My Growing Garden

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.
 ~Dennis Wholey

I had an incredibly crappy day yesterday.  It didn't help that I started the day out tired and being aggravated by stomach troubles.  It was just one personal thing after another.  One of those days you wish you could start over and reprogram to be better.  It started on its slippery slope downhill about 8:30 and slid non-stop for the rest of the day.  Luckily I hadn't planned on any heavy machine operation or detailed cutting - it just wouldn't have worked.  It was one of those days where you would like to throw something at the wall, close the drapes, pull the covers over your head and just go to sleep.  But sleep wouldn't have come either.  It was just one of those crappy kind of days.  I'm ready for a new day and it's here - so let's take the day by the horns and get started!
 
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PHOTO FACT OF THE DAY

Postcards

Today in history, the first picture postcard was made.  Cards with messages had been sporadically created and posted by individuals since the creation of postal services. The earliest known picture postcard was a hand-painted design on card, posted in London to the writer Theodore Hook in 1840 bearing a penny black stamp. He probably created and posted the card to himself as a practical joke on the postal service, since the image is a caricature of workers in the post office.

The first commercially produced card was created in 1861 by John P. Charlton of Philadelphia, who patented a postal card, selling the rights to H. L. Lipman, whose postcards, complete with a decorated border, were labeled "Lipman's postal card." These cards had no images. In Britain postcards without images were issued by Post Office, and were printed with a stamp as part of the design, which was included in the price of purchase.

The first known printed picture postcard, with an image on one side, was created in France in 1870 at Camp Conlie by Léon Besnardeau. Conlie was a training camp for soldiers in the Franco-Prussian war. They had a lithographed design printed on them containing emblematic images of piles of armaments on either side of a scroll topped by the arms of the Duchy of Brittany and the inscription "War of 1870. Conlie camp. Souvenir of the National Defence. Brittany Army". While these are certainly the first known picture postcards, there was no space for stamps and no evidence that they were ever posted without envelopes.  The first American postcard was developed in 1873 by the Morgan Envelope Factory of Springfield, Massachusetts.  The first postcard to be printed as a souvenir in the United States was created in 1893 to advertise the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
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FLOWERS

The only peace I found yesterday was working on hexagon flowers.  For today's One Flower Wednesday, I made two flowers - just because I could.

The first flower was made using some Debbie Mumm fabric I had in my stash.  I really like the cherries and little checkerboard squares.

And then I created this flower from the left over scraps from the Loving Hands quilt backings I made over the weekend.  The center has more of a pink cast to it in person and matches the butterfly wings almost perfectly.  I like how the butterflies almost glow with the green highlight around them.

After making the two flowers, I then made about 20 stepping stones.  These took no thought whatever and I could lose my mind in a senseless TV show.  I was then able to add the stepping stones and four flowers to my Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt....

You may remember these flowers from earlier in the year.  I had forgotten about the little flower with the embroidered center that I made to bring in 2011.

And, so grows my garden.  It now measures 55 inches long.  I think I will add another four flowers to the length before I decide exactly how wide I want it to be.  I haven't decided if I will be making a lap quilt, a twin size quilt, or a full sized quilt.  Decisions, decision, decision - lol!

If you would like to see other flowers around blogland, check out Karen's blog, Journey of a Quilter.  She provides a linky to other blogs where beautiful flowers are being created.

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TODAY'S GOAL

Today I will make a Bee block for one of the July hostesses in Let's Bee Together.

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GIVEAWAYS

Silly Stitching is having a giveaway to celebrate her 200th post.  You could win  a fat quarter bundle of Minick and Simpson's Christmas Past.  This giveaway ends Sunday, July 9, at 9 pm EST.

Sew Crafty Jess is having a giveaway.  You could win a GO! Baby Cutter and 3 dies.  This giveaway ends Thursday, July 7, at 11:59 pm EST.

Jaybird Quilts is having a sponsored giveaway.  You could be one of two winners of an Amy Butler Quilting Solids Fat Quarter Bundle from Fat Quarter Shop.  This giveaway ends Thursday, July 7, at 10 pm EST.

Lily's Quilts is having a giveaway.  You could win a FQ Good Luck bundle or a FQ Happiness bundle.  This giveaway ends Tuesday, July 12.
McCall's Quilting is having a giveaway.  You could win 1 of 3 prize packages, each including a Simplicity® 6 1/2" x 24" Simpli-EZ™ ruler, Graphic Impressions novelty tape measure, Simplicity® 4" curved blade scissors, and 14 fat quarters of fabrics from the Quilt Diva collection by Amy Bradley for Moda.  This giveaway ends Monday, July 11.

The Jolly Jabber is having a giveaway.  You could win a copy of Scrap Book Sensations by Kim Brackett.  This giveaway ends Tuesday, July 12.

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FINAL THOUGHT

I've been thinking about finally starting another full size quilt.  It may end up to be a lap quilt.  But at least it will be something more than one block a month, a bee block, or a swap block.  It will be simple quilt.  I think I need simple right now.  I love all of the hand work I'm doing but sometimes it just seems to move along so slowly.  I also need to start back up on the hand applique of the Baltimore Blocks.  I probably have too many  irons in the fire projects going right now and it all seems a little daunting.  Sometimes you just need to simplify and I think I'm there.  What do you do when you have too many projects going on at once?

The greatest step towards a life of simplicity is to learn to let go.
~Steve Maraboli