Friday 22 July 2011

Tour de Hexagon & Pay It Forward

In my last post I promised my new Grandmother's Garden quilt would not take another 17 years to make, as I had one flower block as a leftover from the big project. I had the remaining fabrics still left in a basket, and a handful of basted hexagons. It took me some time on the Pyrenees (with Le Tour de France, on TV, naturally) to make these:


As the cyclists are torturing their muscles on the Alps, I'm stitching. That was quick, wasn't it? I must admit this quilt is not a very large one.


A while ago Melanie announced the PIF challenge she took, and I was one of her lucky three who promised to carry on and pay it forward to another three persons. Do you know what this is all about? The original idea is from a film, and it is living its own life in the blog world. The rules are simple: I promise to send a handmade (by me) gift to the first three people who are willing to join in. I don't know yet what the gift will be, but I will send it within a year from now, probably much sooner. What you need to do to get that gift, is write about the PIF on your blog and make the same promise. I have played along once before, when I had just started my blog, and back then I only had two answers. Therefore I promise a gift to the fourth person as well, to keep my original promise from 2008. Now I'm just waiting for my PIF gift from Melanie to arrive before the end of the year, but meanwhile I would love to start planning nice gifts for you, my dear readers. To give you an idea of the kind of gifts we are talking about, check here (scroll down past the interesting Egypt tour if you just want to see her gift) what Melanie got from Anne Marie, or what I got from a Swedish Ulla.


The weather has been too hot again. Our tomatoes five weeks ago were like this:


And now they are as tall as I am, almost at least. There are some tomatoes too, all green and small but they seem to grow fast. Like they say in the song in West Side Story "everything's big in America".  The tall plants are from the seeds we had from Candace and Mr. Squash. In the lower right corner you can see our Finnish tomato plant in a pot, about 30 cm high so they have hardly grown since the first picture was taken.


I hope you can enjoy the summer, remember to drink enough water if the weather  is hot. Who wants to sign in for the PIF? Be sure I can contact you when you leave a comment.

11 comments:

  1. The Tour is causing lots of interest in our family. The GS is named Cadel not after Cadel Evans but with a father that's a cycling enthusiast he refers to Evans as the "other" Cadel. You have used your time well and no I don't think this quilt will take as long.

    enjoy the tomatoes. Nothing like home grown.

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  2. Kudos to you: I never finished one Grandmother Flower Garden and you're finishing a second!

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  3. How wonderful you can stitch through the Tour de France. It's so hot and humid here that my tomato plants have gone crazy. They love this weather a lot more than I do. I'm also growing tomatillo plants (used in salsa and Mexican cooking). I didn't know the plant got as big as mine are.

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  4. I love the colors in your Grandmother's Flower Garden. I'm sorry about the PIF... I still owe out 3 from joining another. Nobody wants the committment, I guess. Maybe, 3 handmade projects is too much to ask. I have lots of quilts I give to Project Linus each year... a charity for kids in crisis. That should pay it forward for me. I know you donate things, too. I saw one of yours at Oz Comfort Quilts just this morning. A beautiful quilt for a good cause.

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  5. I'm SO happy to see your tomatoes are getting huge, Ulla! Ours look like that, too - I keep having to chop them back a bit! Maybe we'll have ripe tomatoes at the same time - I think we'll be canning and drying a lot of ours! Your hexagons are gorgeous! I did PIF a while back - I'm sure you will get some who want to join soon!
    Cheers!

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  6. Also ich würde bei einem PIF mitmachen, glaube aber nicht, dass ich drei Leute finden werde, die ebenfalls die Bedingungen einhalten (ich bin ja keine fleissige Bloggerin und habe auch entsprechend wenig Leserinnen). Vielleicht müsste es eher ein Tausch-Challenge sein oder ein Secret Birthday Gift??
    Liebe Grüsse aus der regennassen Schweiz,
    Barbara

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  7. Great hexagon work Ulla!

    Your tomatoes are looking really good.

    The PIFs are still in the planning stage here. Another of THOSE weeks of busyness.

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  8. My tomatoes are a stunted disaster AGAIN! I grow them inside they don't fruit and go all leggy, I grow them out and they stunt. I guess I'll have to wait until I have some outdoor shelter built...yours look very healthy, and as tomatoes should look!

    I love hexagon quilts! I've two in progress...somewhere...whenever I have scraps left over from projects I tak them onto hexagon paper and put them aside to stitch onto the quilt. Its a bit hit and miss, and at present whenever I find the quilt I can't fing the spare hexagons, and vice versa! But its one of those ambling projects, and I don't mind how long it takes!

    I'll have to go look at the PIF project as it sounds interesting!

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  9. I can't figure out from the comments if you already have enough people for your PIF Project? If you need another I'd love to take part! I'll post about it and see what happens! I'd not heard of the film or the project, although I know the idea from talking to people. Funny how you can hear of an idea without knowing its origin at all!

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  10. Hallo Ulla,
    ich habe nun meinen PIF post gemacht und hoffe, dass sich jemand meldet ;-) !
    Liebe Grüsse und ein schönes Wochenende,
    Barbara

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  11. Such difference in plants! I hope the tomatoes will soon turn red.

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