Finally a Finish: Fancy Forest Thistles by Elizabeth Hartman

I can't stand thistles. Well, specifically, I can't stand Scotch thistles, stickery, noxious, non-native weeds, that take over grazing areas if a rancher isn't diligent. Every spring and early summer Tom, and I, sometimes, are out and about on the Polaris, hoes at the ready.  An aside: I still remember when I taught The Good Earth how the line in the book about Wang Lung grabbing a hoe and going outside would get a good laugh from the Beavis and Butthead types in my class.

Chopping thistles is hard work, and Tom tries hard to get the Scotch thistle population under control while sparing native thistles which provide nesting material for our local birdies.

So let me say not all thistles are bad, but those Scotch thistles are.

A while back I made a Fancy Forest quilt designed by Elizabeth Hartman, and I loved making the thistle blocks. Fancy Forest doesn't have its binding on, so I will let you see that one another day.

But those thistle blocks seemed fun, so I used some random fabric here and there, with a  Moda Grunge Basics Olive Branch Green background, to make a kid-sized quilt. It's embarrassing to say that the top was completed over a year ago, but other projects were calling, so it waited. And waited, patiently. If they were real thistles, they would have proliferated one hundred fold!

Anyway, here's Fancy Thistles and thanks to Tom for holding it up. I like these thistles.

If you click to make the photo bigger you can see the quilting by Michael Siewert of ThreadBear in Las Vegas, NM. Love the leaves and vines pattern, so apt for the piecing.

Icing on the cake: This quilt won Second Place at the Colfax County Fair's quilt show for the small quilts, two makers, division.


Cheers!

Quilty Pleasures and Ranch Life: A Scrappy Trip With Thistles

It's been a while since I posted anything quilty because, well, I've been busy! But I've been working (somewhat) steadily on Bonnie Hunter's Scrappy Trips Around the World blocks whilst binge watching this season's Orphan Black. I restarted my unfinished scrappy trip quilt thanks to Diana.

Diana, a Girl Scout, has been working on her Gold Project and sent out a call for Scrappy Trips blocks. She wants to make 16 quilts (actually, it's going to be more than that) and gift them to kids who have aged out of the foster care system. The Chicken River Modern Quilters and another group of quilters at ThreadBear, my local quilt shop, spent some time making blocks to send to Diana. All this scrappy tripping inspired me to find a box of blocks already completed and finish this baby up!

Only four blocks remaining for a queen sized quilt. Then it's time for assembly.

So what's been making me so busy? Thistles! Scottish Thistles! We've been out and about on the ranch chopping these invasive, noxious, non-native weeds. Actually, Tom chops.

These thistles are biennials, which means they live for two years, first as a rosette baby and the next year as a flowering nuisance that can reseed itself many times over. They will take over a whole area and although cattle might eat the babies, they will not eat the mature ones, crowding out anything nutritious growing there.  So Tom is chopping both, trying to dig up the rosette babies, roots and all and chopping down the ticking time bombs which are the thistles in their flower stage.

Here's what the flowering Scottish thistles look like:

We've been chopping for a couple weeks now and it's touch and go as to whether we will get them all before they start reseeding.

My job is to gather up the chopped down flower thistles and toss them into the Ranger.

Here are my grabbers because those suckers are evil! I bought them years ago to collect leaves and then for pine needles. Tom suggested using them for the thistles which was a wizard idea.

 We both wear snake chaps because there have been too many close encounters with rattlesnakes to take chances.

 Using the grabbers and sometimes the garden fork for big piles, I throw them into the Ranger and dump them where there will be a big bonfire when they dry out. (Why do I have a sneaking hunch that even though they will be burned, we will find a thistle forest next spring?)

So far we've collected seven loads of these nasty fellers (Scotland's national flower). As I drove this load back to the dumping area, I spotted so many more growing in our field.

And so it goes. (thanks, kurt)