Strip Quilting inside my Garden

Saturday is here and the week is gone.

Behind it... the severe weather... and lots of destruction, pain and suffering for so many folks so close by.

All across the state, specially in middle Tennessee, the flooding brought bad memories to us all of Katrina.

I can hardly imagine what those poor people are going trough...

People died and so many lost everything.

My European background makes it difficult to accept

that we are in fact at Nature's mercy.

More than a state of mind it's a state of the heart if I can say so...

whatever will be...will be.

There's no way to prevent it from happening.

Here in East Tennessee things were much much lighter...

We got some rain, some HOT temperatures...

some moderate wind... a few branches down...

and that was it.

Today we're cooler and we have sunshine.

It looks and feels nice.

So... walk with me,

let me take you inside my garden,

and you'll see why I spend so much time taking care of it.

It is indeed my little piece of heaven.

Am I right...?...

J loved it, and I'm very proud of myself.

It's very relaxing just to sit on a bench and listen... nothing but the birds... the hawk calls... and the cat that wants to be pet and jumps on my lap... When I was quitting (smoking) a year ago I would just sit on the bench,

close my eyes

and there I would go...

nowhere but wherever I would want to!

Sometimes,

I bring some flowers in the house for J.

The peonies are really gorgeous this year.

Inside and besides my everyday routines,

I made some place mats.

Remember the strip quilting

I've shown you in here?

Well...

I've used some of the blocks to make some place mats.

You can see them in more detail bellow.

With the rest of the blocks

I made a small quilt

and used it as a sort of table runner on the armoire in our bedroom.

I really enjoy this technique

and I suspect I'll be making a lot more with it in the future.