International Quilting Day

I hope that you all were able to enjoy International Quilting Day. I was supposed to be working, but I decided it would be worth losing sleep to spend the day sewing.

I have been redoing my sewing corner and decided to put the big ironing board away. It took too much of my small space. So I found a small ironing board at Goodwill for $2. It was a mess, but I had lots of fun with fabric and a staple gun recovering it.

With my new ironing board made on Friday, I was all set to work on my first quilt on Saturday. So I started by planning out where I wanted each square to create the bee body.

Then I spent the whole rest of the day piecing it together. This part was fun and frustrating. I thought I was so careful cutting and so careful with my seams, but some of the pieces still do not line up as I wanted. I put some of them together more than three times. Then I decided to go with a quote I recently saw and felt that it would be better finished than perfect.

So it is not perfect, but it isn't horrible either. It is only a small fraction of the whole quilt and it took me so long. (Is this horribly slow for one days work??) So this will take a while, especially if I only get a weekend here and there.... but it was so much fun.

I worked a little on another project on Sunday to help the remake of my sewing corner. I am excited to share that with you soon. Just a little more to do...

My First Quilt

I finally decided what I should create for my first quilt. It took forever, and there are at least 8 other quilts in planning... but for the first one... I decided it should be for my soul mate, my hubby, the beekeeper.

I found this great fabric at Connecting Threads. I loved all the honey combs, little bees and beautiful flowers. And then they ended up having a 40% off sale. So I snagged a bunch and got planning.










So then I started planning it out. I am still not sure about the wings, but I have a basic plan that will have me just sewing squares together for this first one. Once I got the basic plan together, I found this great white fabric with little hexagon/honeycomb designs all over that will be great for the rest of the quilt. The fabric was really fun to pick out.

But I am soooooo nervous to put this thing together. I guess making the first quilt for my love wasn't the best idea. I don't want to mess this up, and I know he will inspect it from top to bottom. I have been sewing quite a bit, but never anything this large. I don't know how I will even quilt it and I have not ordered my walking foot yet. So for now, I have a few hundred more squares to cut and lots of piecing to do.  I will probably just stare at the quilt top for a while after it is put together before basting and quilting. That will be fun!

If you have any tips for a first time quilter, please share. :)

Beeswax Lip Balm

I am so excited about this lip balm. It is made with beeswax from the hubby's hives.

I used:

2 tbsp of coconut oil
1 1/2 tbsp of beeswax
1 tbsp shea butter
1 tbsp cocoa butter
about 25 drops peppermint essential oils

(Bought everything but the beeswax from Mountain Rose Herbs. - not an affiliate link)

I used a glass measuring cup dedicated to making lip balm only to create a double boiler. Once I had it all melted I used the tiniest little funnel to pour the liquid into the tubes. I kept the pot of water warm because it is cold here and the mixture would start to solidify. Then I would just place the measuring cup back in the pot of water to make liquid again.

And it makes a ton of these little tubes. I used an Avery label (Square 2 in x 2 in), but I had to cut off just a little to make it fit. And they didn't stick very well, so I used clear packaging tape over it. Now it looks like a real lip balm and works even better than the ones at the store.

Oh my goodness, it is so good. Love the way it feels on my lips. I'm adding these to the items for sale with our honey. And it is so great to start to see my little "shop" coming together. Dreams do come true.... as long as someone decides to buy them, haha!

A Grateful Heart

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
   1 Thessalonians 5:18

This week, I posted an ad for our raw honey on Facebook and we got our first sale. I know it is just one little sale, but I am going to celebrate it all! We had over 60 likes and tons of comments. So I even started a business page. Now I just keep praying that it might turn into more. 

What are you thankful for this week?

A Grateful Heart

I meant to post this before, but life gets crazy.

They are building a house behind me. I don't live in a housing track, but they started building an entire housing track behind me. I am sad about this, but oh well. Anyway, the guys building the basement of one of the houses used to be the crew my hubby worked with years ago. So he went to say hi. As they were talking, they mentioned they saw a swarm of honey bees fly by.

So when he walked back up to the house he went over to the side of the house where we have stacks of bee equipment.... empty bee equipment. And wouldn't you know it, that swarm chose our boxes to make their new home. It was really neat to watch it all take place. The whole family went out to watch. It isn't too often you get to see bees choose their new home. Once they were a little more settled, my hubby located the queen, got her in a good deep bee box and gently shook some of the other bees into the box so that the rest would follow. It was amazing how quickly they all got in the hive.

My hubby is crazy. He was just out there in the middle of it, with a t-shirt on. I was taking pictures and tried to keep being brave. No one was stung and the bees are now in a lovely new home.

I am so thankful to the Lord for bringing more bees our way. Our little business is going to take off! I just know it.

On a sad, but still grateful note, I was stung yesterday for the first time in almost 10 years by the other swarm I wrote about. My arm is quite swollen and it hurts! My hubby doesn't even swell anymore. He thinks I just need to get stung more so I won't keep swelling up. I don't know about all that. :) I think it might be time for that hive to leave the front yard and go to the bee yard. They are a little feisty!

Natural Honey Bee Hive

This past week was weird and fantastic all at the same time. One of the coolest things that happened was that we inherited two new honey bee hives. One I will write about later this week. It was a swarm that decided to live with us. Watching this happen in the yard was an incredible adventure.

The second was a hive that the bees built on someone's cabin. They called my hubby to come and get it. So glad they knew us!!! And the natural comb is just gorgeous. Here is a picture of my hubby and some of the bees. Isn't is just beautiful. I actually took the picture. I can't believe how comfortable I am getting with the bees. I didn't have a suit on or anything. My hubby doesn't even have gloves on. I am not that brave yet.

A Grateful Heart

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

   1 Thessalonians 5:18 

This week I am thankful for the honey we extracted. We are getting all set up to open the doors to the friendly people around and offer our honey for sale. I have a hang tag created that will be showcased on each beautiful jar and the little breezeway area between our home and garage is getting in order to be the home of our little shop as we start. So the lovely honey that was on our hives has been the blessing we need to get this business going. It is very exciting to see it all coming together!

What are you thankful for this week?

A Grateful Heart: Week #10

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

   1 Thessalonians 5:18 

The bees are back! I am so thankful that the Lord has blessed us with some healthy hives that were able to travel successfully back to New York with us. Nothing else seems to be going right for us right now, but the bees being healthy is a really big one. We have been doing a lot of praying and could really use your prayers too. The hubby's back seems to be worse now and we have a lot of other things that are just not going right. But we will keep going. The Lord is with us and He is helping to grow a strong desire in me to help others that are going through tough times as well. So I will keep praying for all of you out there and I just ask that you might say a little prayer for us too. 

(I hope to take some pictures of our lovely hives soon. So if you are into that, be on the look out for some future posts showing our girls!)

A Grateful Heart: Week 1

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

                                                                                                                          
                                                                                     Philippians 4:6


I just love this verse. Maybe part of my love is that I know that I do worry too much about things that I shouldn't. I should go to the Lord in prayer over everything. I am the first one to ask my hubby if he prayed about something, but I need to listen to my own advice. And I really need to start focusing on thanksgiving. I want to thank the Lord for all the good that is in my life right now.

So I want to start, each Monday, sharing something that I am thankful or grateful for. And I want to invite you to share what you are grateful or thankful for too. Being grateful is an important step in being content and connecting with God.

This week I am thankful for the newest hive of bees. One day, the hubby was checking our bees and found that a swarm or something else had taken up shop in some of our empty equipment. It was a lovely surprise. It may seem like a small thing, but these honey bees give us quite a bit of hope and happiness.

Now it is your turn!