This Quilter's Empty Nest

Move Complete!

2012-01-30T11:56:00.000-08:00

This is the view from my back deck this morning. Earlier there were 6 black swans right near the shore. It was too dark to get a picture of them.

I'm glad the move is all done. Now if everything would just unpack and organize all by itself. Somehow I doubt that will happen, so my next few days will be spent unpacking and organizing. I'm moving slow as I have lots of sore muscles!

Packing

2012-01-28T16:07:00.000-08:00

Spent most of my week packing and cleaning. Moving day is tomorrow, and the day after that is final inspection of the old apartment. I will be so relieved to have the move behind me! I did find a few minutes here and there to sew a few stitches, but I didn't take any pictures as I accomplished so little. Since I have no new pictures of sewing, I will share a kangaroo picture I took last week as I walked with DH while he played golf. I think this was most likely a young mom and her toddler. They were just off the fairway and they kept an eye on us as we walked by. I wonder what they were thinking! Maybe....silly humans following a little white ball.

Finally Some Stitching

2012-01-21T18:41:00.000-08:00

This week I managed to get some stitching done and some pictures taken of my project. I know there are many ways to put a Cathedral Windows quilt together. This is how I have chosen to do mine. I'm putting it together in squares that are comfortable for me to work with. I'm setting it together like a 9 patch first. Here's one in progress.

Then....as I join the squares together, I will go back and stitch the colored squares into the windows. These are not stitched together, but you can see the windows I will have to fill in when I do stitch them together. I think I have more than 40 squares like this completed. I still have a long way to go.

In addition to stitching, I like to watch birds. These little birds are one of my favorites that I often see in the local area. DH and I went for a bike ride on the weekend and this little guy was nice enough to pose for us.

Australia Day is this next week. It will be a long holiday weekend for many folks. I will finish up with the packing as we move apartments on Monday and have final inspection on the old unit on Tuesday. It's going to be a busy two weeks so I may not post next weekend. I will try to get back as soon as I can.

This and that...

2012-01-14T20:36:00.000-08:00

Thanks to those of you who e-mailed and welcomed me back to blogging! I truly appreciate knowing I was missed. I will try to do better at posting. Please realize that I may not be able to show much new on the quilting front since all my work is now done by hand, but I will show what I'm doing and the slow progress I am making. That said, it won't be this week since I lost my camera on the last trip home for the holidays. Our little town of 6,000 doesn't offer a lot of shopping opportunities for cameras and electronics, so yesterday DH and I drove 1 1/2 hrs. to a bigger town where those things are readily available. DH found a replacement camera for me. Next week I may be able to post a few pictures of my Cathedral Windows blocks.

In addition to sewing, I am preparing for a move. We have been living in our current apartment here in AU for 2 years. Our lease was up in October and our landlord wanted a sizable increase in rent, so we elected to move rather than pay the increase. Our unit was completely furnished, but the bed has given us a backache since we moved in. We offered to pay for 1/2 the cost of a new mattress, but the landlord refused. We can't see paying a rent increase and still having a bed that gives us a bad backache. The new unit has a nice bed, is larger than where we now live, and has a view of the lake. It will cost a little more, but it's a price we are willing to pay for a bed that doesn't give us a backache. The new landlord is a nice person who will work to keep his property in the best shape possible. We are the kind of renters who take care of the property we rent as if it were our own home. The unit we are leaving is in better shape than when we took possession. We have repaired some things that were not working (at our own expense), but I guess the fact that we took care of the place means nothing.

Since I don't have any pictures of sewing related projects to share this week, I will share a photo I took in September. We are in a farming area and this is what the country side looked like in the spring. The lovely yellow you see in the photo is fields of canola in bloom. They raise a lot of it in this area and the yellow fields are beautiful in the spring. What is really difficult for me is the fact that I took this picture in early September........it was early spring here.....but my mind keeps telling me that it should be fall since I have always lived in the northern hemisphere. September is my birth month and my birthday was always in the fall!

Next week I promise something sewing related.....that is if I can figure out the new camera.

Update

2012-01-07T20:08:00.000-08:00

March 2010 to January 2012....that's a long break from blogging. Life just got in the way and I lost the desire to post to my blog. I'm hoping 2012 will be a good year and I can again work on posting updates. I am still living in Australia. We were sent here on a 2 year assignment. Our 2 years was up in October 2011. At that time, DH signed us up for 2 more years. I'm OK with that as people here are nice, but I do miss my house, family, and my sewing room.

I brought only hand applique with me when we came. I worked on that until a trip home in September 2011. I brought back a Cathedral Windows quilt that I had started way back in 2007. It provides a nice break from the applique. I do love applique, but I was wanting a change. I don't do a lot of shopping for fabrics here in AU because the price is so much more than in the US. Here most fabrics in quilt shops are about $20 to $25 per meter (39 inches). With the prices like that, I have only bought a few pieces that are uniquely Australian that I will use in special quilt to remember our time living here. I would promise to post a picture, but on our last trip home I lost my camera. I'm going to have to buy another.

We have seen lots of interesting sites in the time we have been here. Being out in the bush, we see more things about Australia than the usual sites of the big cities. I can drive about 30 miles from my home....walk along the banks of a creek.....and see these little guys in the trees.

It amazes me to see the koalas in the wild! I didn't know they grunt and sound much like a pig. I make a trip to this area about once every two months just to see how many of them I can count. The fewest I have seen in a visit has been 11 and the most was 28.

OH...my, it's been a long time.

2010-03-13T16:28:00.000-08:00

OH my, it has been a long time! Can't believe my last posting was July 30,2009. I told you in that post DH & I were getting ready for a move to Australia. In October we made that move and have been adjusting to life in a new country and seeing a few sites. You know you are not in Kansas anymore when you look out the airport window and see mostly planes that look like this.
Yep, those are all Quantas planes....and I was sitting in the Sydney airport waiting for the next leg of my flight taking me to an airport in rural Victoria where I will live for the next 2 years. Not only have I seen the kangaroos on the tail of the planes, but I regularly see them like this.
I snapped this at the local golf course. DH plays on Sunday afternoons and I walk along snapping pictures. The kangaroos are everywhere on the golf course. This momma was nice enough to stand and let me take her picture and little joey stuck his head out of the pouch at the perfect moment!

Not only have I seen kangaroos in their natural habitat, but we drove about 25 miles and saw this little guy in his natural habitat.
See that cute koala....well we went to this forest area arriving about midday and we saw 16 of these guys as we walked along the trail. Not only did we see these guys, but there were herds of kangaroo too.

We haven't traveled much yet, just to see things in our area. I've been surprised by the diversity of landscape within 2 hrs. of where we live. This is what my area looks like.....flat farmland and many, many vineyards.
See all that green......those are grape vines. There are also olive groves and lots of fruit orchards in the area. Within 2 hrs. we also have areas like this
This was taken when we drove up Mt. Buffalo. I was surprised to have mountains like this so close to us.

When I arrived in AU, I had already made contact with a group of ladies who quilt in the area where we were to live. They have taken me under wing and welcomed me so warmly. They have made the adjustment for me so much easier. We meet and sew every two weeks....or as they say... every "fortnight". Not only are they welcoming me to their sewing group, they are also teaching me "Aussie slang", introducing me to typical Australian foods, and trying to get me to develop an Australian accent to go along with my Texan...Virginian....Missouri accent.

So.....how is my stitching coming along. Well, I had to bring only sewing that I could do by hand, so I brought the papercuts on blue background that I showed in my post on April 13, 2009. I now have 9 completed and I'm well on the way to completing number 10. I haven't taken pictures of them, but I will try to lay them out and get a picture for my next post. My postings to this blog will not be regular as I do not have unlimited internet access as I had in the US. I will post as often as I can....and some postings will not have pictures. I do hope to get back to posting more often than I have been!

Where Oh Where Have I Been?

2009-07-30T09:36:00.000-07:00

Chasing myself....or at least it feels that way.

In June, I accompanied DH on a trip to a technical engineering conference near Salt Lake City UT. We took a few days vacation on the way there. The first day out, we drove across KS. It was beautifully green.
Near Limon, CO, we drove through a hailstorm like none I've ever seen before. Thank goodness the hail was small and did no damage to our car! When the hail ended.....it looked like about an inch of snow on the ground. We went as far as Manitou Springs, CO that first night.
See that mountain with snow in the center of the photo. Well, that's Pike's Peak. After we had dinner, we went to Garden of the Gods. We had a nice evening walk there and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. I snapped a picture of some of the wildlife we saw that evening. See the deer just behind the fence. The next morning we went through Alma, CO across Hossier Pass and into Breckenridge, CO. Scenery at the pass was just beautiful.We had lunch in Breckenridge and then headed on north to Grand Lake, CO. I visited a quilt shop there and bought a few goodies. The next morning we got up early and drove into Rocky Mountain National Park. I've been there several times over the years, but always later in the season. There was still lots of snow.
Since we were early in the morning, we got to see lots of elk near the entrance on the west side of the park. We also saw 4 moose.One thing we noticed throughout Colorado was all the dying trees. Literature we got at the park entrance said this was because of a serious infestation of the Pine Beetle. See the dead trees....well there are thousands and thousands of them.

Before noon, we were on our way north through Steamboat Springs. We were headed for Salt Lake City UT. The northwest corner of CO is very arid, but we were pleasantly surprised to see so much green there this year. I snapped this at the Colorado/Utah border.We actually stayed in a hotel in Ogden UT. Two days during that week while DH was in meetings, I drove the 25 miles into downtown Salt Lake and went to the Family History Library. That place is amazing. I enjoy doing family research and was able to find some info on my Texas family there. DH and I also had a day to do some sight seeing. We drove up through Logan UT to Bear Lake on the Utah/Idaho border. It's a beautiful lake and about half of it is in each state. There was a nice visitors center on a pass overlooking the lake so we stopped and snapped a picture.We took a different route on our way home. We drove across southern Wyoming & Nebraska In Wyoming,we saw beautiful sights like these.

After we got home.....life really got crazy. We have had some decisions to make. Decisions? You might ask what kind of decisions. Well, decisions that are going to really change life for both of us......in a good way. My husband has been selected to head up a program that his company is doing in Australia. This assignment is going to require us to move to Australia for 2 years. All this is happening so quickly. We will be going soon for a 2 week visit to look at housing. Then we return home until all the government paperwork is complete. As soon as that is done, we head down to live. I may not be posting much for a while because I am cleaning, sorting, and preparing for the adventure of a lifetime.

Done!

2009-06-04T12:03:00.000-07:00

I've been working very hard over the past few days trying to finish this baby quilt. The pressure became more intense on June 1 because the sweet little girl who is going to receive it was born on that day. She was a tiny thing weighing only 5 lbs. 9 oz. and was 18 inches long. Her name is Paige.

Here's a look at the back. I had a difficult time finding something for the back. I'm not overly crazy about this one, but it was the best I could find on short notice. Now, it's off to the post office to get it in the mail.

Progress

2009-05-29T17:43:00.000-07:00

I've shown you the sample blocks for the baby quilts I am making for my niece. I've also been saying I'm going to get it done.....and then I say I've been busy doing something else. Well, today I finally found some time to sew and I have made some progress. I still have some sewing to do, but at least I'm making progress!

2009-05-26T06:02:00.001-07:00

No pictures today! I did sew a few more blocks over the weekend, but no where near what I had planned. I hope to work on them later today after I run a few errands.

So....what did I do over the holiday weekend?? DH and I scrapped and painted the trim on the front of our house. It gets direct sun there and the paint was beginning to fail. It was hot and humid and the work was dirty. We worked on Saturday and Sunday because rain was in the forecast for Memorial Day. It did just that! We had a slow, drizzly rain most of the day.

Baby Quilt

2009-05-21T15:59:00.000-07:00

I promised a picture of the blocks I'm using in the 2 baby quilts I need to make. I'm using the same colors on both of them and will most likely make them both using the same pattern. One quilt will go to my niece and one will go to DH's nephew. Neither of them know each other and they don't live in the same area, so I feel safe in making them just alike.

These blocks went together very easily. I'm using a 6 inch finished and a 3 inch finished block. If you are interested, I am using a pattern I found online at www.About.com. You can find the pattern and instructions here. Janet Wickell is the designer and/or contributor of the instructions. My thanks to her for sharing!

At this point, I think I am simply going to alternate these two blocks. I'll also be making the larger 6 inch block in the same 4 colors I used in that smaller block. Of course.....I reserve the right to change my mind as I get the blocks all sewn together.

2009-05-21T13:38:00.000-07:00

My clematis has almost all the buds open now, so I thought I would share one more picture. Isn't it lovely?

I have gotten a start on the baby quilts I have to make. I'm using a bow tie pattern. I have the pieces cut and will show pictures soon.

Friday at my house

2009-05-16T14:48:00.000-07:00

Take a look at this! This is what Friday evening looked like at my house. Sorry for the glare, but I was trying to stay safe inside, yet get a picture of the dark storm clouds moving in to our area. This shot is looking north. See how dark it was just above the roofline of my neighbors house. I was really afraid these storms were going to bring more than just rain.

My internet was down and the tv was off, so I was really watching the clouds for anything that looked remotely like a tornado. That's one thing about living in the midwest that I do NOT like.

We were very lucky to just get hard rain. No hail and no tornadoes....just lots of rain. My garden and flowers really appreciate the drink!

More flowers.....but some stitching too!

2009-05-15T10:05:00.000-07:00

I took another picture of my clematis again this morning. That makes 3 days in a row. I've been playing with some of the features on Picasa and created this collage with the photos from the 3 days. I can really see the difference in the the photo from day one on the left to day 3 on the right.

My second amaryllis has two blooms open and two buds yet to open. Isn't this a beautiful flower?My little garden is progressing nicely too. My tomatoes are blooming and there are little buds on the peppers.
I planted onions all around the edge of the beds. They've come up too.

The light green leaves in the above picture is mustard greens. I decided yesterday to pick some of the little leaves and try them in with a tossed salad last night. That really added a nice flavor to the salad.

Here's my barrel with the chives and parsley and some pretty flowers. I used some of the chives and parsley in the salad last night too. It is so nice to be using things from my own yard in meal preparation.

I did not start on those tea towels. I stitched a little more on this block.
I'm almost finished with it. I have a little more stitching to do in the upper left corner, and then I have 4 little cut out areas to do near the center. Then comes the big task of deciding how I want to put the 5 blocks together!

Clematis progress

2009-05-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

I've promised to share pictures of the blooming progress of my clematis, so if you aren't interested .....that is all I'm sharing in this post. We had rain last night and apparently the clematis liked that. Here's how it looks today.

I just love these blooms. See those kind of hair-like, fiberous centers on the flower. When the petals fall off, those centers remain and they turn a little more tan than they appear here. That really shows up against the green leaves and adds a lot of interest when the flowers are gone.

I thought I would also take a picture from the other side of the plant so you can see that it has blooms all over it.

I promise I will share some stitching related again. I did iron some transfers onto tea towels yesterday evening. I don't think those are worthy of a photograh, but I promise to share when I start stitching on them. I decided to get started on another set, and this one just might be mine!

More Clematis Pics

2009-05-13T13:36:00.000-07:00

What a difference a day makes! Lots more blooms opened on my clematis today. I thought I would snap this picture today because we have a good chance for some severe thunderstorms and I don't know if the flowers will survive a bad thunderstorm.

80%

2009-05-12T09:17:00.000-07:00

The weatherman said this morning that our area has an 80% chance of rain today. With all the rain we have had lately, I'm having to mow our lawn about every 4 days just to keep it under control. While I was out mowing, I took my camera and snapped a few pictures. Remember me showing this photo of my clematis that is loaded with buds.

Well, I was pleasantly surprised to see some of the buds were open this morning. I love the color of the bloom on this clematis. As you can see, there are still lots of buds to open yet. I'll take pictures again in a few days and show the progress of the blooming.

My amaryllis blossoms had also opened. I moved this one inside and will keep it on the ledge behind my sink for a few days so I can enjoy the beautiful flowers. They will sure make the chore of washing dishes a little more enjoyable!

