Category Archives: Quilting

My quilt projects.

Merry Month of Many Memories

March is one of my favorite months. Probably because it’s my birthday month and I kind of celebrate it all month long. I had a cake.

I got to eat out with some of my favorite people and I got some gift certificates. Always love that.

David and I took a weekend off and just did what we wanted. Ate out, relaxed, saw three movies and had a very nice couple of days. We think we enjoy that as much as we do taking a long vacation. We will probably do a few more of these weekends this year. We have one planned to go to Cincinnati in May where I am going to a book signing of one of my favorite bloggers. If you read Susan Branch’s blog, you know what I’m talking about. I love her blogs especially the ones where she wrote about Downton Abbey.

I bought myself some new fabric. Seems like every March I do this.

Love getting new fabric. I don’t have a clue what I will make with this yet, but it will be used, I am sure.

Love these little flowers.

Decided to complete this child’s quilt I started last winter.

Each block has a picture of a child playing.

Among all the getting ready for Easter and company Sunday, I did get this pinned today. I also made potato salad, cleaned the chicken house, mulched some of the garden, did two loads of laundry, did the ironing, fed the dogs and chickens, moved bags of mulch, prepared supper for David and myself and then I collapsed on the sofa and have not gotten up since! Oh, yes, I mixed up a batch of sugar cookies too.

Meanwhile the dogs want me to play with them. I try to give them some play time with me every day, but today, not so much. Sorry girls.

‘”Then I just won’t look at you, Mom.”

The hens are finally laying again. They went through a few weeks that we were fortunate to get an egg a day. But now, we have them coming out our ears. The eggs taste like butter, I’m telling you. So rich and yellow.

They have been fertilizing my garden area all winter so I should have a great garden this year. I think I am just going to plant pumpkins and tomatoes. I have about fifty tomato plants started with some ready to plant outside when the weather is warmer.

Chickens still love their “crack.”

They’ll follow me anywhere when I have a bowl of this in my hand.

I got this quilt pinned this month. I’m going to quilt it on the sewing machine.

I just got a brochure in the mail this week for a quilt magazine and this very quilt was in it. All finished. I hope I get this finished in a few weeks.

I’m still knitting. When I get frustrated trying to knit socks, I knit another scarf. I’m trying to use up all my old yarn.

Speaking of socks, I got the heel flap knitted on this sock and then something horrible happened and I ended up tearing out the whole sock. That makes about six times I have tried to make a sock.

I’m almost afraid to tell you about this sock because it’s the farthest I have gotten on one. I knitted the heel flap, turned the heel, picked up stitches(Oh, that was horrendous) and am knitting the gussets now. I am seeing a very dim light at the end of the tunnel, but until I get a sock finished I am not going to crow. Even with all the ripping out and starting over, I quite enjoy knitting socks. I just have to finish one. When I do, you all will be the first to know besides David, as he has been keeping up on my progress and encouraging me when I get all flummoxed. When learning to knit socks, you need an encourager beside you so you don’t give up.

Spring has sprung in Indiana. It takes me by surprise every single year. One day it’s all grey and dark and the next tiny green leaves are sprouting from the ground and on the trees and bushes.

The Nanking cherry bushes bloomed first and early this year. They are already almost gone, boo hoo.

Our two dwarf magnolias are just about to burst into bloom. The magnolias around us and in town have already been blooming for a week or two.

Daffodils blooming everywhere. I have planted hundreds of them through the years and they really are beautiful this year.

One of my top five favorite flowers. It’s a shame they only bloom in Spring, but I’ll take them whenever I can get them.

I really need to divide these flowers. August Lilies or Magic Lilies. They won’t flower until August after all the foliage has died. Looks like we will have a lot of flowers in August.

My Spring angel by Jim Shore.

Holding a bird in her hand. The birds are nesting and singing their hearts out.

Happy Spring and have a blessed Easter. He is risen. Halleluhah!! Bye.

Where Did Last Week Go???

