Scrap happy & Slow-stitch; double-duty with Dawn's Early Light

With Independence Day upon us this week, I'm on a personal mission to complete the top for Dawn's Early Light (DEL), Bonnie K. Hunter (published in her String Fling book).

Mindless string-block piecing has been underway for multiple days, and I think I have the correct amount of larger blocks, but maybe only halfway through the smaller ones.  This evening's "slow-stitching" Sunday will be yet another de-papering session as hubby sifts through a collection of YouTube videos.

Taking a break from strings, on this final day of June, blue and neutral strips were pulled from the 2.5" drawer as a RSC task, doubling as a task for DEL!  Win-win.

Surprisingly, there weren't many blues in the bin!  

Therefore, the 3.5" strip bin and 5" square bin entered the scene.  

 

All HSTs for the DEL were completed in a few (short?) hours.

My Bernina 440 QE has been in my life for quite some time;  she's my piecer!  I no longer chuckle when she lets me know its time for an oil change, nor is the reminder needed.  As good practice, the bobbin case and oiling commence after 3-4 bobbin usages.  I know some say to complete these tasks for each bobbin use, but... 'tis a bit extreme, no? 

The garden is in the growing stage right now; not needing my attention for days at a time.  And a little bit of guilt hit me on and off today JUST because it was a BEAUTIFUL day yet again.  To make some peace with just a tiny amount of the guilt, Bailee and I took an early evening stroll.

The tomatoes were started from seed quite a bit later than usual, so they are just now beginning to blossom with the first few fruit appearing.

Years (YEARS!) ago, Paul started some grape plants.  

Then, they were neglected and became overgrown with weeds.

Years (YEARS!) later, one day while mowing, I spied some bright green leaves peeking through the weeds, and when they have the will, this lil' wifey will have a way.  After walking the ridge, four plants were found from the original six (or eight?).  So, long story short, the ridge was cleaned up, a few 'filler' plants were purchased from the local nursery, a legitimate grape trellis system was put in place, and... the growing (with patience!) began anew.

But those blasted deer!  I think this is summer #4 since then, and those darn deer keep nibbling the plants (!!), although they don't mess around with this one that much; your guess is as good as mine as to why not.  This'll be the first summer of a few bunches on the plant.  

This plant caught my eye!  It's growing along the edge of our lawn, about 10 feet south of one of our (young) plum trees...

and here are the suckers growing at the base of one of the trees...

Could that be a 'bonus' plum tree growing????!!?  Does anyone have a genuinely good plant-ID app?  The plant-identifier feature on my phone isn't alway reliable.  And I'm SO tempted to dig it up and plant it in line with the rest of our trees.  If it IS a plum, YAY!  If it isn't... psssht, it'll be easy enough to deal with. 
Yup, yup... that's the ticket.  Stay tuned!

The Minny Ginny is pictured here, just because!  I was gifted a cutting last fall and the propagation journey has been pretty seamless.  Rooted in water, and moved to soil... and now, new growth.  
Plants, ah yes... the newest obsessive passion that really took off last summer. 
More on that, eventually.

To close - my nails have been naked for months!  My sister is/was a Color Street rep, so I have quite the stash built up that simply needs to be used.  These were applied last night and tidied up a bit this morning.  Nothing fancy, nothing spectacular, but I DO enjoy having them back on my nails!

Happy Sunday 💙

Linking up with:
Soscrappy - Rainbow Scrap Challenge 

Kathy's Quilts - Slow Sunday Stitching