I've had some ask me why I do the lawn work. I consider it good exercise. I have a self-propelled lawnmower, so there really isn't a lot of strenuous pushing involved. I just get a nice walk in while I direct the mower. As you can tell from some of my other posts, I enjoy gardening and being outside. Since I don't work outside the home, I also decided this was a way for me to save a fair amount of money by doing the work myself. That's money I can use for quilting supplies and fabric!

My Mother's Day

2009-05-10T06:24:00.000-07:00

Since neither of my children are able to come home, DH asked what I would like to do. I decided since gas was a little cheaper than last year, and we hadn't been anywhere for a long while.....I wanted a road trip. I also wanted to go on Saturday rather than today. We first drove to the Amish area in Jamesport, MO. There is a little fabric store there that I love to visit. I bought these yard cuts of fabric. They have wonderful prices at this shop. I have plans for a stitchery project using some of these. There is also a bulk food store right next to the fabric store, so I bought some things there too. I did not take pictures here out of respect for the Amish people.

We then drove north and west from Jamesport. We were headed for the town of Rock Port, MO to see some of the power generating wind turbines that are being built around the country. I had read that Rockport is getting 100% of it's electric power from wind generation. You can read about it at www.rockportwind.com if you are interested. DH is a mechanical engineer and was excited about this portion of the trip. He has done a lot of reading about the mechanical aspects of the huge turbines. Mechanical aspects are not my cup of tea.....quilting and cooking is my thing.....but I enjoy one on one time in the car with him.....especially when the blackberry won't work because we are in an area with little to no service!! We got our first glimpse of the huge towers as we got near Conception Junction, MO. I stopped so DH could snap a picture.Since we had never been to this area, we had no idea the road would get even closer to these big guys!This picture doesn't really show how large these things are. Even though they are large, there is no noise and if you notice.....those cows don't seem to mind sharing their peaceful pasture! This still wasn't Rock Port....our destination, so we drove on.Soon we began to see a lot more of these on the horizon. Again the road took us much closer to them than we thought it would. These were near Rock Port and there were lots more of them than at the other location.

We stopped at the entrance gate to snap this photo. The gate was open, but there is a sign that says "Authorized Personnel Only" and we aren't authorized! See that black box at the base of the tower. Those appeared to be about 6 ft. tall. I wonder how these huge things will withstand the tornadoes and severe thunderstorms that often hit this area??

This quilter got a crash course in turbines, wind power, electricity, etc. for Mother's Day. While I still don't understand much of what DH said....I'm so glad we had the day together and could enjoy the beautiful scenery of northwestern Missouri! I'm also glad this country is making an effort to get us off dependency on foreign oil and moving toward clean sources for our energy. Hope this project proves VERY successful.

More plants

2009-05-08T12:00:00.000-07:00

I meant to also show how much my clematis has grown. It is loaded with buds and hopefully those will open in the next few days. It has a lovely pinky purple flower.

Gardening

2009-05-08T11:07:00.000-07:00

What have I been doing? I've been busy working with my little garden and my houseplants. In my last post, I showed you a picture of my raised beds with the new plants I'd just planted. I snapped a few pictures this morning to show how things are progressing.
We've had a lot of cool, rainy days and the plants love those conditions.

I bought a few flowers and some parsley and put them in the half barrel on my patio. The chives are from last year and we have been enjoying those in some salads for some time now.

I have another pot on my patio and I planted two varieties of lantana and a pink verbena in it. I love the fact that both of these flowers have lots of shading to the blooms they produce. Hummingbirds seem to love the flowers. I'm hoping they will help draw the little hummers as I love watching them. Last year they would gather nectar from the flowers, then visit my hummingbird feeders, and then they would perch on my tomato cages and take a break.

DH and I moved all the houseplants that spend the winter in the basement out to the patio where they will stay until next fall. I have had 2 amaryllis bulbs that I have had for 8+ years. I can never manage to treat them right so they bloom at Christmas......mine always bloom in May. This year is no exception. I enjoy the lovely bloom whenever it appears.

I'll snap another picture when the blossoms are fully open.

And now for my stitching progress. The tea towels are complete and will be going in the mail this next week to my niece. Other than completing those tea towels, I really haven't had much time for stitching. I'm hoping to change that this next week. I have two baby quilts to get made!

I'm headed outside this afternoon to mow my lawn. With all the rain.....I can just see the grass growing!

Thanks for visiting and....

Happy Mother's Day!

What's going on.....

2009-04-28T07:01:00.000-07:00

What's going on in my little section of the world? ?

I've been outside playing in the dirt! My DH built me some nice little raised beds so I could plant my tomatoes and peppers in the ground instead of in pots. I worked this past Friday getting those in the ground.
These plants have really grown over the weekend because we've had lots of rain. Nothing like rain water for plants to really take off growing! I'll take pictures again soon because I did add some marigolds along the edges of the beds to make them look nice in addition to providing some tasty tomatoes and peppers.

DH and I also went to a nursery this weekend to look at some materials for some additional landscaping we want to do. I saw this bleeding heart...and since the plants were 25% off....I had to have one for my little shade garden. I have a hosta and a clematis growing here also. The clematis already has buds on it!
I plant impatiens in this bed too. I still have to buy those.

One of the nice things about this house is my view out the back. My neighbor loves to work in the yard and his yard is beautiful. I enjoy seeing these dogwood trees in bloom each spring. The windows in my sewing room are upstairs and look out in this same direction.
And now.....for what I've been stitching lately. I have a niece getting married at the end of the month. I make a set of tea towels for nieces and nephews when they marry. I include some knitted dish-cloths and give them money to use on something they didn't get. I have 5 of the 7 towels completed, and only one and half to stitch yet. I've got to get them done as the wedding is May 30. We may not be get to go to the wedding since it is in TX, so I have to get them done in time to mail them.
I hope the bride will like these. I made a set for her sister who married last year. Someday I want to make a set for myself. These are the old fashion flour sack type fabric. I've bought some at one of the large stores...they come in packs of 5....but they are thin and not good quality. I ordered these from www.colonialpatterns.com and I'm very pleased as they are heavy weight and good quality. I have no affiliation with them......I'm just a very satisfied customer.

My favorite quilt

2009-04-19T07:53:00.000-07:00

Amy is hosting the Bloggers Quilt Festival. I'm going to try to get this post all correct with the proper links back to her site. Be sure to go there and check out all the others who have already posted and linked to pictures of their quilts.

Here's a picture of my favorite quilt. It's lap size. I made it using scraps from a Trip Around the World that I had made for my daughter's twin size bed. I cut the squares with scissors...not a rotary cutter. I handpieced the entire top and then handquilted it. I did the handpiecing as I watched the Winter Olympics in 1988. I loved to watch the figure skaters. I remember Debi Thomas was skating for the US that year. I have no specific reason for this being my favorite top other than I love some of the old, traditional patterns and I enjoy working with pastels.

2009-04-13T11:01:00.000-07:00

Easter was a nice and relaxing holiday at my house. With the kids being so far away, it was just DH and myself. It was raining here and we were housebound.

Being in the house....well, I could have cleaned, but nope....I sat and stitched. I finished the green on blue background! Here it is along with the pink one I finished some time ago.
I'll trim these down to size when I get all of them finished. I think the colors look good so far. The next one I'm going to work on with the blue background will be a rust batik with touches of pink and blue. However, I'm not starting on that right now....I started stitching on the last block with the dark gray background. I'm going to try to finish that little quilt before I do anymore on the blue.

When I snap this picture, I also took a picture of the back so you could see my stitches. I'm so proud of them. In the applique classes I took, we learned that your stitches should be fairly even and they should be straight like the stripes on the highway. I'm getting mine pretty consistent and straight. There's still room for improvement, but I'm much better than I use to be. Hope you can click to enlarge and see the stitches.

One thing I've heard many people talk about is the needle they use for applique. In the classes I took, we were encouraged to give straw needles a try. I hated them at first. They were so long and they bent so easily. But I kept trying and I soon grew to love them. At first I wanted to throw away a needle as soon as I bent it. I was told not to do that because the needle was bent to my hand. It was broken in...... like a pair of favorite shoes..... once it was bent to my hand. Now that seemed crazy to me at first because I was used to hand quilting, and I do throw those needles out when I bend them. I made myself applique with that bent straw needle and soon realized the teacher was right! When I applique is also the only time I do not use a thimble. Any other time I am doing hand sewing....I use a thimble.

Hope I can keep up the progress with stitching and have that next block ready to share before the end of the week!

Visitors

2009-04-08T11:03:00.000-07:00

Record posting day for me.....3 in one day!! I've had visitors and I thought I would share some photos.

I am busy with laundry today. As I was taking a break, I walked over to look out my back windows at the pond by my house. Look who is back!

The Blue Heron. I've posted on this blog about a single heron that visits the pond by my house for about 3 years now. I'm assuming this is the same one. Just before I snapped this shot, he caught a fish, and you could see it wiggling as he swallowed it. I'm sorry the photo isn't better, but I snapped it through the window and I didn't want to scare him. Maybe I should say him/her. I need to look closely at the identifying marks and then get my book on birds and figure out if it is a male or female.

The finch have also been visiting my bird feeder today. I love these little birds!

Looks as if some lazy homeowner needs to get outside and fill the other feeder for the little birdies. Maybe spring really is coming to my little corner of the world....and the birds are telling me so.

Papercut Progress

2009-04-08T08:40:00.000-07:00

Stitching with my Wed. sewing group was a lot of fun. I took my camera, but there really wasn't anything to photograph. We were all stitching away, but no one had anything to show. Some of ladies are working on some things that will be beautiful....and I will take pictures when they get a little more done. I enjoy this group so much. If any one of us has a challenge with their project, there is always someone that can help them. Quilters are such wonderful people.

I am slowly stitching away on my papercuts. Since I haven't shared any pictures of those in a while...here's the one I'm almost finished with. I still have four more little cutout areas to stitch. If you look closely at the block, you can probably see the areas that I need to work on.

I have a collection of batiks similar this one that I am using, and I'm planning to make a queen size quilt with these. This is a project that I have set no time limits on, and I lay it aside when I have other things I need to get done. I'll be putting it aside to work on 2 baby quilts soon.

Some time ago I showed some papercut blocks that I'm calling Licorice and Rainbow Sherbert. I haven't worked on them in a while because I had not decided how to put them together. There are 4 completed blocks, but I decided I wanted to set them on point. In order to do that, I needed another block....and the problem with that is I have no more of the rainbow batik. Some of my friends suggested I use a fabric close in color....and put that block in the center......then use that same fabric again in the borders. I have decided that is the right thing to do, so as soon as I finish the block I'm working on, I'll start on this 5th block. Here's my blocks as I'm thinking of laying them out. Can you tell that the fabric in that center block is different from the batik in the other blocks? As I have mentioned before, these papercut blocks are Garden City Gateworks patterns,and you can find them on Dinah's website at www.gardencitygateworks.com. I'm not affiliated with her...just a friend and satisfied customer.

2009-04-08T05:47:00.000-07:00

I was going through patterns in my sewing room and found these that my mom gave me. She used them to sew for me when I was a little girl. Since I'm now in my mid-50's.....you can understand why the envelope is yellowed. And.....look at that price!

Spring....maybe not

2009-04-06T05:20:00.000-07:00

Good COLD Monday morning! I thought spring was coming, but maybe not. Yesterday there were snowflakes in the air again and it is 29 degrees F as I write.

I have tons to do to recover from our recent trip, but one of my friends called last night to remind me that today is the day our monthly sewing group meets. I've not been the last 2 months because of other commitments or weather. So today I'm dropping everything I was going to do, and I'm going to sit, sew, drink coffee and talk! There are only 7 of us in the group. I'll take my camera and if someone has something to show, I'll ask permission to share it. Some months there is lots shown and some months nothing. We all enjoy our time together so much while we stitch.

2009-03-23T06:16:00.000-07:00

Not much stitching going on at my house this last week. I'm trying to get things organized and prepared for an upcoming trip to Texas to visit family. We will get to see parents....siblings....and DD!! I enjoy the visits, I just don't enjoy the driving.

Why do I do it?

2009-03-13T06:44:00.000-07:00

Why do I always do it? I work in my sewing room for several days, pulling fabrics, cutting things out, and sewing. I get so into what I'm doing that I just don't have time to put things back in their proper place. After several days of doing this, I walk in my sewing room and realize....TODAY is the day! I can't stand the mess anymore. It has to be cleaned up because I simply can't function with all the clutter.

This morning just happens to be that kind of day. My sewing room is such a mess, it's time to stop and clean. I'm not going to share pictures because who really needs to see my mess. I should be ashamed of myself for letting it get this way. Hmmm! Or maybe not....because I had such fun making the mess in the first place.

2009-03-10T06:26:00.000-07:00

The baby quilt and burp cloths went in the mail yesterday! One thing crossed off my to-do list.

I spent the past few days getting our tax stuff together for the accountant. Have I ever mentioned how much I dread this time of year??? If not.....then let me tell you I do! I don't know why because I actually use to work for a tax accountant, but that was BC....before children! I know how to keep myself organized and what the accountant will need. It's just so much time taken away from what I enjoy doing....stitching! After I finished at the post office, I stopped by the accountant and dropped things off. Item number 2 off the to-do list!

Since I had spent so much time on what I don't like doing.....I decided to take myself some place to simply touch fabric. My will power was kind of low, so I did buy some flannel.

I saw this cute cupcake print flannel and just couldn't leave it for someone else to have to buy. I have more burp pads to make, and I know one of the babies is a girl, so this print is perfect.

Last week I also stopped at my local thrift store. Many times my trip there is a look and leave stop, but this time I found several things. I have looked many times at some pretty china mugs at one of the local retail stores. The price they ask is $4.99 to $7.99 per mug. I found 4 of the exact ones I've looked at, and they were $0.99 each. I bought the 4 they had.
All 4 were in perfect condition! I also found some little ceramic plaques. These were $1.99. Apparently these were postage stamps back in the day when stamps were 29 cents.

I loved both of those books when I was a kid. I still have a copy of Little Women and I have it on DVD.

I also found a wool jacket that I am going to alter for DD. When she was in law school, we had to buy her a blazer and skirt that was suitable to wear in a courtroom. They were told to buy classic cut...no stylish detailing...and in navy, black or gray. When we finally found something fitting that criteria, the blazer alone cost $250. I've never spent that much for a clothing item. So, imagine my surprise when I found a gray wool blazer! It looks as if it has never been worn, it is from the same company as the one we bought....and I got this one for $5.99!!

I feel comfortable enough with my sewing skills that I can alter this to fit. Wish me luck! If I'm successful, imagine how much money I saved. I might just have to make a trip to LQS and spend some of the savings.

Sewing

2009-03-04T10:00:00.000-08:00

I spent a little time at the sewing machine yesterday. I had visited several designer's blogs recently and found a free pattern offered that I wanted to try out. I thought this "Airplane Art Binder" would be a fun thing to make.

I saw it on Terry Atkinson's blog at www.terryatkinson.typepad.com When her blog page opens, look for her "How To" on the side bar. Click on that and you can find the pattern there. Her instructions were really well written and easy for me to follow. I did make a slight change by not sewing all the individual pockets for the art markers. I made just one pocket instead.
You see, I'm artistically challenged and struggle with drawing stick people....now writing or scribbling notes is another matter. My binder holds one of the legal pad jr. notepads. I can also see these as being a wonderful, quick gift to make. I think I'm going to be making one for my kitchen and one for my quilting bag.

It's Done!

2009-03-03T10:38:00.000-08:00

Last night I finished sewing down the binding on the baby quilt I've been working on. Here it is....all finished. The Bear Paw is an older pattern, but this layout is one I just came up with on my own. I had planned to use 12 blocks, but that made the quilt much too large, so I used 4 blocks and then used some of the sub-units on the outside along with the half-square triangles in the corners.
This is the very first quilt that I have machine quilted. I am a hand quilter, but I felt this little quilt would need frequent washing and the machine quilting would probably be a better choice. I used flannel for the backing on this quilt. The dots matched the colors on the front so well.
However, I'm not sure I will use flannel when I make the next 2. I pin basted heavily and used my walking foot, but the backing seemed to want to creep and pucker. Therefore, I think the next 2 will have a regular cotton backing. I wanted the backing to feel cuddly. The flannel does that, but it is more difficult to work with.