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Where did last week go? For that matter, where did the month of January go? January use to be my least favorite month, but through the years I have grown fond of long winter days, making things in my shop, sleeping in late in a toasty warm bed, baking and cooking comfort foods, and feeding the birds. January and I have grown rather fond of each other.

but January sped by this year like every month seems to speed by nowadays. This was what happened at our house last week.

I gave our living room a fresh coat of paint. Through the years I have painted every room in our house at least three times or more. I love to paint although climbing up and down the ladder is a little harder than it use to be.

The room was a light sage green and now it’s a sort of pinkish brown. A few years ago I painted our bedroom and wanted a soft, darker pink. It turned out Pepto Bismo pink. We lived with it. While painting with this color, I got some on my arm and looked at it and thought, ‘Ah, calamine lotion.” So now I have a calamine lotion painted room, but I rather like it. It looks really well alongside the grayish diningroom. We shall live with it.

This painting looks really good on the wall.

The fireplace mantle stands out better. I am getting use to it.

We had the wolf moon. I almost missed it, but I got up earlier than usual last Sunday and saw it just before it set in the west.

I love full moons. They say people go a little crazy during them, but they have never bothered me.

I have almost knit to the heel of another sock. Now I will have to change to double pointed needles to knit the heel flap and then the dreaded heel turn. I will have to try this when no one is around, all phones must not ring, the light must be just right, I must be well rested and alert, the moon must be in the right phase and nothing, but nothing must disturb me or the stitches will fall off the needles like they did the last time and I tore out the whole sock. How did someone figure out how to knit the very first sock ever? How did they teach themselves to turn a heel? It boggles my mind that someone did it for the very first time without any instructions. I have instructions, and it still boggles my mind!

Finished piecing my chick quilt top. It turned out even cuter than I though it would.

I could make another one of these, it was so much fun. It will get quilted soon.

Today I finished piecing a basket quilt. This was another really fun one, but oh, so many little pieces.

I love every piece of fabric in this quilt.

Of course, I continue to feed the birds. They are a continuous source of joy for me. Every time I see a titmouse or chickadee I just have to smile.

Today I was keeping an eye on this cardinal in the crabapple tree. She sat there for the longest time watching the other birds at the feeder.

I kept trying to get a good picture.

This is the best I could do. The sun was shining on her making her feathers seem to glow.

Walking around the yard I noticed that bulbs were starting to sprout in the garden.

This little bush has stayed this color all winter.

I’ve been doing a little coloring in this book.

I have ordered a tin of seventy-two colored pencils to make my pictures more enhanced.

There is something rather relaxing about sitting down and coloring a picture. I loved coloring when I was a little girl. So glad that adult coloring books are in vogue right now. I love working with the colors and shading and trying to pretend I am an artist. I saw in Sam’s Club the other day there was a Donald Trump coloring book. We had our grandsons with us and one of them wanted one, but I said his mother would kill me if I bought him one! But I thought it was funny. He got a book, instead.

I’m beginning to write stories about my two younger grandsons called “The Adventures of Tristan and Foster.” I have several ideas for stories. They always want me to make up stories about them when they visit, so I thought I would try my hand at writing some for them.

We lost Abigail this week. David went out to make sure they were in the coop and she was laying out in the garden. No feathers around, no blood.

We had been getting these really long skinny eggs lately and I was thinking one of the hens must have something wrong with her egg canal. Since Abigail died, we haven’t got anymore of these eggs so I think she got bound up with an egg. So sad. That happens sometimes with chickens. They can look really healthy, but have an egg stuck inside them and it kills them.

Besides all of this there’s been church going, cookie baking, roll making, grandboys visiting, laundry doing, book reading, dog playing, chicken feeding, Bible study planning, David’s birthday celebrating, and much more. I haven’t been to the hair dresser for months. I need a cut and color, but I keep putting it off. I am getting so lazy in my old age. Just love staying at home and doing at home things. I feel blessed. Bye.

Cold and Snowy

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January is doing what January does. Bringing us cold temperatures and snow. We had a really nice run of warmer weather, but all good things must come to an end and we are living in a freezer now. At least we are not waiting for a giant blizzard to head our way as the Northeast of our country is doing this weekend. Up to two feet of snow they are telling them. Whoa! You won’t be able to find bread or milk anywhere up there this weekend.

