August - Old Quilts, Puzzles, and Beetles

There's a couple of days left this month and I'm still hopeful that I'll finish a quilt top...my first in 60+ days. Shameful! Verne just informed me that August was an historically cool month, so there goes that excuse. Actually, if you've been reading my blog you know that I've been busy finishing my Grandma Wier's Dresden Plate quilt. And I've been canning up a storm (figs, peaches, beets, okra, and more). And I've completed over 35 hours of MFP-community service work towards my 50-hour requirement. And I've just about completed the poppy quilt hanging I showed you earlier in the month...

A few more background borders and two more flying geese edge borders and it will be ready for quilting. It took a ton of cutting, a lot of ripping and replacing fabric choices, some foul language, and I finally found my groove. If you have a design wall and like puzzles, you may like this project. There are no written directions, just a graph made up of 1" squares. Pieces of the puzzle are squares, rectangles, and triangles made from the two previous shapes and are outlined on the graph paper and filled in with marks that indicate light to dark fabrics for each of four poppies and the foliage. It took me half a quilt to begin enjoying the process and I now think I may be able to make it again. It was at the half-way mark when I backed up and ripped out an entire section because there wasn't sufficient contrast. After that, I began having some fun and have worked on it an hour or two each day all the while listening to a book on tape.

I mentioned beetles...if you've spent any time in the cabin bedroom then you know that the floor has become increasingly uneven sloping down from the perimeter of the room by as much as 2-3 inches in the center. We have speculated for the last few years that moisture is accumulating under the floor causing the problem. Mystery solved! Verne has spent the past week tearing out the carpet and what's left of the floor (double thickness), all floor joists and bracing, and wheelbarrow loads of a powdery sawdust and although there is no evidence of insects, our contractor assured us the problem was powdery beetles. They must have moved on shortly after eating through almost half of the sub-flooring and over half of the joists and blocking leaving no sign of beetle carcasses or excrement (unless the powder substance is their excrement). Those buggers ate right through 2"x6" boards leaving little evidence that they were ever there. Good news is we were able to save the carpet and the bedroom should be back in order and ready for guests by the end of September. Another "to do" is DONE! It was a dirty job, though...