I used varying length of the scraps to make my binding. I think that worked well, and I will do the same on the others. Using the small pieces is also the frugal thing to do....makes the most of my quilting $$.
You can see my binding a little better in the above photo.

Now I just have to wash the quilt and pack it for mailing. When I do pack it, I am including 5 burp pads that I made for this little guy. I looked at several different sites on the web and used some hints from each of them to come up with a burp cloth I liked. The basic pattern I used is from CraftAndFabricLinks.com under their free patterns section. Here's the 2 prints that will go in the box with the quilt. I hope the new mom and dad will find these little gifts useful. I know I certainly enjoyed sewing them.

For those of you who stop by my blog from time to time....you probably notice I've added a little statement on my sidebar at the top. I'd like to explain why I did that. Recently I saw a situation where a blogger went to another blog, took a picture without obtaining permission and then used it on his/her own blog. That is openly copyright violation. I just wanted to have a prominent reminder hoping to make folks think before they take what isn't theirs to take. I hope this doesn't offend anyone as I can assure you it wasn't meant to. I am generous and willing to share if asked. I am a firm believer in giving credit where credit is due and I try very hard to do that in my postings. I appreciate many of the quilters, designers, and companies who provide the patterns and supplies that I use when I do the things I love best....sew and quilt. I want to give credit to them for the things they share and produce, and I hope that it in some small way it might increase the sale of what they market. I also spent some time recently reading about copyright issues....and I was amazed at what I found when it comes to a blog. I didn't know that the blog owner could be responsible for comments left by others on their blog. With that in mind, I also decided to change my comments to be moderated before publishing. Did you also know that if you put up a post that has something that is a copyright violation....and then you take that item down.....it doesn't necessarily make the violation issue go away. And....if that copyright violation occurs on a blog that is a commercial or "for profit" blog, things could become even more sticky if someone goes after you in regards to that violation. If you've never read about copyright, you might want to Google that subject and read some articles on some of the reputable sites. It will either amaze you...or put you to sleep! I also went a step further in my quest for knowledge and asked my daughter, who took copyright and patent law, about the subject. She shared more than I ever wanted to know because she particularly loves the subject of copyright law. She tells me it is a very fast changing topic with lots of black, white and grey areas.

I like having a blog for myself and my friends and visitors. I try to keep my posts dedicated to what I'm working on and avoid controversial content......and I plan to continue doing things that way. I will continue to visit the blogs I enjoy and leave comments. I hope you will continue to visit mine.....and leave a comment now and again.

2009-03-01T07:29:00.000-08:00

No pictures with this blog entry, but at least I'm managing to post today! That's a good thing.

7

That was the temperature at my house this morning and we have about 5 to 6 inches of snow on the ground. We were in the high 60's last week, and now this. But, it is Feb. and we still have snows in our area into March. I hate the big temperature swings though. Local weather says we may hit 70 this next week.

I haven't had a lot of time for sewing this last week. The baby quilt I showed in my last post is all machine quilted and 3 sides of the binding are stitched down. I plan to finish that today and get it in the mail this next week. The baby is due at the end of March. I'll post a picture when the binding is completely done and before I pack it for mailing. I have to get myself in gear because there are 2 more baby quilts to make. The next one is due in May. In addition to the baby quilts.....I have a niece getting married. Her gift will be embroidered tea towels and a nice check to buy something she needs. I need to get those towels done too because that wedding is the end of May.

Most of my sewing endeavours this last week have been of mending nature. Nothing exciting in doing that as far as I'm concerned. In fact, I would rather sew a whole new garment than mend one......I dislike mending that much. But, I am and have always been a frugal person....so I mend. I do let it pile up before I get around to actually working on it. I still have some slacks that I wear around the house that need new elastic in the waist and then the mending will be done for a long while....I hope. I love to wear things with elastic in the waist when I'm home working. Comfort is key to me as I grow older....both in clothing and shoes!

I also have a sick hubbie this weekend. Fever, cough, runny nose, sneezing.....you get the picture. I have been staying as far away from him as possible so maybe I will not catch those germs. There was a big pot of soup for dinner last night. He said that made him feel much better. He said this is going around big time at his workplace and most everyone there had a flu shot, but are still getting it. Hope I can avoid it!

2009-02-10T08:03:00.000-08:00

I was busy over the weekend sewing and here's what I did with the pastel Bear Paw blocks. Now to just get it machine quilted and out in the mail!

Sewing, Planning, Cleaning

2009-02-04T06:48:00.000-08:00

Even though my posts are not regular, I am busy. I have been sewing, planning a few new projects, and cleaning.

One of the things I sewed recently was pillowcases for DD. Now, before I show them, I have to first give a little history. As new parents, DH and I started reading to our kids as babies. There was a bedtime story every night and most of the time those were from Little Golden Books. As our children got old enough to talk, they began to ask for their favorite story. DD's favorite was "Three Little Kittens" and we read it over and over again. We still have all those Little Golden Books! When DD and I were out shopping this year just before Christmas, we made a quick stop at LQS. DD found "Three Little Kitten" fabric and she begged for some pillowcases. So, what's a mom to do??? That's right, buy the fabric and make them for her 29 yr. old DD to accommodate those fond memories she keeps alive from her childhood.

I also made a couple more bucket bags. I decided to experiment with different size squares. The black, red, and tan bag was made with a 2 1/2 inch square and the primary color bag was made with a 3 inch square. The black one is for DD and the primary color.....I'm thinking that one might go to my niece. These are so fun to make. The Welsh Quilter posted a wonderful tutorial on making these bags.You can find her blog here. You then need to look back at her archives to June 23, 2007 to find the tutorial.

I also got in the closet and pull another UFO. I pulled out a BOM from several years ago. I have 12 blocks finished, but I was going to do 2 of each to make a large quilt. I cut and sewed on a couple of the unfinished ones this past weekend. I'm going to keep them out and sew on them each time I'm up in my sewing room. I only took a picture of one to give you the idea of the colorway.

And for my last thing to share. Several weeks ago I found out my niece was pregnant. I debated about making flannel receiving blankets or a baby quilt. DD said I should do a baby quilt, so I cut all the pieces to make a Bear Paw. I'm using pink, blue, yellow and green. Here's a couple of the blocks I made.

Then I found out 2 of my husband's nephews are also expecting first babies.....so I have gone back and bought enough fabric to make 2 more. Think I will make them all alike so there is no issue about one being nicer than the other!

My Weekend Projects

2009-01-26T06:31:00.000-08:00

This past weekend was a lazy one at my house. It was cold outside, so I spent a little time with my sewing machine once again. I pieced the backing for a quilt top I made several years ago. I really am trying to work on some of those UFOs I have in my sewing room! Now if I can just get the top, batting and backing layered. Since this quilt is a scrappy one, I'm planning to try my hand at machine quilting it on my regular sewing machine. I'll just be quilting in-the-ditch. Here's a pic of the top.

I also finished a pillow top that I had started for DD back in Nov. The pattern is called "Barrister's Block". I found the pattern on Marcia Hohn's Quilter's Cache. I really enjoyed making this block and just might try a scrappy quilt using this pattern....someday. I pulled the red, blue, and gray from my stash. Those are the colors from the college where she received her law degree. I thought the gray just made a nice background color.....and the dark charcoal borders just made the colors more vibrant. I had never tried using gray as a background color before, but I will do so again after the results of this project. I machine quilted this pillow top by stitching in the ditch.
On my to-do list for today is to clean up the mess I made in my sewing room over the weekend. I pulled several fabrics to find the one I used for the backing I pieced. I now have to put back everything I pulled

Does My Sewing Machine Work?

2009-01-14T18:35:00.000-08:00

With the lack of posts about any stitching I have been doing lately...you would probably think my sewing machine no longer works. However today I sat down for a few minutes and sewed these pillowcases.
I bought this fabric when DD was in college to make a pillowcase for her and her roommate. They both liked coffee and they enjoyed getting the pillowcases. I've had the leftover fabric laying in a drawer for about 6 1/2 yrs. now and each time I would open the drawer....I would think that I really should make another pair of pillowcases with the leftover fabric. Today was the day.....I finally got it done.........and I found out that my sewing machine really does still work!

2009

2009-01-07T05:11:00.000-08:00

Once again my nest is empty. I struggle as the kids leave and go their separate ways because I know it will be a long time before I see them again since one is in TX and the other in MD. I did get a little extra time with DD as we traveled to TX with her to visit DH's elderly parents who also live down there. FIL is 87 and not in real good health. While there we got to see a lot of family that we haven't seen in years. We all enjoyed the visit.

I was happy to come home though. After having lived away from the heat and humidity of south TX, I've become a softy. I hate that hot, sweaty feeling. Somehow, 80 degrees in Dec. no longer seems "Christmasy" to me. I've become accustom to having cold weather during the holidays....and I actually look forward to it each year. I'm one of those sick people who actually like snow and cold weather. Because I was gone, I'm so far behind. I still have outside decorations to take down....and decorations inside as well.

I've thought a little about what I want to accomplish in 2009. First of all, I want to work very hard on shedding a few pounds and doing the very best I can to lower those all important numbers associated with my diabetes. I am going to concentrate on completing some quilts that I have all the blocks complete, but not put together. They were BOM projects done through a local quilt shop. I will share pics as I work on those. I'm going to limit new projects that I start, but I will allow myself to start some new ones if I feel like it is something I really, really want to do. I want my sewing to be fun stuff! Since I am the "bookkeeper" in my family, I want to get my paper work in order and shred the unnecessary clutter that always accumulates. This spring there is also a little outside painting in my future. The porch rails need a new coat of paint. And then as spring comes on, I have plans for a small garden. I hope I can also do a little better at posting to my blog. Over these holidays, I put family first because they are important.

I'm hoping for a productive 2009!

The nest.....

2008-12-22T14:36:00.000-08:00

Oh what a happy quilter I am! My nest is temporarily filled again with both of my little chickadees. DS home from Maryland and DD home from TX. All is well and I can relax and enjoy these holidays. The stress will return when both have to travel back to their respective states!

2008-12-16T15:02:00.000-08:00

I've been sitting in my recliner this afternoon doing a little applique. Why? Because I deserve it after doing this!
Yep, that's right.....I cleaned the driveway so DH could drive right in tonight when he comes home from work. I did it with a snow shovel and my little muscles in my fat little arms! At least I can feel like I got a workout doing it. Now this guy who lives down the street from me.....he did it the lazy way. If you enlarge the picture, you can see him in the middle of the picture.
Bet he doesn't feel as good as I do after that workout I had!

This snow really adds to my Christmas decorations out front. I don't do a lot, but snow really adds the true seasonal touch.
I'm surprised the decorations are still there after all the wind we had over the weekend.

2008-12-11T08:16:00.000-08:00

In my last post, I shared some pictures of ornaments and my tree. How about a look at some of my other decorations! I don't do elaborate decorating, just enough to make it feel like Christmas.

I collect Nutcrackers. None of mine are expensive originals. I just look for ones that I like and I look for variety. These guys sit in my entry.
I put the rest of the collection on my mantel.
My MIL always had what she called little pixies hidden around her house and on her tree. She had the kids look for them. Several years ago I found one just like hers at a little variety store, so I bought him. He sits on the railing at the foot of my stairs.

Later I found a couple more of the little pixies and they also help decorate the stairs.

See the blob of brown in the photo above....well, it's this guy.....hanging around on the railing opposite the pixie.
I've put my table topper on the dining table. I pieced and handquilted it several years ago. I won the centerpiece at a Christmas party last weekend. It's fresh greenry and smells so nice.
And DH brought me this poinsettia, so I set a few other holiday items on the counter with it.
Last year I found this wooden tree. I stained and finished it and this year put a few decorations on it. It sits in my sunroom.
I have this Norfolk Pine in my living room and each year I put bird ornaments on it. It's difficult to see some of them with the drooping greenry. This plant doesn't look so good this year. I need to give it some TLC!

And this year I found these bells and I decided they should hang on my backdoor.
I'm a fairly ecclectic person and it shows in my choice of decorations. I have one more thing to put out. That's our nativity scene. I'll share that when I put it up.

2008-12-10T05:53:00.000-08:00

Life has been so busy at my house. We made a trip in mid-Nov. to Austin, Texas for the official swearing in ceremony for DD. It was so nice and DH and I are so proud of her.

We rushed back home so I could begin to prepare for Thanksgiving......and so DH could return to the deer lease for the last 5 days of the hunt. Hunting season here is 10 days and that swearing in ceremony was 4 days after opening day. He went and hunted 2 days, came home and we drove down and back (about 752 miles each way) over the next 3 days, then he went back and finished his hunt. Isn't he a good dad?? That's why I love him! Oh, and he did get a deer. We have it processed and I use it in place of beef in my cooking.

I made it past company over Thanksgiving, and I've moved on to Christmas decorations and preparations. I put my lights up outside the weekend after Thanksgiving before the cold and snow came our way. By the way, it is 9 degrees F here this morning and we have 4 inches of snow on the ground. It's bright and sunny, but yesterday the snow was coming down sideways and it was so dreary looking.

I put my Christmas tree up last Sat. We have had this artificial tree for 19 yrs. It is getting a bit shabby looking and I had thought about buying a new one, but decided to use it one more year and try to buy the new one right after Christmas....hopefully on sale! Here's my tree.

Hope you will not mind tilting your head as I'm not good enough with the computer to figure out how to rotate the picture. Looks like my kitty had fun last night. See the one ornament on the floor.

Since I've given you a look at the tree, I'll show you a few of the ornaments on it. I decided this year that I wouldn't get out the really nice ornaments. I decided to decorate with a few glass balls, all the homemade ornaments, and those ornaments that I used in the years when the kids were little and the ornaments were things that didn't matter if they broke. One of the first ornaments we hang each year is very old and is always hung high on the tree. My husband made it when he was a little boy. For those who may not recognize it, the ornament was made with one of the old rubber jar seals and a Christmas card. This has hung on every tree we've had in the 32 yrs. we've been married. It also hung many, many years on my MIL's tree until she gave it to me.

I've made several ornaments through the years. Here's a look at a few of them.
I really enjoyed doing the cross-stitch nutcrackers. I collect nutcrackers and made several of these ornaments when I found the pattern. I also enjoy crocheting. The snowflake ornament is made with size 30 cotton thread and is about 1.5 inch in diameter.

I made 28 of these little pony felt ornaments when my son was in first grade. The teacher asked me to make them and then she put a candy cane in them so they looked like a stick horse. She gave one to each child as a gift. The pony still looks good after all these years. DS is 26.

Since I like to garden, I couldn't resist buying this ornament several years ago. I hang it low since my kitty can't hurt it.

My kids often made ornaments at school and gave them to me as gifts. DD made the little wooden bear with her picture and DS made the gingerbread bear with wiggly eyes. That one still smells so good!

With my children both planning to come home this Christmas, I wanted our tree to be one with lots of memories for them. What better way than some of those hodge-podge ornaments....many of which they made! It's beginning to feel like Christmas.

One last thing.....I used multi-colored lights on my tree this year. One child likes white lights and one child likes multi-colored lights. I just felt colorful this year when I selected the tree lights. To be fair, all the outside lights are white.

I've not been doing much stitching lately. Life has just been too busy. I'm hoping things will settle down a bit after the first of the year so I can get back to my unfinished quilting projects....and maybe have some finished items to share on this blog.

A Little Good News

2008-11-07T05:54:00.000-08:00

Lately my posts have been so infrequent because there isn't a lot of stitching going on. Today my post is totally non-stitching....so if you are interested in something involving quilting or sewing....don't read any further.

I've shared the following picture with you about a year ago in December. This is a picture of DD and myself the day we brought her home from the hospital....Dec. 25, 1979. Isn't she a cutie!