With snow on the ground and not much food available, I like to keep the bird feeders full. The birds have gone through a thirty gallon can full of birdseed in the last two weeks. When someone says they eat like a bird, they are a voracious eater because birds eat constantly.

Titmice, sparrows, cardinals. juncos, chickadees, woodpeckers, blue jays and one fat squirrel have visited our bird feeders. I have seen five pairs of cardinals at one time feeding. They prefer the ground, so I always throw some birdseed there.

I am so thankful for cardinals who bring us a bright spot of color on the winter landscape.

This weather makes the house next door look even more lonely. It’s been empty for a few years and the people who owned it are gone now. I don’t know what is going to happen to this house, but I keep praying a nice family will buy it and move next door and bring the house to life again. I would hate to see it torn down, but it does need a lot of work.

On days like these my heart turns to Spring. The Spring magazines are beginning to appear and I got this one the other day.

So many pretty pictures of birds and stories about birds and what plants to grow to draw birds to your yard.

I have been having trouble sleeping and getting cricks in my neck at night. We have tried so many different pillow through the years and I decided to try one more.

My Pillow. I don’t own shares in the company although I wish I did, but anyway, I bought two pillows from here right after Christmas.

They both came in a little box and were scrunched into plastic bags.

But once out of the bag they fluffed up very well.

I especially like that they are made here in the good old USA.

So I have been sleeping on mine for the last couple of weeks and only had one night that my neck hurt, but other than that, I have been sleeping like a baby. David is still not sure he likes his, but he doesn’t take to change too well so maybe he will change his mind after a while.

I’m not advertising them or anything, just telling you how mine works for me. I think it has helped my sleeping.

I have been working on several projects this month. January is a great month to stay inside and make things.

I told you about this quilt book I got a while back. I really love this book. Lori Holt has designed some of the cutest quilts in the past and this books is chock full of quilt ideas.

I really loved this one. Wouldn’t this be so cute for a baby? If you are expecting or are a soon to be grandma, this would make such a wonderful quilt for the new baby. If it’s a boy you could just use blue material instead of all the pink. I love pink and I am making a pink one.

Look at this chick closely. The material has little ducks on it! A chick made with duck material.

Little chicks lining up on my cutting table one by one. I need twenty of them. These are so much fun to make. I got kind of obsessed with making them after a while.

Here’s the stack of twenty blocks I need.

Since this is going to be used as an Easter quilt, I chose this material for the backing. We sold this in our store several years ago and I have sold some of it at garage sales and still have enough to back a quilt or two. I really love this material.

And while I work on the chick quilt, my mind is already wandering to the next quilt or quilts I would like to make.

I want to make a chick quilt using only blacks and pinks. If you are old enough to remember, in the five and dime stores back in the fifties at Easter time little chicks would appear in all colors. Pink chicks, blue chicks, lavender chicks. I don’t know what was used to color the chicks. It probably wasn’t healthy for them, but at the time I thought they were the cutest things and always wanted a colorful chick, but since my daddy raised hundreds of chickens, my parents thought it was foolish to buy one just because it was a different color. So I plan to make a pink chick quilt.

I bought this quilt book from Amazon a couple of weeks ago for a very cheap price. Four dollars, I think. It was almost like new. I love to make little quilts once in a while because it is instant gratification and I can make one in a day or so and still feel like I have made something worth having or giving away.

I plan to make this quilt soon. I love basket quilts. I have made quite a few in my lifetime.

I’ve been going through my stash of fabric to make this quilt. That is half the fun of quilting. Choosing the fabrics you will need. I just shop my stash and can come up with a nice selection.

Every once in a while I do some work for a friend. I am not a quilt restorer, but I was asked to do a little repair work on a friend’s quilt.

Actually a comforter as it is tied, but there were several of the rectangles that had holes in them. I took material that almost matched and sewed it over the damaged piece and retied it. If you look closely you can tell which ones I replaced, but it isn’t too apparent. I hope my friend will be happy.

