the pile! Yeahhhhhh.  Guess we aren't too old yet.

This is where we always get our compost mulch...

Pullout cutting boards

John has been having a lot of fun making the pullout cutting boards.  He has been designing his own process for how to make the breadboard ends accommodate movement of the wood in the cutting board surface.  We aren't pressed for time before demo day and so he has time for some fun.

He is using dominoes to make a floating tenon.  The tenon is smaller than the mortise (the hole) and this allows it to move.  To keep it from pulling out of the hole, there is a dowel that fits in the wider slot (allowing for expansion).  The very center mortise and tenon are sized the same and well attached but the rest of the joints allow for plenty of movement.

Waxing the end so it won't soak up glue

 Attaching the breadboard end to the cutting board.

Routing the finger pull