At this point in her life, we had no idea what the future held for her. We hoped we could nurture her and teach her to be a caring and decent young woman. As she grew, she quickly showed us that she had an independent nature. She wasn't going to follow the rules of being a cuddly little thing that loved pink and wore ruffles. She was known to go in her room, remove the clothes I had put on her....and come out in her own choice of clothing. She was a daddy's girl and she loved wearing his cap. She's still a cutie in this mother's eye!
If I asked you now what you thought she might become by looking at the above photo......I bet the responses would be very interesting. I must tell you that she did have a very feminine side. There were times when she really did like to dress up in pink and ruffles.........and she loved her baby dolls. She's a doll collector today.

She even took time to stop and smell the flowers as she grew.

When she started school, she had a real drive to learn. She wanted to read right away....and she developed a love of books that continues with her today. I vividly remember her 4th grade year of school. One of her teachers recruited her to try out for a ready writing competition. The kids were given a topic to write about and they had to write an essay within a certain amount of time. The topic she was given was...."Who would you like to be like when you grow up?"If I remember correctly, she placed 3rd in the competition with several other schools. She came home and told me how her teacher had complimented her on the maturity of her essay. DD had written in that essay that she wanted to grow up to be a lawyer like Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. We weren't a family with any lawyers and we had not made it a practice to discussed the Supreme Court in our house, but we did encourage our kids to learn about the current events of the day. Again, if my memory is correct, this is about the time that Sandra D. O'Connor was selected to be a SC justice and that made a big impression on DD. I always told her you can be what you want when you grow up if you work hard enough. I thought she would pursue a career in writing or maybe in library science.

She worked hard through school, graduated from high school with honors, went on to college and got her BS in Computer Science. We were so proud when she graduated from college. She got a job working in computers, but I guess that 4th grade dream of becoming a lawyer was still very much alive in her because she saved every penny she made and one day told us she was leaving her job and going to law school. She paid her own way with the money she had saved and with a scholarship. We were so proud when she graduated after 3 long, hard years. That's her receiving her law diploma.

And yesterday she got the good news that she passed her bar exam and will officially be sworn in as a lawyer in the great state of Texas on November 18!! DH and I are so proud and in these turbulent times.....a little good news is so welcomed! Now we are hoping she will be able to find a job and become a good lawyer who can truly help make this world a better place.

Pillowcases

2008-10-24T06:47:00.000-07:00

We have company coming for Thanksgiving. DH's brother and his family will be here with us. There are 2 little boys in the family and one of them was born on Thanksgiving. I am planning to bake his favorite cake....applesauce cake....for him to enjoy while they are here. We are going to give him $ and let him select something he would like as a gift. I also decided to make him a pillowcase. I don't want the other little boy to feel left out, so I made him a pillowcase too. I think I will let the birthday boy pick first. Here's what they look like. If you enlarge the photo, you can see that the prints I used are perfect for 2 little boys from TX.

These pillowcases are fun to make and they are nice for gifts. While I was making the 2 for the little guys.....I made one for my niece also. I had made my DD pillowcases from this fabric and I still have enough for another 2 cases.

It felt good to sit and sew! I've been in such a slump lately....not sewing or posting to my blog either.

2008-09-25T12:57:00.000-07:00

Recently I made a trip to the apple orchards near where I live. I make a trip out there each fall to get apples because they are so much better than any I can buy in the grocery store. I bought plenty and like so many others....I've been canning some of them. Here's what I did early this week. The pint jars have Gala apples slices and the half pint jars have sugar free peach jam. I canned the apple slices without adding sugar too. I'm a diabetic so it will be nice to have these sugar free treats later on. I still have more apples in the refrigerator to can. I plan to make applesauce with those.

I have not been doing a lot of stitching. Just a little in the evenings. I am making slow progress on the blocks for my Rainbow Sherbet and Licorice wall hanging. I now have 2 blocks completed. As you can see, I have help when I try to take pictures.
I guess Truffles thinks she has to check out my stitching and make sure I'm doing it correctly. This happens each time I lay anything for a quilt on the floor.

Here's a picture without her interference!

These blocks are fun to stitch. The only thing I do not enjoy is working with the silk thread I'm using. I prefer to do my hand applique with cotton machine embroidery thread. DMC is my favorite. With this multi-colored fabric, I couldn't find a cotton where my stitches didn't show, so I ended up using a neutral silk thread. I hate stitching with it as it is so slippy.

Life, weather, and a quilt show

2008-09-13T08:11:00.000-07:00

Life has been busy lately, but with lots of things other than stitching. I have continued to attend my monthly applique class, but I've done little stitching outside class. I'm determined to change that. I'm hoping things will slow down as fall comes on. I am beginning to see signs of fall with a few leaves beginning to show a little color. There are a few Burning Bushes in my neighborhood that are turning red. That's a certain sign to me that fall is upon us.

It's been raining, and raining, and raining at my house over the past 3 days. Last night we even had tornado sirens going off as there was a touch down to the west of us. At the time, DH and I weren't aware of the weather alert. We had gone out to dinner. After dinner we were going to make a quick stop at Target for a few items. As we were walking into the store in Independence, we heard the sirens going off. Store personnel told us that shopping was being suspended and everyone was to go to the back of the store and take shelter along the back wall. What a frightening experience. I was very much wishing to be home in my basement instead of along the back wall of a Target store. I must admit that the staff at Target was very courteous. They even provided bottled water for everyone while we waited. I hope I don't get caught out like that again. It was scary!

There is a quilt show in our local area this weekend. I went yesterday and snapped a few pics. There were some very nice quilts. Most were machine quilted. I only saw 5 that were handquilted. I'm sorry that I can't give credit to the ladies who made each of these quilts. I didn't think to write down their names.

This quilt was my favorite. I really like the color selection...and the pineapple blocks used with the applique. It was machine quilted. The field was quilted in the ditch. The appliqued borders outline quilted around the pieces and the filled in the background area so that the applique pieces really stood out. I saw lots of quilts with lovely piecing and applique that were quilted all over with a pantograph and that quilting actually seemed to detract from the lovely work of piecing and appliqueing. Just a personal opinion there.

This lovely quilt was hand quilted around each hexagon. My photography doesn't do it justice because it was so pretty.

I like soft colors so I liked both of these. The quilt on the left had beautiful piecing, but it is one of the ones that had all over quilting that seemed to detract from the lovely work the lady had done. The quilt on the right was made using vintage linens. I have many that my great-grandmother made. This photo will definitely provide ideas for preserving those!
The piecing in this quilt was beautifully done. It was also machine quilted, but on this one.....it was done to highlight and feature the blocks and piecing.

And this little quilt was just cute! The maker had carefully collected fabrics for the background of each block. Some little boy name Zach will probably be a very happy little guy when he gets this quilt!

Garden Beds and Garments

2008-08-18T16:00:00.000-07:00

I've shown you several pictures of my tomatoes in containers and I've talked about wanting a raised bed garden. This past weekend DH was such a wonderful guy. He designed and made these for me!
We still have to dig the sod out of them and then fill them with soil for gardening. Our area has awful soil. It is mostly clay and is also filled with rocks. I set a few of my pots with flowers into the beds just to see how it would look. Next spring I plan to plant my tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers in these beds and my barrel will be for flowers.

The construction process on these beds was quite interesting. You see, DH is a mechanical engineer and nothing is ever done without a scale drawing. He even figured out how to cut the concrete blocks to the perfect angle so everything would fit together nicely. He cut them using a chisel and brick hammer. I never knew you could do that!

I have been doing some sewing lately, but not quilty sewing. I've been doing garment sewing for DD. She wanted some button front blouses that are a little fitted. We found a nice pattern and here's my first attempt. It was going to be just for fitting, but it turned out pretty nice. She plans to wear this with dark gray slacks.
Those little tucks make it look a bit dressy and they were not difficult at all. I haven't done buttonholes in such a long time, but those weren't too bad to do either. I guess you never really forget your sewing skills....you just have to polish them up now and again. I'll be making at least 2 more blouses for her using this pattern. I also made 2 A-line skirts. Here they are draped over my ironing board along with the blouse.

Sorry about the blurry photo. I have 2 more skirts to hem for her. I've actually enjoyed sewing clothes for a change. I need to get back to my quilting projects, but that may be a few weeks away as I will finish the garments first. This next week there will be no sewing. DS is coming home from MD for a visit. I'm so excited! This will be his first trip home since starting his job a year ago.

Garden Bounty

2008-07-30T06:43:00.000-07:00

There has been very little sewing at my house. I did cut and fit an A-line skirt for DD this last week. I still have to finish the seams as the fabric has a tendency to ravel. Then I also have to put on the waistband and do the hem. It felt so different sewing a garment as I haven't done that in a long time. I'm proud to say I can still put in a zipper! I'll take some pictures once I finish the skirt.

My container garden tomatoes are doing well. I planted red roma, yellow roma and cherry tomatoes. I like the flavor of the cherry tomatoes the best. Here's a little sampling of my bounty.
The peppers are a variety of jalapeno called "Fooled You". They are not hot, but instead taste much more like a bell pepper. The one bush I have is loaded with peppers. I also planted one hot jalapeno for DH. It is producing, but not as much as the FY pepper. The real trick is to pick the peppers at the same time and make sure I don't mix them up because they look so much alike. I don't like the real hot peppers!

I also have been harvesting basil and oregano. I'm drying that, crushing it and putting it in bags so I won't have to buy it at the grocery. I've also been snipping off the plants when I make pasta sauce. Fresh herbs give sauce a wonderful flavor!
It's raining at my house today, so I'm hoping that watering from nature will keep my plants producing those wonderful tomatoes and peppers!

Orange.....

2008-07-18T10:38:00.000-07:00

If you were to ask me what my least favorite color is when it comes to quilting, I would immediately tell you orange. Orange is an OK color, but one I just don't use much in quilting. When I look around my yard at my flowers, orange seems to be a much more appealing color. I have day lilies blooming that are a dark orange.
Isn't this day lily bloom so pretty? I love the way the orange and yellow blend!

Remember the lantana from my previous post. Here's a closeup of one of the blooms. The yellow and orange are pretty together here too.
If you enlarge the photo, you should be able to see the ant who thought these were nice flowers.

My orange daylilies are planted in this bed along with red bee balm and some other flowers. I planted them to screen the ugly green utility box. My neighbor thought Pampas grass would be a good idea....but I hate Pampas grass! When we lived in Texas, it was a wonderful hiding place for rattlesnakes. I've never liked it for that reason. Since the box is in the corner of MY yard, I got to do the landscaping......and it did not include Pampas grass! My neighbor even told me she liked what I had done.
I also have day lilies on the other side of the box. Hopefully the bed will be even more filled in next year.

2008-07-16T04:59:00.000-07:00

Norma at Random Stitches is one of my very best friends. As she mentioned in her blog, we communicate via e-mail almost every morning as we each enjoy our cup of coffee. She said some really nice things about me and gave me this award

I am then suppose to pick 5 blogs I read on a regular basis and give them the award. Well, as I looked at the ones I read on a regular basis....I noticed most of them have already received the award....so I will just say, if you haven't received this yet...consider yourself awarded.

I enjoy my time visiting blogs, seeing the various projects others are working on, and reading about things other than stitching that they enjoy doing in their daily lives. So many of the bloggers are so talented and their blogs are filled with wonderful ideas.

Thanks again to Norma for giving me the award.

Testing a knitted Swiffer cover

2008-07-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

Two posts in one day....can you believe it! I just had to share an item I finished this afternoon. But first a little info and background.

This morning I swept and dust mopped my hardwood floors. That's something I do daily. I do like to think I keep a fairly clean house....not spotless....but clean enough to be healthy. Some days I even sweep more than once a day. What I'm going to show later in this post is going to make you doubt this, but I'm going to show this anyway. And I promise....I really do clean my floors each morning.

Several weeks ago when my in-laws were here, I started knitting a cotton cover for my Swiffer. I had found the pattern here
http://erica.brembos.googlepages.com/KPZoom.pdf
I thought I would just give this knitted cover a try. My thoughts were I'd make a few and maybe not have to buy so many of the disposable sheets. I really had my doubts though as to whether this cover would really work. This afternoon I finished the last few stitches on that first knitted cover, sewed the side seams, and put it on my Swiffer handle. See....here it is.
I decided to run it over the same area of the floor I swept and dust mopped this morning just to see how it was going to work. I put it on dry....not wetting or spraying anything on it. I think I'm going to be making plenty more of these little covers because look what it picked up!
Yes, I know this looks awful....but.....see all that dust! It makes me feel like a sorry excuse for a housekeeper since I know I cleaned the same floor this morning. Maybe I can just blame the dust on this critter. Yep, that's right....Truffles my kitty!
I know Truffles contributes to the dust, but she is a lot of company to me during the day. She has a unique personality and makes herself right at home with all of us....

even DH. Don't they look comfortable! They were watching the new tv we bought. We finally bought a new one after having the old one for 15 years. Now my next "to do" item is finding a cabinet for it so I can hide all those ugly cords!

Still no sewing

2008-07-15T06:41:00.000-07:00

I've read on lots of other people's blogs that they are in a stitching slump, so I realize I'm not the only one. I have started the second of 4 blocks for the wallhanging I'm doing, but I haven't made enough progress to really share a picture of it. A few evenings this week I have been working on something to use up some small bits and pieces of crochet thread and yarn. Here's what I've been doing.
Some of my plastic hangers have been breaking. I've had these wire hangers stored on top of a cabinet for years and since I am trying to eliminate as much plastic as possible from my house...I thought I would get these wire hangers down and start using them. My husband's grandmother use to cover all of her hangers using using a heavy rug yarn. That was back in the day before plastic hangers were ever made! I learned how to do it from her. I thought I would use some of the crochet cotton that I have on hand to do mine. By doing that, I would be using up bits and pieces and would be covering the wire hangers so they wouldn't leave rust on any of our clothing. The next picture is a close up of the 2 hangers that I covered with bedspread weight crochet cotton.
And in the photo above....I used the heavier cotton knitting yarn that was left from knitting some dish rags. These were actually fun to do....and I'm recycling!

I have been spending a lot of time watering and caring for my outdoor plants. I don't have a garden in my yard, but I do have a container garden on my patio. I have been enjoying a few tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. Mmmm! Those homegrown tomatoes taste so much better than anything bought in the store.
If you enlarge the picture, you might be able to see my tomatoes and peppers. This is my area where I also try to attract hummingbirds. They love the bright red pentas. They also like the lantana. If you don't have lantana in your area....it's the solid yellow plant on the left and the variegated yellow and orange plant in the center. You can also see my small pot of herbs in the right front of the photo. I planted spicy basil, Greek oregano, parsley and a yellow marigold in that pot. I have made spaghetti sauce using those fresh herbs and it was wonderful.

Thanks for stopping by to see what I'm up to...and for taking a look at my patio garden.

2008-07-08T07:00:00.000-07:00

Summer is proving to be a very unproductive time for me with my sewing. I am busy, but not with stitching. For some reason those daily activities of life....like cooking, cleaning, ironing, mowing the lawn, caring for the flowers and veggies....are taking lots of my time. My flowers are doing very well and I picked my first tomatoes and cucumbers yesterday! I'm looking forward to fall when life will settle down a little. I always have more time for stitching. Now, while I am busy....I do a few stitches here and there. Over the 4th of July weekend I did finish this block that I had shown you in an earlier post. I have started the second of the 4 blocks I plan to use to make the wall hanging.

No stitching, but I've been busy!

2008-06-25T05:29:00.000-07:00

Seems I'm still in one of those lulls where I can't seem to focus and find the time to do any stitching. I have so many things that must get done around the house. Since there's been no stitching, I'd like to share some of what I did yesterday.

Early in the morning I decided to put a roast in the crockpot. Roast was on sale at my local grocery store and my family loves my roast and gravy with mashed potatoes. I decided to do it in the crockpot to keep from heating the house. I'm trying to be energy conscious these days. Here's a peak at my roast. I also fixed mashed potatoes, broccoli salad, and cucumber salad. You can see dessert later in this post.