This is a quilt made out of double knit. Not an easy fabric with which to make a quilt. Back in the sixties double knit was the fabric of choice for clothes. I made double knit skirts, my son a double knit little sailor suit, another suit jacket for my other son, and last but not least a leisure jacket for David. When I made David’s jacket, it had belt loops and a self fabric belt. Well, I put the belt loops up too high and when David wore the jacket it looked like the belt was directly under his chest. Bless him, he wore that jacket and never complained. We have a picture of him in it and every time we see it we laugh.

Double knits came in all colors and patterns. This quilt had a lot of different double knits in it.

It’s a very heavy quilt also. I wouldn’t want to sleep under it. Kind of like the denim one David made. It was so heavy I could barely carry it.

David put up my little green house and I am starting tomatoes this week. It won’t be long before May will be here and time to plant again. Always nice to know it’s coming when we are sitting in the middle of snow and ice.

Last but not least, I hung some red and white hankies in the window to decorate for Valentine’s Day that is coming.

There’s a living room to paint, a Bible study to start and a trip to plan. Hope your days are full and blest. Bye.

The Needle Arts

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From the day that my mother first handed me a needle and an old sock and told me to make a doll, I have been interested in the needle arts. I still have that sock doll somewhere. From sewing machines needles to knitting needles to quilting needles I have been interested in making things with needles. My year started out with my trying my hand at knitting socks. I have made three false starts and now I am once again trying to knit a sock.

I purchased this book in hopes it would walk me through the dreaded heel. I have not started the heel yet and to tell you the truth, I am very worried about it.

I’m practicing on a sock with inexpensive wool. I am liking how it looks so far.

I ordered this beautiful yarn from this place…

It’s so beautiful, I am almost afraid to use it. But won’t these make wonderful socks?

I have never ordered wool like this and I have never rolled balls of yarn before and it took a village to get it done. If I had tried to figure out how to find the end of the yarn in these skeins, I would have been left with a knotted up mess, but David helped me and we ended up with this..

You know how in some of those old movies you would see the husband holding the yarn in both hands while the wife wound the ball? That is what David and I did. One skein down, four more to go. One skein is suppose to knit up a pair of socks.

Remember the socks I was knitting a few days ago and ripped out?

Now they are a scarf, but I would much rather have had a pair of socks to show you. Someone will be getting a scarf for Christmas next year. Ha. I can do scarves with my eyes closed. Maybe that is what I am doing wrong. Not closing my eyes while I knit socks. What a catastrophe that would be!

I’m not the only one who can ply a needle.

I wanted to learn how to crochet and David found me one of his crochet hooks and started casting on and before we both knew it, he had crocheted this….

He used up some of my old yarn and wore this to work. He got several compliments on it. At least one of us is good with the needle. I still haven’t learned how to crochet. But it’s on my bucket list.

I licked my wounds after the sock debacle and went back to what I knew I could do. Quilting. This first week of January I have already completed two quilts.

This is one I started a couple of years ago and wanted to finish it before Valentine’s Day this year and I did! This is made with Pamkitty Love fabric which I love.

Love the look of old fashioned Valentines.

Another quilt I completed was made from the book, Little Quilts All Through the House. A book I had had for several years and lost and just last week I ordered it on Amazon for under ten dollars and am so glad I did. I have made so many little quilts from this particular book in the past years and this week I made another one.

Another quilt for Valentine’s Day. This one made up so fast and I absolutely love it.

I love fabric with words upon it and this is the border to this particular quilt.

Has a French look about it. Anyway, I feel a little better that I completed a project once again as I have been rather discouraged about all the sock knitting failures. I will knit socks. I won’t give up.

This is part of a new project I just started this week also. It’s going to have quilting, embroidering, and applique on it. I am making this to wear for Valentine’s Day. I am so excited because it is my own creation and no one will have anything like it when I am completed. All these ideas just creep into my mind and suddenly I just have to create. I put everything else aside when the creative juices start flowing. Must be like the feelings Picasso, Monet and other artists must have felt like when they created their great art, not that anything I make is great art, but it’s my art and I love it. I will be showing my creation as soon as I get it completed.

