Last flowers of summer

 With the temperature in the mid to upper 90's it is definitely still summer here in Atlanta. but my flowers are starting to fade in anticipation of fall. These are the last of my cone flowers and they are sorta of sad looking.

Last of the sunflowers, these are my favorite summer flowers.

With the dog days of summer comes thoughts of winter or at least fall.  At stitch in this summer, my friend, Sarah, shared her Midi bag made from wool.  I knew after seeing hers that I had to make one.  I started it today, lots of 2 1/2 inch squares in my future.  Cant' wait to get more of this done, and I would have but fate intervened today and I had to go shopping for a new refrigerator.  When I woke up Saturday morning I noticed that water was dripping out of the freezer part of the refrigerator, that is never a good thing.  As the day went on I noticed that the entire refrigerator was really not working the way that it should.  my DH always takes care of things like this, but DH was out of town this weekend so it was up to me to take care of it, not that I mind, but it did cut into my sewing time.  Thankfully the new fridge will be delivered on Wednesday, now there are several coolers full of ice and things out of the fridge all over the kitchen.  Can't wait for the new one to be delivered.

Fig Preserves

Yesterday you saw the figs being washed, today they have been turned into jam.  I added raspberry jello to make them fig/raspberry jam this is DH's favorite.  This is just the first batch of many to come.  What is your favorite jam/jelly?

This was my summer

 Although I am back at work I am still doing all of those typically "summer" things.  DH went to our garden tonight bringing back okra, tomatoes, figs, and peppers.  I love all of those things except okra, for a Mississippi Girl I never developed a taste for okra either fried or boiled.  Figs I absolutely love, these will become fig preserves tomorrow after school.  I discovered a great pretzel dip this summer using fig preserves, mix very coarse ground mustard with fig preserves to your taste.  I usually do about half and half, this is great with pretzel sticks.  Yesterday I canned tomatoes, put okra in the freezer, canned peppers, and put peppers in the freezer.  I love having a garden but am looking forward to the end of it.

I have also done lots and I mean lots of wool dyeing this summer.  I have recently started dying some yarn and love the way that it is turning out.  (The yarn is just for me)  This is in addition to all of the wool fabric that I have been dyeing.  I am really excited I have my first show coming in October where I will be a vendor.  Watch for more about that.

I Survived

Somehow I managed to survive the first week of school.  It was not easy.  In addition to my duties as a media specialist, I was also teaching 6 different classes a day, not an easy thing to do and make all of the teachers happy.  One bright spot in my week was getting a quilt back from Leisa, my quilter.  She did a most awesome  job on this quilt.

This was a pattern I found in Fonds and Porter magazine a couple of years ago.  I found the fabric online and put it together.  I absolutely love this quilt, there are only 9 blocks, really big blocks.  Leisa did a great job quilting it, now I just need to put the border on it.  Maybe this weekend.

Blog?

I can't believe that it has been almost a month since I made a blog post, the time has just gotten away from me.  A few weeks ago, I went to Mississippi to spend a week with my mom, saw my aunt and her grandson, I guess that makes him my second cousin.  He is so cute, but spoiled rotten  The first thing he asked me was, "Did you  bring me a present"  boy was I in trouble.  I explained to him that I didn't know I was going to see him that day I would have him something later, he didn't forget.  I saw him a couple of days later and he wanted to know where his present was, luckily I had him a bubble gun and some "bubble stuff".  That made him happy!!!  This is him and my aunt, she is much more like a sister than an aunt.  She is 20 years younger than my mom and I love her so much.

Right before school started last week I had a  marathon wool dyeing day.   Did lots of different colors, blue, green, gold and red.  Still have more too do.  Too bad that school is absolutely kicking my butt!!!

 After coming back from Mississippi we spent a few days at the cabin.  Lots of work involved there, we  built a fence by the driveway leading up to the cabin, I love the way that it looks.  We should  have done this a long time ago.vsiti