After getting the roast started, I realized I needed to bake bread because we were almost out of bread. I have been baking our bread for years now. It's something I enjoy doing. Most of the time a slice or two disappears as soon as the loaves come out of the oven, but this time I did manage to get a picture before that happened.

While I was mixing the bread, I noticed I had two bananas that were going to have to be used or consumed with a straw. Somehow mushy bananas do not appeal to me....so I decided to make banana bread. I am a diabetic. My banana bread recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar. I altered the recipe so I can eat a little of this. Instead of the sugar I used 1/2 c. Splenda and 1/4 c. sugar. I believe the literature on Splenda says to use it cup for cup when you substitute it for sugar. I have tried that and thought that the item was too sweet. When I cut back on the quantity of Splenda, I liked this banana bread much better. You can see....it still rises nicely and browns just as well as with all sugar.
I also wanted to make a mixed berry cobbler for dinner. So I mixed that and put it in the oven to bake at the same time as the banana bread. I used some frozen berries that I had bought. I also used Splenda in the dough for this cobbler.
About the time the banana bread and cobbler were coming out of the oven....it was time to put the bread in, so I made best use of the oven heat and had the oven on for as short a time as possible.

After all the baking was done.....I then got busy with a chore I have been putting off for so long.

Yes, that's right....ironing slacks for DH. I don't enjoy that task and so I let it pile up until I have a mountain of ironing. I ironed 10 pair yesterday and have a few more to do today. Then I still have plenty of shirts to iron.

As you can see, I'm busy. I'm just not doing much stitching or posting to this blog for that matter. It's difficult to post when I'm not working on anything interesting. I'm sure hoping that changes soon!

Guessing game

2008-06-10T07:48:00.000-07:00

Let's play" guess what the weather was at Belvie's house on Monday"!!! Enlarge the picture below and look at the wire on the tomato cage. I bet you can figure it out.
You can see my hummingbird feeder hanging there. I need to make fresh liquid to put in that today! My cherry tomato plant is doing well and has lots of little ones on it. My roma plants also have lots of little ones on them. I just wish they were ripe since the news about tomatoes and salmonella. I eat lots of tomatoes. And, if you guessed that it was raining at my house again on Monday......you would be RIGHT! We had light rain all morning. At least we weren't having severe thunderstorms. I'm thankful for that.

There was no stitching at my house yesterday. I had to do my weekly shopping. DD came in the kitchen as I was washing things to put them away and she said my sink was colorful and pretty. Here's a picture of my fresh items.
Before I clean my veggies, I thoroughly scrub and disinfect my sink. I have a raised wire rack that I put in the bottom. It keeps the veggies raised about 3/4" above the bottom of the sink. I then rinse them thoroughly with cold water.....I spray them with hydrogen peroxide...then white vinegar...then rinse with cold water. I then repeat that again. I let them drain and then put things in the refrigerator. My family knows that everything in my refrigerator is clean and ready to eat except things in the very bottom drawer of the refrigerator. Do you have a special method of cleaning your fruits and veggies? If so, I'd love to hear about it.

See those big green peppers in the picture above. Those are jalapenos. I slice them in half longwise, made a meatloaf mixture and stuffed them....and baked them slowly for about 1 1/2 hrs. They turned out wonderful. They were a little hot, but the flavor was so good. I always make tomato gravy when I cook stuffed peppers, and so I did the same with these. To complete the meal, I made mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, and a carrot and raisin salad. It was a colorful meal. I should have taken a picture, but never thought to do that.

When I had my camera in the kitchen, I also took a picture of my African violets. A couple of them are blooming beautifully. I have a wide area behind my sink where I keep 3 of them (only 2 are blooming). They seem to like it there and I really enjoy looking at them as I work.

Hope you aren't bored with flower pictures because I have one more to share. My fuchsia plant is doing nicely on my back patio. I have never been able to grow these, but this one seems to be doing well. It is loaded with the little buds. Hummingbirds love the bright pink and purple blooms. Hope they find this one as I love watching those little birds!

My week is going to be a busy one and I probably won't post for a while. In-laws are coming to visit this weekend. My time for the rest of the week will be devoted to cleaning the house and doing some baking to prepare for them......but I will take time out on Thursday for my applique class. I deserve that break!!

Rainbow Sherbert and Liquorish Applique

2008-06-08T17:07:00.000-07:00

Wrote this post on Sunday evening, but had to shut the computer down due to thunderstorms. Seems those are almost an everyday occurrence in this area!

I realized today that this is the week for my applique class. In the past I have posted several pictures of the botanical blocks that I've made in those classes. Our instructor has started us on some of the patterns that she designs and calls "papercuts". I am not through with my botanical blocks, but I decided to work on at least one of the papercuts to see if I was going to have any problems or questions for her this month. Here's a look at my progress.

The background appears to be navy blue in the picture. Actually it is a very dark charcoal grey. The batik is one of my most favorite pieces of batik fabric. I have enough to make 4 of these papercuts. I'm thinking the 4 blocks will become a wallhanging or maybe a table topper. I think I'll call these blocks "Rainbow Sherbert and Liquorish". The blocks are about 18" square. The design is traced onto freezer paper and cut out like a paper snowflake. It is then ironed onto a square of the top fabric. The design is drawn on that top fabric with a mechanical pencil or marking pencil that will show up on the fabric. While the freezer paper is still on....pin the top fabric square onto the background square. Mine is pinned with several small brass safety pins on the backside placed randomly all over the square and then I use small applique pins in the area I am stitching on the top side. Stitching is begun by carefully inserting the blade of the scissors between the two layers and cutting a few inches of the top fabric leaving about 1/8 inch of seam allowance. Then the needleturn method of applique is used to stitch the layers together. You continue to cut and sew a few inches at a time. My sewing kit to take this project when I go somewhere consists of one spool of neutral thread, a dozen applique pins, and a small pair of very sharp pointed scissors. All these items can be easily carried in a small ziploc bag which makes for a very portable project.

Now, if only life weren't so busy.....I could settle down, get my projects prioritized, and actually finish some items!

Blooms, blooms, blooms!

2008-05-31T17:47:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned a few times that I love flowers....and plants. I took photos and shared some in my last post, but my pictures were no where as good as those my daughter took with her camera. Her photography ability far exceeds that of her "dear old mom".

Here's a picture she took of my amaryllis. You can also see the hosta I have planted in that bed. The red really looks nice with the green of the hosta.

And here is a close up for the bloom on my clematis. This plant is only 3 years old and is blooming nicely. I am so pleased to have nice blooms this year. In past years, a local bunny rabbit and I usually fight over this plant. The bunny wants to eat it off as new growth appears and I want it to grow so I can enjoy the beautiful flowers. I usually win after said bunny has eaten it off several times. This year I've seen him across the street in the neighbors yard. I'm so happy he decided the grass and plants in their yard was more tasty than in my yard!!

Thanks to DD for letting me share her photos!

I did do something sewing related today. DD and I went to JoAnn's and bought some fabric to sew her a blouse and a jumper. Guess my sewing time will be garment focused for a while. I will share pictures of what I sew even if it isn't a quilting item. Maybe I can talk DD into modeling for me!

No Stitching....but plants and flowers.

2008-05-29T05:38:00.000-07:00

Life is a bit crazy these days. I've been on the road again traveling. Hopefully that is over for a while because I'm tired of going! I'm not a person who really enjoys going. I like being home and relaxing.

I have not had much time for stitching lately. I had to get my plants out of the basement and I did plant a few veggies. This area has had nice rains and my plants are looking nice. Since I have nothing stitched to share....I'll share my plants. I think you might be able to tell I love plants too!
I don't have a garden plot, so I plant tomatoes and peppers in pots and mix flowers with them. My tomato in the whiskey barrel (pic on the right) is doing very well. I planted a few marigolds in with it and flat leaf parsley, chives and 2 cucumbers, but a lot of the other green stuff in the barrel is flowers that have come up from things that were planted in the barrel last year. I think there are petunias, verbenas, and marigolds that all have come up as volunteers. In the picture on the left, I also planted an orange roma tomato and leaf lettuce with that. The tomato is a new variety for me, so we will see how well it does. In the square planter, I have a dracena (sorry I cut the top off in the pic) and geraniums that have been in that planter for 5 yrs. now. I move them into the basement each year. That's why I have flowers so early!

I also like hanging baskets. I went to a local discount store and the fuschia plant in the photo on the right was marked down.... 50% off. Well, I just couldn't leave it there since it was such a bargain. I'm hoping the hummingbirds that I love to watch will find it. It has a ton of buds ready to open. I usually plant my own hanging baskets as they are so expensive to buy ready made. I like them with a variety of flowers. The one in the photo on the left has geranium, million bells, verbena, marigold, and a yellow daisy like flower. I'll share pics of this one again after it fills in.

I also have this little protected bed in my backyard. I set the pots of amaryllis back here. See the pretty red one. That one is a year old. The blooms look like velvet. You can also see my older one in the background. That one bloomed earlier. In that bed, I also have a large hosta, a bleeding heart, and my clematis (variety Nelly Moser) . You can see DD trying to take a picture of the bloom. I also planted a bell pepper in the very corner of the bed where it does get sunlight....and some impatients where there isn't much sun.

DD is home to stay with us for a couple of months. She is trying to pass the bar exam in TX. Her first try at it was unsuccessful. She missed passing by 10 points out of 1000. She was working full time and studying in the evenings. In law school, they were told not to work and to study 10 hrs. a day to pass it. After getting her scores, she decided in order to pass it, she would leave her job and devote her full time to studying for it. With her being home 2 months and studying all day.......we hope this next time will be her time to pass. I will most likely drive with her to TX in July when she takes it. Then she will have to wait 2 months to know if she passes. Those will be anxious times for both her....and this mom!

I hope to soon have some sewing items to share. My fingers are itching to stitch again. Now if I can just find the time!

I'm home again

2008-05-12T07:52:00.000-07:00

I'm back from Texas. Had a nice time down there. Went to my niece's wedding. She was married in this church in the hill country town of Boerne.

This church was at the center of a US Supreme Court case several years ago concerning historic preservation desired by the city...and enlarging the building desired by the fast growing congregation. The city won, but then allowed them to add on to the building anyway. Can you see the modern section? It was all added at the back of the building and that seems like a win-win situation. You can see the roof of the new addition on each side of the building through the trees if you look closely. This church is just beautiful inside!

While we were there, we also visited my husband's brother who lives in the same area. His nephew is in 4-H and involved with horses. They were having a trail ride for the kids in 4-H on Saturday morning, so we went for a little while before we had to dress for the wedding. Here is part of the group getting ready for their group photo.

It was on the Sister Creek Ranch. This place has some beautiful scenery. I snapped a few photos and thought I would share them since they turned out pretty well. I have no affiliation with this ranch, but I sure enjoy my short visit there. I've tried to provide a link to their website if you would like to look at some of the wonderful pictures they have there or read more about their facility. The owner and staff were such nice people!!

Amazing!

2008-04-29T15:57:00.000-07:00

It's amazing what a difference 12 days can make. Remember this picture of my crabapple tree. I posted it on April 17.

I walked out my door to get the mail today....and this is what the same tree looks like.

My creeping flocks are also blooming. I hope you can see them. They are the little mounds of pink flowers under the tree.

I won't be posting anything for a week or so. DH and I are traveling to TX to my niece's wedding and to visit our parents. I've got some stitching packed to take along. Hope I have something to share when I return.

Spring Fever

2008-04-25T07:50:00.000-07:00

What have I been up to?? Well, not much. I truly think I have a bad case of spring fever. Remember my red tulips I shared in a previous post? Well,I now have another variety of red tulips blooming. The bulbs for these are some I found for $1 at a local bargain store. I think my $1 was well spent!

I've also caught myself gazing out my back windows because I've had these little folks visiting.

I filled and hung all my bird feeders last weekend. It seems that I have had more birds visiting my feeders than in past years. I've had finches, purple finches, cardinals, and bluebirds. I have a feeder filled with wild bird seed...and one filled with thistle seed for the finches. The little finches above chose to dine on the wild bird seed.

Sunday was the first fairly warm day in our area. Lots of folks were out and about. DH wanted to get out and this is where we went.

This is a golf course in a rural area not far from our home. He loves to play golf....I don't play at all, but I do like to walk and this course is welcomes me to walk with him as he plays a round of golf. It's a wonderful place for me to get exercise and spend some time talking with him as we walk from hole to hole. In addition to the exercise, there's a lot of nature to observe. If you enlarge the water picture above, you might be able to see a blue heron that was flying around while we were there. He landed in the end of the lake and went fishing.

In another section of the course, we saw another blue heron. He caught his dinner!

While many of the trees are just beginning to bud, the Bradford pears are in full bloom and are just lovely.

I'm enjoying my case of spring fever this year. I promise I will eventually get back to sewing and quilting and will have pictures of those items to share. Oh, and my walk around this golf course as I took these pictures was just under 5 miles!

32!!!!

2008-04-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

What is so special about 32??? Well....as of today....that's the number of years DH and I have been married! Last night he came home from work and he was awful slow getting into the house. When he came walking in, he had these.

He said he bought them a day early so I could enjoy them all day. What a sweet thought! I think I'll keep him for at least another 32. Please ignore the alcohol bottles in the background. I didn't get all my shopping items put away yet.

Spring seems to be popping everywhere around the area. Yesterday I took pictures of my red tulips.

They are such lovely flowers. I just wish they would last a lot longer. My crab apple tree also has buds and will be a mass of pink soon.

I'll share a picture of it now and will take a picture of it when it blooms and share those too. I've also been having lots of little birdies in my backyard....cardinals, finches, and some beautiful bluebirds. Bluebirds are such vibrant blue. The one in my yard looked like this one. It so good to finally have winter GONE!

2008-04-15T09:40:00.000-07:00

Lately my time has been spent sewing some small items. I've needed to make a few gifts and some canvas bags for DD. This past weekend I made a journal cover for a 13 year old niece.

I made up my own pattern and used one of the composition books that you can buy at an office supply store or at WalMart. I put a divided pocket on the front with a place for a pen on one side. Here's what it looks like opened up.

There are somethings I could do to improve my pattern. I'm planning to make more of them, so I will try the improvements on the next one.

This last photo is of the backside. I chose to have the flap closure fold around to the back and fasten with Velcro. This was fun to make!

Tulips and daffodils

2008-04-10T08:46:00.000-07:00

I've done so much complaining about weather through the winter. Now it's time for me to lighten up and share the wonderful part of spring!

I worked hard last weekend cleaning out the debris from my flowerbeds and putting down fresh cypress mulch. I also planted some yellow pansies. I love the bright yellow daffodils and the red tulips in the first picture. Those are my favorites.

Where's your fish from?

2008-04-08T09:30:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks I've been doing lots of label reading as I shop for food for my family. I've done that for many years now because I am a diabetic. My label reading has been for nutritional content so I know what is in an item and how it will work in my diet. Recently I have begun to read labels to find where the food is grown and/or processed. Sometimes this information is microscopic and very hard to find, but I was able to find it on every item I picked up. Somehow food processed in China doesn't have a lot of appeal to me especially in light of all the issues with lead and children's toys. I would rather buy food that I know has been grown and processed in the US or a country who tries to have cleanliness standards to protect people.

As I shopped this last week, I was going to buy some frozen fish fillets to fix for dinner. DH and I had watched a program on an American fishing boat in the Bering Sea. Baked fish with lemon pepper and a little butter just sounded so good. I picked up a bag of frozen cod. Product of China! Each bag or each variety of fish I picked up was either a product of China or product of China and processed in the US. I don't want a product of China. Is there no longer a product of the USA available?? If not, then I'm not going to eat fish. Are my supermarkets in the Midwest the only ones that are this way? If you buy frozen fish....do you look at where at comes from? Or does that matter to you?

I have not had much time for sewing lately. Spring has sprung at my house. I have been putting out mulch, planting flowers, moving perennials and even mowing a little. I am itching to get back to my sewing machine and make something. Unfortunately, today isn't the day for that to happen because I have a mountain of ironing to work on. But....maybe tomorrow will find me with a little time for stitching. I certainly hope so!