Alas, the day came to take down the Christmas tree. It’s never as exciting as putting it up although I do enjoy having more room again, but I sure will miss the bright lights and cheer the tree brought into our home.

Putting away all our much loved ornaments. We didn’t put as many decorations on the tree this year, but it was just right and looked really pretty.

I will look forward to seeing these again next Christmas.

All my snow people watched with interest as we stored all the Christmas paraphernalia away. They seemed to be saying, “Phew, we get to stay out another month or two because we are snow people.”

This little guy joined the others this year.

A friend gave me this wonderful Jim Shore snowman several years ago. He is my favorite snowperson. Shhhh, don’t tell the others.

This little lady joined my Jim Shore collection this Christmas as a gift to me and she stands on a shelf in the kitchen. The person who gave her to me said it was me with all the cooking and baking I do. I took that as a compliment. I love her.

This is my new exercise ball my daughter and son-in-law gave to me for Christmas. Every time I went to their house I would bounce on my daughter’s exercise ball and say, ” I would love to have one of these,” and she listened to me. It’s good for core exercise and balance. My daughter has MS and uses it to help her balance. I love bouncing on it. Feel like a kid again!

I got this really great poster of butterflies last Fall when we were in Fredricksburg, Texas at Wildseed Farms. Don’t know how I am going to display it yet, but I love looking at it and reading about all the different butterflies. So many beautiful ones.

I’ve seen a few of these in our garden.

And last but not least, I bought a couple of inexpensive journals at JoAnn’s the other day. I love writing in journals when I am not writing here. There is something about putting words on paper. I go back to some of my old journals that tell about some of our trips, family gatherings and other things and find it such a joy to read about the good times and even some of the not so joyful times because none of us gets to live a life free of pain or sorrow. But, all in all, we have lived a pretty good life, Dave and I and I hope I can fill many more journals.

Hope you will be creative this year. If not, I hope you get to enjoy something from a creative person. Here’s to needles and yarn and thread and creative juices. Bye.

Four More Days

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I really wish there were two months between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The four weeks between seem to be a whirlwind of activity. I just came up for air today since all the gifts are wrapped and I won’t start preparing for Christmas dinner until Wednesday. Today I have been knitting and watching movies on tv. It’s rained all day so it’s been kind of nice and cozy here with the tree lights shining, the fireplace flickering and my needles steadily knitting my very first pair of socks.

This past weekend we shared Christmas with part of our family.

Four boy cousins, who, when they get together, start the wrestling. Running after each other, climbing on each other, jumping on each other, until someone cries and then they settle down for a bit until they start in again. I just sit there and laugh, because they are really having a good time together and since they don’t see each other very often, I am glad to see they like to be together. By the way, I made that quilt on the wall for my daughter several Christmases ago.

Meanwhile, our granddaughter stays blissfully out of the fray. She tolerates the boys and that’s about all.

Santa was there. David loves to wear his Santa hat and go “Ho ho ho.”

We opened gifts. Here is something I made.

A barn quilt made from Lori Holt’s Vintage Farm Girl book which I am in love with.

Each barn block has another small quilt within the block.

It was a fun day. Our son-in-law made homemade strombolies which were delicious.

This is my first sock I am knitting. I got all excited about knitting socks after reading Lucy’s blog, Attic24, where she knit her first pair of socks. She crochets beautifully, too. I have never knitted on circular needles and these are teeny tiny ones, but I have caught on pretty fast and actually am enjoying the process so far, but the dreaded heel will be coming up shortly where I will have to knit a heel flap and turn the heel and pick up stitches and then knit to the toe and do something called the “kitcheners” stitch which is really kind of worrying me because I would hate to get this far and make all kinds of mistakes in the latter process. I wish I could have an experienced sock knitter sitting right by my side while I start the process so if I start to make a mistake she could tell me so. I have been watching youtube videos of the process, read all kinds of lessons on the process and I am still rather confused as to how the whole heel thing magically comes together. I’ll let you know if I make it though.