Another Bag

2008-03-24T08:35:00.000-07:00

It was a quiet weekend in our little "empty nest". DH cleaned flower beds for me so they are ready for planting spring and summer flowers. I noticed yesterday that I have one daffodil bloom. After a long, hard winter....spring really is on the way!

I managed to do a little sewing this weekend. I made another one of the bucket bags. I used Andrea's instructions, but this time I used a 3 1/2 inch square making the bag a little larger. I also shortened the handles and changed the shaping at the top a little. Here's the bag I made.
And for comparison, here's a picture of the first bag I made a few weeks ago using Andrea's exact instructions.

Maybe you can see the changes I made where the handles join the bag. I am planning to make another one of these and I am going to use much smaller squares to make a much smaller bag. Thanks to Andrea for sharing her tutorial in June 2007.

I also knitted 3 dish clothes as DH and I were watching tv in the evening.

This is my favorite pattern. I don't like a real thick cloth and with the holes in this one, it doesn't seem as thick as some of the others I have knitted. I plan to knit these throughout the year so I will have them on hand to give as small Christmas gifts. As you can see, I still need to weave in those little yarn tails!

Happy Birthday!!

2008-03-21T20:40:00.000-07:00

Twenty six years ago today, I was at the hospital getting this!
Yes, that's right...DS was born 26 years ago today. Wish I could have cooked dinner for him and made him a cake, but he is living and working on the east coast. I had to be content to talk to him on the phone this evening.

This afternoon I sewed a little. My project was not quilting, but I can use it when I quilt. I have been wanting to make an apron to keep my scissors, small rulers, pencils, etc. when I sew. I found a pattern for a gardening apron and with a few minor changes, here's what my apron looks like.
I can now put my tools in the pockets as I work and not lose them!

Another finish!!!!

2008-03-14T15:26:00.000-07:00

In my post on Feb. 19, 2008, I showed some pillowcases that I had just finished. They were an old UFO that I found when I was cleaning in Jan. When I was cleaning I also found a tablecloth that I had started LONG ago. When I say long.....I mean real long. I know it had to have been sometime around 1983 when I started this. How do I know this? I know the tablecloth was given to me by my neighbor, Mrs. Thornton, and we moved from that house in 1983. I have worked on it off and on through the years and when I found it in January, all I needed to do was the centers of all the flowers. After I finished the pillowcases, I started work on this tablecloth. I worked a little each night.......and it is now finished! I'm sharing pictures of it before I iron it as I am getting ready to put it in the wash.
This tablecloth was a kit from Lee Wards. I remember Mrs. Thorton telling me she had gotten it in a grab bag she had ordered from them. She told me she would never do it as she only enjoyed quilting and had no use for a tablecloth.

It is so hard to believe that it took me 25 years to finish this. I should be ashamed of myself. But at least it is finished. Now I can move on to another completing another project.

2008-03-10T09:23:00.000-07:00

Last week was a busy week for me. I was dealing with the dreaded income tax stuff. Several of the blogs I visit said their owners were doing the same, so I know that most likely I was not alone in being stressed and in a not so good mood. Stitching didn't happen for me this past week. Hopefully this week will be a better one.

I've visited several blogs this past week that were sharing their pin cushions. Since I have nothing else to share, I thought I would snap a picture of some of my pin cushions.

Ironing Boards

2008-02-29T08:11:00.000-08:00

I've been seeing lots people posting pictures of their ironing boards and decided I wanted to play too. Libby at A Simple Girl is the one who asked to see. In general the covers on all of them are in fair shape. I don't use fusible web when I applique, so I don't have the mess that can create. Mine just get worn with age and use.

I'm lazy. I don't like climbing up and down the stairs in my house to get to the ironing board. My laundry room is on the main floor of my house and my sewing room is upstairs. So....being lazy.....I have more than one ironing board.

Here's the first one. It's a little portable board. When I am piecing, I set it on top of a rolling cart that I have filled with fat quarters. It is sitting just to the right of my chair at the sewing machine so that all I have to do is turn to press something. I love this iron! It's a Norelco steam iron that I bought many years ago. I've tried to buy another just like it but they are no longer made. It gets hot and doesn't spew and spit water when you are using the steam. It has even been dropped on the floor and still works like the day I bought it.

I also have another ironing board upstairs. This one is very old. It and the iron sitting on it were my grandmothers. The iron weighs a ton and is not a steam iron. It still works and when I use it, my muscles get a workout because it is so heavy. This one is set up in what use to be DD's room.

And this last one is the ironing board I keep downstairs. My laundry room is just around the corner. You can see what happens when I don't take it down after I'm through ironing. It becomes the catch all of mail and all sorts of other junk. The iron on this ironing board is my least favorite. I bought it because I had heard lots of people rave about how wonderful they were. What a disappointment! It doesn't get very hot and is a pain in the rear to clean. I won't be buying one like this again. Since it doesn't get very hot, I use it to press DH's shirts for work and the creases in his slacks. My least favorite iron for my least favorite chore!

My First Quilt

2008-02-28T09:00:00.000-08:00

Since I have felt a little under the weather the past several days, I haven't done much in the way of stitching. I thought I would share a few pictures of the very first quilt that I both pieced and quilted. I had quilted other quilts before this one, but they were tops that my mom and grandmother had made and given to me. The first quilt that I totally made by myself is a bargello quilt. Before I show pictures, let me share a little about how I selected my colors.

At the time I decided to make this quilt top, I was also doing some counted cross stitch. I was working on couple of pictures from kits that I had paid $15 for.
Here's what they look like....and they are still unframed! I loved the colors in these pictures and so I took them to the quilt shop when I signed up for the class and picked my fabrics using the pictures to select my color pallet. I took the class in 1989 at a LQS (it is no longer in business) in Waco, TX. We were living in a small community just west of there at the time. Here's my bargello quilt from that class.

We met for 3 classes to make this top. Then we were on our own to finish it. It is a queen size quilt. I hand quilted mine using a large round wooden hoop. It took me 6 months to hand quilt it working a little each evening. Back at that time, I was a busy mom with 2 kids in elementary school. I don't know how I managed to find as much time to sew as I did!

Oh....and about the unframed cross stitch pictures. After I made the quilt and finished the pictures, I thought I would have them framed and hang them in the room. These pictures are long and narrow....about 12 inches wide and 21 inches long. I took them to a local frame shop in the late 1990's and got estimates on having them framed with no mat and using a very plain frame. I was quoted a minimum cost of $102 for each picture. Yep, that's right...at least $204 to frame two $15 kits. I kindly thanked the store owner and told him I would have to think about it. As you can see.....I'm still thinking more than 11 years later. My answer to that professional framing charge is....I don't think so!!! I need to make my own frames and do it myself as I put so much work into those pictures. I have framed several others myself, so I know I can do it once I have the proper size frame made. The pictures are pressed and hanging in the closet with all my fabric stash. I'm going to make it a goal to frame them this year. Hopeful another UFO out of the way!!

2008-02-24T06:07:00.000-08:00

Not a lot going on at my house this weekend. I did finish putting the borders on my stitchery and I selected my floss colors. Here's a picture. Now all I have left to do is trace the design onto the blank blocks.....and begin stitching!

No new project starts....NOT!!!

2008-02-21T10:40:00.000-08:00

I know I said I wasn't going to start anything new, but I had time on my hands yesterday and I decided work on the Bareroots wallhanging pattern I shared with you earlier. In case you don't remember.....this is it.

I have no affiliation with them, but if you like stitcheries and patterns, you can see more of their products at their website www.Bareroots.com

Andrea at the Welsh Quilter liked the pattern when I showed it and she ordered one too. She already has some of her stitching done. You can see hers here. Seeing hers motivated me to get a start. I decided I wanted to select my own colors, so I am piecing the background first. Then I will trace the designs and do the embroidery. Here's a look at what I pieced last night.

I still have 3 border strips to add. I also have to decide what colors of floss to use. I think I will assemble this into a ziploc bag as a take along project once the design is traced and the floss selected.

When I worked on this last night, I did not sew one of the string blocks I've been making each time I sit down at the machine....so I will make 2 today. I do plan to sew because I am staying in where it is warm. We had sleet after midnight and with it being so cold...the roads are slick and icy. Today was to have been my monthly applique class at LQS. This is the third month I have not been able to go because of the weather. Would someone else like at little sleet, ice and snow?? I'd be happy to try to send it your way!

I finished something.

2008-02-19T17:07:00.000-08:00

When I was doing my cleaning and organizing in January, I found a set of pillowcases that I had been embroidering about 8 years ago. I had put them away so I could work on other projects and....of course.....they were not finished. This past week I didn't do much stitching, but I did work on those pillowcases. Here they are...all finished!!! I think the red I used for the bird is a little bright in relation to the colors I used for the dogwood blooms, but I wasn't about to take it out and redo them. That color will do just fine on my pillows.

It certainly does feel good to finally finish some of the needlework projects I started long ago and just didn't finish. I hope I can keep that up during this year and clean out some UFO's. I won't commit to not starting something new because I think that would set me up for failure and frustation. I'm going to allow myself to start small projects, but no large quilt projects until I finish the ones I'm currently working on.

Do you see a theme going here with this post and the one before it? I just realized both projects were cardinals. I mentioned in the other post that I'm ready for spring. Well, that hasn't changed....and we are again awaiting another artic front. Our windchills are to be about -10F tonight. With cold winds like that....I think the only cardinals I will be seeing are the ones on these pillowcases. All I can say is BRRrrrr!!!

A Touch of Spring!

2008-02-12T11:00:00.000-08:00

In all my cleaning and organizing over the past few weeks, I happened to find this block....and it added a little touch of spring to the long, dreary winter days we've been having! The pattern was in the Quilters' Newsletter Monthly, April 2003. It was part of an article written by Mary Sorensen on "Skinny Stems". I made this block about the time the article came out. I can look at it and see how much my applique has improved since 2003. On this block, my skinny stems aren't so skinny! And my circles are not so round. They have these little pointy places that I now know how to prevent. However, this block is going to be completed with all those flaws left just as they are. They are a part of my learning experience! All I need to do to this little guy is decided whether I want to use a button for his eye or whether I want to embroider his eye....then add borders and quilt. This is going to become a small wallhanging for my home. I'll post a picture when I finally finish it. I have it sitting on my cutting table for now, so I can decided about border fabric.....and think of spring.

What Color is Your World Today?

2008-02-06T14:17:00.000-08:00

As I was sitting at my sewing machine working today, I looked out my window. The world outside my window is white today.

Winter has revisited the midwest and there is a blank of sleet and snow in many areas. My mind began to wander and for some reason the song "Color My World" came to mind. If I remember correctly, it was a song done by Chicago. I do believe I am dating myself by mentioning that!!

Now, for something a little quilt related. I made another block from my scrap bin. I've decided that I will try to make one each time I sit down to sew on a project. So...when I sat down in my chair to start sewing...the first thing I did was sew a block from scraps, then I could move on to my project. Including the block I made this morning, I now have 6 blocks made from my scraps.

If I can keep this up...maybe my scrap bin will eventually be empty!!! Or then again maybe not, because there is always a new project to create more scraps.

Intentions

2008-02-03T15:50:00.000-08:00

Today I had intentions of working on my applique. I am having trouble focusing on that, so I decided to do something else. What to do?? I have nothing prepared and ready to go at the moment, so I grabbed my box of odd sized scraps.
I have been saving my dryer sheets and pressing them to use a backing for string piecing. I took my small scraps and sewed pieces together using the dryer sheets. Here's one of the pieces before trimming.
And after trimming, here's what my blocks look like.

I made 3 of them in just a few minutes. These blocks are 6 inches x 8 1/2 inches. If I do this occassionally, I will eventually have enough blocks to make a lap throw. My Wednesday sewing group makes quilts for a battered women's shelter. Maybe a quilt made from even my smallest scraps would provide a little comfort to someone.

It's finished!!!

2008-01-29T13:30:00.000-08:00

Can you believe it??? Two posts from me in one day! I just didn't feel like ironing and neither did I feel like cleaning. Maybe it is because we have gone from 55 degrees F outside at 6am to 18 degrees and blizzard like conditions at noon. Since it is awful out.....I decided to sew on my bag and finish it.

Here's what my lining looked like before I put it in the bag. I used the bits and pieces I had left from the outside.
And this is how it looks inside the bag. See the little blue square. That's a little pocket I added to hold my cellphone or keys.
I hope you can see the handles in this photo. My handles are only 20 1/2 inches long. That length was determined by the length of my fabric strips. I made them as long as I could by piecing 2 strips together for each handle.
And here's another shot of the bag.

This was not hard to make with Andrea's wonderful instructions. I now have a nice bag and I used up some scraps. I will make more of these. Think I will make one for DD as a gift for next Christmas! I plan to use my bag when I go to the library. It is large enough to hold several books.

Thanks again to the Welsh Quilter for posting her wonderful tutorial. If you are interested, you can find it on her blog. I am not good enough with the computer to link you to the particular post, but if you look in June 2007, you will find her 4 Part tutorial.

Is this what you thought???

2008-01-29T08:20:00.000-08:00

Ok.....here's what I'm making.
Yes, that's right.....a bucket bag. Andrea, the Welsh Quilter, shared a wonderful tutorial back in June 2007. I've had that bag in my mind since she posted it and when I was cleaning scraps and came across this little collection of small pieces....I thought they would make a cute bag. None of my pieces are large enough to cut the lining and the handles, so I will be piecing them from smaller pieces. I'll share the completed bag when I get it done. It may be next week before I get it finished as I have some mad cleaning to complete before the end of the week! I've also got a ton of ironing to do. Anyone want to come help with that chore????

I had to get out and run a few errands yesterday. My local store probably knows I'm a sucker for plants and that's why they put them right by the door where I have to walk in! Yesterday they had African violets. I have several of those already, but I didn't have this particular color.

This little plant just said, "Take me home.....please!!!!". .........so I did. I thought the measly $2.47 wouldn't break the budget, and it would bring lots of bright moments to the dreary, wintery days we are having. Ahhhh! Dreaming of spring here....with temps dropping outside and snow in the forecast for afternoon.

Do you know what I'm making??

2008-01-28T10:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had good intentions of cleaning up some more scraps...cutting them into squares and strips and putting them into bins. I ran across a scrap bag I had picked up a long time ago at LQS. The pieces range from 10 inches x 12 inches up to 15 x 18 and there were 9 pieces in the bag. Hmmm...there's enough to make something here if I do lots of piecing...so I started cutting. I made 4 of these. Do you know what I'm making? You'll have to check back to see. I'm putting them together today and will post a picture tomorrow. The picture may not be a finished item, but you will know from it what I'm making.

I should be cleaning....or appliqueing. I did get 7 berries appliqued on my center medallion. Slow progress, but at least it is progress.

I've been shopping...

2008-01-27T11:22:00.000-08:00

Lately I've complained a lot about the cold weather....so let me say that today is to be a beautiful day in my area. Abundant sunshine and temperatures in the 50's. I must say that isn't too bad for the KC metro area in the winter! Not to worry though, the weather man assures us winter will revisit us about mid-week.

I went to my favorite LQS on Friday. I needed to buy a few items to complete a birthday gift for a quilting friend who lives in Ohio. It was so much fun to fondle fabric and search for something to send to my friend.....especially since I have been out of the house very little since the first week of January. I finally decided on some fat quarters, thread, and a small apron pattern to complete the gift I'm sending. Here's a look at what I bought.
All of the brown and tan prints were from the same fabric line, but I thought it needed a pink and found one that I thought would work. What do you think? The thread is Precensia 100% cotton. I have not tried that brand of thread yet, but my LQS is carrying a large selection of it now. I bought the apron pattern because my friend is a long arm quilter. I thought she might like to make an apron like that to keep her tools at hand when she works.

Of course, I had to do a little shopping for me too!!! I didn't buy fabric though....and I'm so proud of me for that! I did buy two stitchery patterns that I thought were just wonderful.

I won't be starting them soon, but my philosophy is if you don't buy it when you see it.....it will be gone when you go back to get it! I plan to make the Bareroots pattern from stash scraps to hang in my sewing room. I don't have anything hanging on the walls in that room! We have lived in this house for 6 years. It was new when we bought it and for some reason....I have a real problem putting holes in the wall to hang things. Maybe it is because I know this is not the house we will always live in. Am I weird or what???

I bought the redwork pattern because I have been collecting Christmas print fabric for a long time. I am thinking of using those stitcheries as the center of the blocks and then doing something patchwork around them using the fabrics I've collected. This will be a project for another year, but at least I have the pattern bought. I'm going to put it in the box with my fabric.

Thread...

2008-01-24T18:33:00.000-08:00

Since I showed my sewing kit, I thought I would also show how I store and carry my threads that I use for applique. If I am hand piecing with a cotton thread, I always just toss the spool in my little clear sewing box that I showed in my previous post. It's no problem putting one spool in my little box! But when I am working with applique, that's a different matter.

Applique usually requires me to carry a variety of colors. In some of my earlier posts, I've shown you this applique medallion I have been working on. You can see I have several different colors in this piece.

I carry the thread I'm working with in a little plastic pencil box I got for $0.25. There is also a white marking pencil in there.

I can slide it closed and there is a snap to keep it shut.

I keep the rest of the threads that I use for applique in a clear bag that one of my friends gave me. Here's that bag. I use ziploc snack bags inside this to put the various colors in. Putting them in those little bags keeps them nice and neat.

I know there is lots of controversy about what type of thread one should use to do applique. Some people say they would only use cotton, while others say they would only use silk. They each justify why they think their chosen thread is the best. I say, use what works for you and what you like. That's what I do.

I'm going to tell you about my preferences. I don't want anyone to think they have to like what I do. After all, we are different individuals; therefore we may like different things! :-)

I use mostly 50wt. machine embroidery cotton. I have Mettler, Gutterman, and DMC in my cotton collection. I like the DMC best, but it is hard to find and the color selection is limited. I prefer cotton because I personally do not like the slipperiness of silk thread. I find I can make my stitches just as invisible with cotton as I can with silk. However, I do have a few spools of YLI 100wt. silk thread in neutral colors. If I do not have a close color match in cotton thread, then I use silk in one of the neutral colors. I find the color I use most frequently in silk thread is... taupe.

I hope you have enjoyed looking at how I store some of my supplies. I like looking at what others use....and I'm always willing to try something new that may be better than what I currently do.

What' in my sewing kit?

2008-01-19T17:52:00.000-08:00

When I did the cleaning of my sewing room the other day, I also cleaned and organized my sewing box. Today I was thinking about how nice it is to have a clean box....without all the snipped threads sticking to everything.

I've used various bags and boxes to keep my sewing kit in over the years. I have found that I like a rigid box best. I like for it to be seperate from the bag I carry my blocks, threads, and fabric in, and I like for it to be fairly small. Picky little somebody....aren't I??? I thought I would share a few pictures of my sewing box.

I found this neat, clear box in the makeup area of a local store. I thought it would be the perfect size.....and it has proven to be just that.

It is 7.5" wide, 4.5" deep, and 4.5" tall. That's a good size for me to carry along to the sewing groups I attend. As you can see, I keep several small containers inside this box.

I unpacked all of it just so you can see all what I can fit in it.

Now, let's take a look at the things I like to use as I work on my stitching.

I carry 2 small pair of scissors. These are specifically geared toward my applique. I use the sharp pointed pair with extra large finger holes for clipping and very close trimming. The other pair I use when I am cutting a piece for applique out of a larger piece of fabric. This pair has one blunt tip and one sharp tip. I keep the sharp pointed tweezers because I had been told they were handy to have when doing applique, but guess what....the only time I have used them was to pick a splinter out of my friends finger. She couldn't get it out at home, so she asked for help when she got to group and I was able to help! They are so compact...I just leave them in there.

I do needleturn applique and most of the time my size 11 straw needle is the tool I use to turn under the seam allowances. Occassionally I will work with a stubborn fabric that does not want to turn under with the needle, so I use a dampened toothpick. You can see my toothpick with the gold button on top. It keeps the toothpick from rolling around and from getting lost. I learned that little trick from Linda Franz. I prefer toothpicks from Crackerbarrel restaurants because they very smooth and they have little ridges around the top that hold the button shank.

The little bright pink box in the photo above is a travel soap box I had here at home. It is the perfect size to keep my needles and pins.

I unpacked it so you can see what all I manage to fit in it. My favorite needle to use is a Jeana Kimball size 11 straw needle, but....I have other brands too. The little gray item laying just beside the pink box is a Clover needle cassette. I have a package of the Jeana Kimball needles in it and I use that at night when I have a little trouble seeing the eye of the needle to thread. That little thing will easily thread your needle. As I work, I do not glue or baste my applique pieces on my background. I simply use several applique pins. I also like Jeana Kimball's applique pins and those are in the little round box with the green label on top. I also have a box of Clover glass head quilting pins. I love those because they are thin and very sharp. All of that fits in the pink soap box!

To the front of these items are my marking tools. I'll mention them from the front to the back. The white item at the bottom is my herra marker. I use that to mark the crease on the edge of bias that I am going to finger press and stitch down for stems. The black item behind that is my Pentel Clic eraser. I use that to remove pencils marks on applique pieces that I don't quite get turned under with my needle. I also use it to remove visible pencils marks when I handquilt. The gold pencil behind my eraser is a Papermate Sharpwriter mechanical pencil. That is the marking tool I use to mark for handquilting. I use a very light touch and most of it comes out as I stitch. When it doesn't, I then use my Clic eraser. The lime green item is the mechanical pencil I use to mark around applique pieces before I cut them out. The red and black is also just another mechanical pencil for writing reminders and notes. Another marking tool I use when I am working with dark fabrics is a Verithin white marking pencil. I use that to mark both my applique pieces and to mark quilting lines for handquilting. I see I didn't have the white pencil in my box and I need to put it there now! Up by the needles you can also see my 2.5 inch square ruler. It's a compact size perfect for my little box.

I found these two little boxes for $0.50 at Michael's. I knew they would be useful. This is what I did with them.

One holds my thimbles and a sharpener for my pencils. I use different thimbles for different tasks. The thimble on the left is a Clover adjustable thimble. I like to use that one for hand piecing. The thimble in the center is a Roxanne thimble that I got for Christmas from my family several years ago. I like to use that one for all my handquilting. I do not use it if I go out of the house though as it was expensive and I wouldn't want to lose it. It stays safe inside the pretty little box! The thimble on the right is also one I use when I handquilt. I also use that one when I sew on buttons or hem something.

The other little box holds my wool pin cushion with applique pins and sharp quilting pins. There are also probably a few needles stuck in that one too. I like having a box with a lid so I an close it for travel. In between the two boxes is a little pin cushion I made. It is made from the cap of a liter water bottle. I just took a little fiberfil and stuffed it in a circle of fabric, wound some thread around it to close the circle. I then took some glue and put it around the inside of the cap and stuck the stuffed fabric circle in it. I've had that little cushion for about 4 yrs. now and that is where I like to put my needles with different color threads for the applique I am working with.

The metal box sitting off to the side is an Altoids tin. I have the berries for the center medallion of DD's quilt in that. I need to be sewing these on, but I'm having trouble getting motivated.

I am by no means endorsing the above products. I have just found that these are the products that work for me personally as I stitch.

If you read my post.....I would love to see what some of you use for your travel sewing kit and how you organize it.

After.....

2008-01-18T09:00:00.000-08:00

It was a late night at my house. I worked and worked and worked...and this is what I accomplished!

It could still be better if I had a different storage system for the things on the floor under the cutting table, but at least for now it is all in bins or baskets and neatly stacked. Sorry the pics aren't real clear, but hey.....it was 1:30am!

Now I'm off to shovel the drive before the next artic front arrives later today. I think a nap is in my future for this afternoon.

De-Cluttering!!!

2008-01-17T13:00:00.000-08:00

Not much posting from me lately, but I do have a good excuse. I have been slowly working my way through my house de-cluttering, organizing, and cleaning. I've had some days by myself and I thought this would be a good time to really tackle things. My sewing room has become the dumping ground for sewing related items that had been strung throughout the house. I brought them upstairs, and piled them all on my cutting area to deal with when I finally got around to working in my sewing/computer room. Since it is 16 F at noon and I'm really not in the mood to go out and shovel snow....I decided today is the day to work up here in the sewing room where it is a bit warmer.

I've been reading some blogs where people have been showing their messy cutting tables and then listing 15 things they spy on it. I saw it on Wendy's blog today and decided I would share too. So, here it is.....

my cutting table with all its mess! I can see:
1. Stork scissors in my thread caddy
2. wrist pin cushion
3. spray bottle
4. iron
5. quilting rulers
6. power strip
7. folded DJ quilt top
8. zippers
9. thread
10. metal diamond template for a future project
11 mechanical pencils
12. white marking pencils
13. circle template
14. slacks waiting for repairs
15. small pink storage boxes
There's plenty more there! I hope you will check back again in a day or so to see what it looks like when I finish cleaning. I plan to post an after picture. I cleaned this room and posted a picture back on Dec. 1. Not putting things away as I should have has lead to this mess!

In an earlier post on Dec. 8, 2007, I wrote about Canadian geese and my thoughts concerning them. DS gave me a wonderful Christmas present.... a lovely handmade mug for my hot tea...and a goose!

This is a nice goose though because it won't leave a mess in my yard! I'm contemplating what I'm going to name it.

DD gave me a beautiful quilt calendar and a thimble for my collection. I love collecting thimbles.

Please be sure to enlarge the photo and read what's on the thimble!

We are a family who love to tease one another. Both kids did good this year!! Before I end this I want to show you a little craft item I picked up in Virginia a few years ago. I keep it on my kitchen stove as I see it there everyday. It describes exactly how I feel about my family.

2008-01-12T09:10:00.000-08:00

No pictures today, but I thought I would share so information that DD sent to me. If you are a Jane Austen fan and live in the US, Masterpiece Theatre on PBS will be showing adaptations of six of her novels starting Sunday, Jan. 13, 2008. If you are interested, you might want to check the listings to see if it is available in your area. I know I will be watching!

Meanwhile, I have to prepare some more pieces for the applique I'm working on. I plan to get that done today along with my Sat. housework so I can sit and stitch on Sunday evening without feeling guilty.

2008-01-09T19:00:00.000-08:00

Today I went to my Wednesday sewing group for the first time since before Thanksgiving. It was nice to be back with good friends talking and stitching. I worked on the center medallion of DD's quilt and made a little more progress. I sewed on another flower and started sewing on some berries. There are many berries on this block...so I will be sewing berries for a while. Sorry, but I didn't take any pictures. I'll try to get some soon....and make my next post more sewing related.

I have several days where I don't have to worry about meals and laundry for DH, so I'm busy cleaning and organizing. This is what I worked on today.

I decided to clean out my spices and throw out some that I've had for several years. I know you aren't suppose to keep them for years...so it was time for me to tackle this chore. After I cleaned....this is what my cabinet looked like. I can easily find whatever I need.

And since I was in the cleaning and organizing mood in the kitchen, I worked in my pantry. It looks neater than it has in a long time. Would you like to take a peak???
I've always kept a well stock pantry. I got in that habit back when we lived 30 miles from the nearest grocery store. I especially make sure I have plenty on hand during the winter when we get snow and ice. That way I don't have to get out when it is cold and nasty. I am person who also stocks up on things that I frequently use when I find them on sale. That's a habit that has served me well through the years in stretching our food budget. Some of my friends don't believe in keeping much food on hand, and they make fun of me because I do have a full pantry. I just tell them.....I'm prepared for a disaster and I won't starve!

During the Christmas holidays, I kept hoping my Christmas Cactus would bloom. I got this plant as a "welcome to the neighborhood" gift 12 years ago. Many years it has been in bloom at Christmas, but not this year. It has waited until January to provide its beautiful blooms.
Isn't it pretty!

I'm a plant lover and I have lots of houseplants.

Here's a just a few of the many I have.

I've had this plant for a very long time. It is 29 years old this year... and has been moved from Texas, to Virginia, and then to Missouri. I especially enjoy my houseplants in the winter when everything outside is so brown and bleak.

Schoolhouse Fabrics

2008-01-02T08:30:00.000-08:00

Brrrr! My thermometer says 7 degrees F this morning and the weatherman says we are headed for a balmy 24F today. I say that makes for a good day to stay inside. I have plenty to keep me busy. There are mountains of laundry awaiting my attention. DH had these holidays off, so I tried to spend time with him instead of doing all housework after we got home from our trip. Now it is time to concentrate on getting the household chores done.

I told you in one of my previous posts that I went shopping while we were visiting DD in south west Virginia. I drove down to Schoolhouse Fabrics in Floyd VA to do a little shopping. When I lived in this area, I would often make the 35mile drive down to shop. Their prices are generally much cheaper than shops in the city and that has not changed. They are located in an old school building and have fabric in all the rooms. Here's a few pictures I snapped.

Isn't this a lovely old school building! Best part is it is filled with fabric.

I snapped this photo from the parking lot. It's not great, but you can see the mountains off in the distance. They truly look blue....hence "The Blue Ridge Mountains!"

Floyd, VA is about 7 miles off the Blue Ridge Parkway. If you are ever on vacation and driving down the parkway....and feel the need to do a little shopping.....this is one place to visit!

I didn't have any specific fabrics in mind when I went shopping, I just look for interesting things to use in my applique and other projects. I found plenty. See the rolls in the center. Those are fat quarters. The two pale green are fabrics I'm collecting for a pink and green quilt. The white one in the center is an interesting birch bark pattern. That fabric is for my applique collection. It is wonderful for white flower petals, sea gulls, animal fur, etc. The green fabric on the right...is prints of cabbage. It is also for my applique stash. It will be wonderful to use for shaded leaves. The purple and pink in the cabbage will also work well for flower buds. The gold fabric in the center back will be added to a maple leaf quilt I'm planning to make. I have been collecting fabrics for a maple leaf quilts for many years. I probably have enough to make 5 or 6 quilts!! The coffee print fabric will be used in a stitchery project. I have some embroidery transfers of coffee items and I plan to use that fabric with them.

I hand quilt and I found this template that I thought I could use on the borders of a top I need to prepare for quilting.

Schoolhouse Fabrics also had one room with craft items and they had one wall with these pre-printed quilt blocks. They had so many of these and in many different patterns.....most I had not seen before! I bought these two and plan to re-trace them on a good quality unbleached muslin. I loved the prints, but not the fabric they are printed on.

I also still sew some garments. I bought these fabrics for DD. The red plaid will be a little A-line skirt, the red dot a button-front shirt, and the burgundy mini check another skirt.

I also bought a book of Hardanger patterns for DD. I didn't get a picture of that.

In 2008, I plan to cut back on fabric purchases for quilting and use fabrics in my stash. I bought these Dec. 27, 2007....so I didn't break my goal!! I'm planning to get back to work on the center medallion for DD's quilt. It's time to work hard on that and get it finished so I can put the top together. I'm also anxious to get back to work on the botanicals I've been making through the applique class I take monthly. These are designed by Dinah Jefferies of Gardencity Gateworks. I haven't posted a picture of these in a while....so here's my hyacinth.

Happy New Year!

2007-12-31T18:26:00.000-08:00

I had planned to write another post today with deep thoughts about 2008 and my plans for the upcoming year. My kids would be the first to comment that "Mom, you can't have deep thoughts because your mind is too shallow!!" :-) So.......I will keep this post very short and just say HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ONE AND ALL!!

Belvie

2007-12-31T10:51:00.000-08:00

I'm finally back from a wonderful visit with our children. The only bad part of the trip is coming and going through St. Louis. I hate the traffic there, and every time we go through there, we see a major accident and this time was no exception. People there drive awful!

We went first to Cumberland MD. to DS's apt. DD came up and we were all together there until the 26th. Then we drove down to Blacksburg, VA and spent several days with DD. Both kids had to go back to work on Dec. 27, but we were still able to visit in the evenings and I had dinner waiting when DD got home. She appreciated that!

I snapped a few pictures while we were out in Cumberland MD. It's a beautiful, old city. The area seems somewhat depressed, but the scenery is wonderful. Dec. 23 was DD's birthday, so we took her out to eat in the downtown area. They are revitalizing that area and have turned one street to pedestrian traffic only. Some of the buildings are so pretty. They had a store in the pedestrian area....it is like the old five and dime stores I remember from my childhood! It was open, so I had to go in. It was like a trip down memory lane! I didn't get a photo of it, but here's a few of the pictures I did get.

This is a shot down the pedestrian street....and yes, that's DH and DD. Also notice my umbrella handle in the shot!!

There is an old movie theatre there. It's not restored yet. DS is in this pic.

I thought this building was just pretty. So I took several shots.

Here's another view.

While we were in Virginia, I went a quilt shop/fabric store that I visited often when I lived in that area. DD had to go to work, and DH had work to do on the computer....so the day was mine. The shop is in the little mountain town of Floyd, VA. It is about a 35 mile drive through the mountains and I truly enjoyed that as I love those mountains! I took a few pictures and hope you enjoy looking at them. I also made a few purchases because I found some items I haven't seen in my area. I'll share pictures of the store and my purchases in another post.

Then it was time for the long drive back home. Some how, it is always more fun going than coming.

Oh, by the way....both kids loved their flannel quilts and were rolled up in them watching movies each night we were there.

2007-12-20T05:54:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!!
Happy New Year too!!

I'm off to visit the fledglings for the holidays. I do not know if I will be able to post anything while visiting, but I will return ..... hopefully January 1, 2008. Cannot believe it is almost 2008!

Belvie

I Did it!

2007-12-18T11:55:00.000-08:00

I finished the last rag quilt! I like how it turned out and it was much easier doing a big 16 inch block than doing all the 6 inch blocks. Here's a picture of the one I just finished. It's for DS.

And here's a picture of the one I did a few weeks ago. It's for DD.

I think my kids will like them to snuggle under on cold evenings at home.
Now....I'm wrapping this afternoon and I still have a few cookies to bake before we leave.

Bright and sunny today.....and 40 degrees F. Hoping for weather like this as we travel to and from the east coast!

Sewing, snow, etc.

2007-12-15T15:10:00.000-08:00

I'm busy sewing today...and today is a good day to sew. I posted pictures of some flannel back on Aug. 30, 2007. I'm trying to finish up my second and last flannel rag quilt for Christmas. This is for my 25yr. old DS who is a rocket scientist. Please note that I was able to find fabric with the word "rocket" on it and he has always been fascinated by planes. I know it is kiddie prints, but this quilt is for him to lay on the floor while he watches tv, drag up and down the stairs....whatever....so it will be washed often. It isn't meant to be a pretty item, it is meant to be a utility item. Here's one block.

It is 16" square. I sewed 23 of them in one night. The pattern is "Wicked Easy Quilt" which I found on the Internet for free. I tried going to the web page again and keep getting a message that the document contains no data. I would love to link you to the website, but I can't even get there. Anyway, the pattern should be credited to Annette Unrein. I will continue to try and if I can get to the website, I will post the link.

I'm going to post some more weather pics! This was out my sewing room window on Tuesday. See the icicles hanging from the roof! I'm not real good a photography, but I try. Sorry the picture isn't better.
Take a look at the trees too!
At least we were lucky to not have it as bad as the people about 50 miles north in St. Joseph MO. They got blasted! Many have been without power almost a week now.

We actually had sun and melting on Thursday. I went out of the house shopping for the first time since Dec. 5! I only did the grocery store and library and the crowds were so awful, I came back home because I hate crowds...especially when people are rushing and rude. Then last night, it started snowing again and is suppose to continue until around 7 pm tonight. So, this is the scene out my back window today.
And for a change....here's a picture from my front porch. Notice the brick house across the street. If you enlarge the picture and look near the peak of their roof, you can see the lovely "KC Arrowhead". That thing lights up along with icicles lights all along their roof. The icicles lights look nice, but I think that arrowhead is soooo tacky....but I guess they do love their KC Chiefs. They have done that every year for the 6 years we have lived here. It's an older retired couple and I guess they think it is cute. Different strokes for different folks. I tried being friendly to them after we moved in. I would speak to the man when I was out working in my yard and he was out too. He would make a sound that is just a grunt and walk away. Finally I stopped trying. I know he can talk because I hear him scream at the neighbor's dog. His wife isn't friendly either. Does anyone else have overly unfriendly neighbors like that????

Now, something a little more pleasant, I'm going to show you my Christmas tree. I did a very small artificial since we will be with our kids for most of the holidays. Sorry the picture is a little blurry.

The big box in the background is the table I finished for DS. I was going to post a picture of the set finished and nicely staged, but DH took it apart and put it into the box before I could. I will try to get a picture when we put it together at DS's apartment. And for my last picture today, I'll show you my nutcrackers that I always put out somewhere in my house. This year I put them on the mantle.
You can also see the wooden tree that I finished when I was working on the table and chairs. I decided to just sit it on a doily I crocheted along with the nutcrackers. I didn't notice the safety glasses when I snapped the picture. DH uses this mantle as his "dumping ground" when he comes in from work. Then he conveniently forgets to pickup after himself!

2007-12-09T09:06:00.000-08:00

I visited Bren's blog this morning and read about a strange ritual that she remembers from her childhood involving her mother ironing. Funny thing is, I remember the same sort of ritual from my mom and from a spinster great aunt that I spent lots of time with. This great aunt was like a second mother to me. She actually took in ironing to support herself. Back then, people would starch everything they wore except underwear. They would use the powdered starch that you mix then immerse the garments.....and hang them outside on a clothesline to dry and would later iron them. The clothes were wrinkly and stiff. They would bring them to my aunt, she would sprinkle them with water, roll them up and put them in plastic bag, and put it in the refrigerator overnight. The next morning, she would get up and start ironing. She always put them in the refrigerator because we lived in south Texas and if you didn't, she said the clothes would sour and begin to smell. I sometimes think it was so the garments would become evenly moist and easy to iron out the wrinkles. Anyway, these two pictures show the spout she put on the bottle...and then the bottle with the spout. She used a Coke bottle instead of a 7-Up bottle. Bren....is this it???????
Believe it or not, I still iron some of my husband's dress shirts using my aunt's old fashioned method. I even use the powdered starch! It works so much better than the spray starch....which I do use sometimes.

It is ever so cold this morning.....18 and the roads are icy....so no church today.

2007-12-08T12:10:00.000-08:00

It's a little on the cold side today....25F with freezing drizzle when we got up this morning. The temps have been dropping and the drizzle is suppose to change over to good ol' freezing rain. Weatherman says we are in for an ice storm. I've mixed up an extra batch of bread and will get that baked just in case we lose power. There's also a roast in the oven slowly baking, so my house should smell good for the remainder of the afternoon. Roast and mashed potatoes with green beans is on the menu for dinner tonight.

Now for an update on the heat pump issue I posted about. I'm going to have to take back some of my harsh words. When the man came out to give us our estimate, he had looked at our records on our unit. I have had them come out twice a year and do maintenance on it since we bought the house. The estimator told us that was an impeccable maintenance record and that the unit we had should have lasted 15 yrs. with no repairs. He had been in touch with the manufacturer and said manufacturer was willing to discount the cost of new equipment even though the warranty is expired on the old unit. It still isn't a welcome expense and it would have cost a lot more than we thought it would ......but with a discount, it will be within the range we thought.

I have been busy sewing. Here's a little of what I have done over the past few days. I've made these flannel lounge pants and shorts to give my kids for Christmas.

I started making these when they were teens. They would come home from school, change into ones I had made for them and get busy on homework. I've continued to make them through the years as they tell me they are just so comfortable to bum around in. DD told me DS really, really needed new ones because when he came to visit her at Thanksgiving, the whole butt was worn out on some of his. He will get 4 pair of the shorts and 2 pair of the long ones. The long ones with the penguins are for DD since she collects penguins. I still have another pair of short ones to make for DD.

I have a pond by my house. Most times of the year it is so pleasant to look out the window and watch the neighborhood kids fishing. The other day I had several pair of male and female ducks out there. I love seeing them too....especially the male mallards with the beautiful green heads. During the winter however, I'm not happy when I look out and see this!
Yep! That's right. A pond full of Canadian Geese. Being originally from Texas, I use to think they were beautiful birds. Now I think these are about the nastiest creatures on earth. They poop in my yard and hiss at me when I chase them back into the pond. At least today they are on the water and not in my yard. Sure wish they would go visit someone else's pond!!

2007-12-01T10:10:00.000-08:00

I've had a few people ask how the bread turned out. It didn't make a pretty loaf, but that was my fault, not the bread dough. I forgot about it and left it rising too long. When I moved the pan, it deflated like a balloon. I've been baking bread for many years....and I know better than to go off and forget it....but I did it anyway. So, I ended up with a square loaf rather than getting one with a nice rounded top. Here's a picture of the loaf I just took out of the freezer. The first loaf is all eaten already.

When I took it out of the oven, I thought I should do a quality test while the bread was still warm....and maybe I should use a little butter! Afterall, I wouldn't want DH eating an inferior product. The bread tasted really good. I will make it again using the lemon pepper, garlic powder, and cayenne pepper. I used some of the bread for my tuna sandwich yesterday and it was wonderful. The bread had just a little bite of spice-i-ness.

Cold here. Rainy...with freezing rain just to the north a few miles. I'm snug in my sweatshirt and pants, warm socks and slippers. I'm thankful to have the gas furnace as a backup to keep us warm. On that front....we will have a man come out on Wed. night to give us estimates on replacement cost. Then we can make the decision.....repair or replace.

This afternoon I am going to finish the last few stitches on another knitted tea cozy and get that sewn together. I also need to clean my messy sewing room. It has become such a mess I can't function....so it is time to stop and clean.

SAD!!!

2007-11-30T13:38:00.000-08:00

This picture describes my feelings right now. Just had a repairman here because I had noticed that my heatpump didn't seem to be acting just right yesterday. I think they thought I was a looney when I called and talked to them yesterday about sending a serviceman out. I always hear...."well, heatpumps sometimes act like that!" Well, I was right....and the news is not good. The unit has a serious freon leak and will be a major repair. Guesstimate is $1000+ Now we have to decide whether to repair a 6 yr. old unit that has had 2 major repairs already.....or whether to just go ahead and replace it...probably to the tune of $3000 to $5000. I'm a bit miffed because this unit is a well known brand that was suppose to be soooo reliable. Here's a hint....choo choo.....train. Well, this well known brand has not been a good one for us and I will not buy their product again. I'm going to count my blessings because we do have a backup gas furnace so we have heat. I'm just a bit put out because I expected a heatpump to last longer and this is not the time of year I wanted to spend major bucks on something like that.

2007-11-29T15:00:00.000-08:00

As you can see, I'm not being very regular at posting these days. I am busy though. I continue to do needlework that I have to complete before Christmas. Believe me....I'm not idle!!

This is what I'm doing today. Can you guess what's in the bowl???????????????????????????????
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Bread for lunch sandwiches. Since DH eats food with his pepper, so I decided to experiment a little with my dough today. I added about a teaspoon of lemon pepper, a dash of garlic powder, and a dash of red pepper. I'll let you know how the finished product turns out. I've taken a snip of the dough to taste....and that's good, so I'm hoping the bread will be too.

I'm also trying to prepare for another major event that happened in our lives during the month of December almost 28 years ago. DH and I got to bring this home on Christmas Day.
Isn't she sweet!! We got to bring DD home from the hospital on Christmas Day all bundled up in a red flannel stocking.....which she no longer fits in anymore! Through the years I've worked hard to make sure her birthday was a real birthday celebration....and not just a part of the Christmas festivities. It is going to be a little more challenging to do that this year. Does she look like a law school graduate?? I would never in a million years thought that's what she would end up doing....but she did!

2007-11-23T09:34:00.000-08:00

OK...pictures as promised! Can't believe I'm posting twice in one day.

Here's the medallion block. Not a lot of progress since my last picture of it a long time ago. I'm only working on it at Wed. sewing group as I have so many other things to get done before Christmas. After the holidays, I'm planning to devote all my time to getting the Conway Album put together.
I've also dusted off my knitting skills. When we went to Texas, I couldn't applique in the car, so I took knitting along. I made several dishrags and have made several more since I got home. The black and white will go to DS and the green and white to DD. They already have some dishtowels in those colors so it was nice to find the cotton knitting yarn in their colors. I used Lily Sugar and Cream yarn for all of these. The little red and white one will go to the lady who has 8 of us come to her house once a month to quilt/sew and enjoy each others company.
I also knitted this blue dishrag from a pattern I found on the internet. I can't find my pattern to give the creator her proper credit at this time, but will find and post the link at a later date. Notice the image of Texas created by the stitches. Since I'm originally from TX, I couldn't resist giving it a try and this one will be just for me! The pastel multicolor was an experiment. I took 2 strands of size 10 crochet cotton that I had on hand and held those together to knit. I think I'm really going to like that one better than the ones I did with the "Sugar and Cream" as it is not as thick.
I have also finished a scarf for each of the kids. DS gets gray, DD gets the blue/green.
And to keep each of their heads warm, I made these.
DS gets the dark gray hat, DD gets the red...I think they call it a wimple. If you click on the link, it should take you to a pdf file of a pattern and description for one that I found online this morning. (Please be aware that I have not tried this pattern yet) I made my own pattern for this red one, but I'm saving the link to try to make one for myself when I'm not so pressed for time. Here is another picture of the wimple that I tried to take so you can see how it is worn. Imagine the white blog of batting as my face!

These 4 pieces....
Will become one of these.
OK....not a good photo! If you enlarge it, you will see the spout and handle of my clear glass teapot! The teapot sits on this.
A potholder that I made using a small quilt block, a piece of Insul-Bright(I'm not affiliated with this company, I just use the product) batting, and a backing square. Before I sewed it closed, I put in some whole cloves. It smells wonderful when a hot teapot sits on it.

And here is the flannel rag quilt I am working on. Notice that my very best feline friend, Truffles, likes this quilt too!

I didn't get pictures of the table I refinishing, but here is a picture of the chairs.
I will take a nice shot of the table and chairs together and post that later.

And since I mentioned in my other post about a few snowflakes at my house on Wed.....here's what my backyard still has today....Friday at noon.

2007-11-23T08:03:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving a day late. Seems I'm always a little late doing things these days.

It was a quiet day yesterday at our house. Just DH and I for dinner. This was our first Thanksgiving with no kids. I was please that they were both able to get together at DD's apt and cook dinner together. I sure would like to have been a fly on the wall to see them cooking! Even though we had no kids here, I still cooked a nice dinner for us.

On the menu was chicken and dressing, cranberry sauce, twice baked potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green beans with yogurt sauce, cucumber salad, homemade rolls with butter. Here's a look at DH's plate. He was a nice guy and set the table. We waddled from the table to the recliners and slept the afternoon away! Then, watched March of the Penguins last night as we were still sitting in the recliner.

We had our first snow on Wed. afternoon. Big fluffy flakes. Not enough to accumulate, but enough to make the commute home on Wed. evening tough. There were several accidents due to icing. It was 15F this morning. I guess winter is here. It was a beautiful fall though. Lots of color. Here's a picture I took a few days ago of the trees beside my house.
I have been very busy. The table and chairs are finished. I will take pictures of those later today and share them in my next post. I have also been doing some sewing. I've made a flannel rag quilt for DD. I am doing the clipping of the seams on that right now. Then I have to wash and dry it so the seams will fray a bit. I have also done a little work on the center medallion....which I keep promising to show you an updated photo. I do promise! I will take photos this afternoon and get them posted. In addition to these projects, I've been doing some knitting. I won't tell you about those, I'll just go downstairs right now and take pictures!!!