I knit on the sock until my hand gets tired and then I take up my other needles and start knitting a scarf.

I just finished this scarf. It’ a lot longer than shown as I have it folded.

I plan to learn how to crochet in the coming year. Everyone on my Christmas list plan to receive one of my creations next Christmas.

Burning candles to brighten up the dull days. This is my favorite scent to burn during the Christmas season.

We have an artificial Christmas tree so this makes it smell like we have a real one in the house.

A friend gave me this cute snowmen the other day which holds tea lights. I kind of have started a new collection of snowmen. I didn’t mean to, but I seem to have several now, just like my Santa Claus collection. When people find out you like something, you start getting that something quite often whether planned or not. I love this new little snowman and he will be decorating my house for Christmases to come.

Found this little Nativity set I purchased several years ago and set it up.

I can put this one out and know it can’t be broken. My Jim Shore Nativity had an accident one year and one of the donkey’s ears was broken off which a certain grandson hid under the couch and I found it there later. David repaired the ear and that nativity is placed up high where, hopefully, it can’t be broken.

Made potato and sausage soup and it was soooo good. Think we will have it for leftovers tonight.

Baked snickerdoodles and it wasn’t long before this happened…..

A hand stole in to take one. These did not last long. I made three dozen sugar cookies Saturday and they are all gone, but it was because I gave them to our grandchildren to take home. I think I ate one of them.

I have to tell you about a cleaning solution I saw on Facebook. I tried it and I was amazed at how well it worked. Here is the recipe:

2 oz. of Dawn liquid (1/4 cup)

4 oz. lemon juice(1/2 cup)

8 oz. white vinegar( 1 cup)

10 oz water(1 and 1/4 cups)

Put in a glass jar and shake it up. I use a canning jar and canning lids.

This was two batches and I already had used some for cleaning.

I have these blue Ball jars I plan to store it in.

I guess you could use another dish washing liquid other than Dawn, but then you wouldn’t have this pretty blue cleaner. I have used it on cabinets, floors, the refrigerator and a toaster that was really greasy and I had tried to clean it with just soap and water. This is what it looked like after a cleaning with this.

It was sparkling, although I do see a few places I need to apply the cleaner again. You can clean your oven, walls, windows, just about anything. It is a little soapy, but I spray it on, let it set, wipe it off with a clean cloth and it seems to work well. It smells fresh, too and is safe around animals and children. Anyway, if you don’t like harsh cleaners, this is one you might want to try. I give no guarantees, just that I had success with it.

In closing I will show you how hard it is to take pictures of your grandchildren all at the same time.

Notice our granddaughter never moved, but stayed posed, while the boys were up to their usual shenanigans.

Four more days and another group will gather at our house for another day of fellowship and fun. Hope your days are merry and bright. XOXO Bye.

Wonderful Week in Weview Part 2

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Finishing up the news for the week. We are getting nearly done making quilts for Riley’s Children’s hospital. Let me tell you a little about the senior girl who is doing this project. Mackenzie was born months too early and weighed just over two pounds. She spent a lot of time at the children’s hospital in Indianapolis in an incubator with tubes attached to her. I remember the first time I saw her when she was finally brought home and she was still so tiny.

Here we are years later and she has grown up into a beautiful, healthy girl. One of the sweetest girls I’ve ever met, I might add. She decided for her senior project to make quilts for the hospital to give back. When she had spent time there, she received two quilts which she still has.

Here are a few of her quilts.

This is a cute one with hedgehogs on it.

This is Mack. I think she has accomplished a lot in a few short weeks. From not knowing how to sew to making so many quilts, I would say she deserves an A for her project.

This is her mom, Laura. She doesn’t sew either, but she helped cut out and pin and iron the quilts.

I hope this has been a good experience for her. I know I enjoyed it.

On to other news. We went to Grandparents’ Day at our grandchildren’s school this week. We always enjoy this time. We get to see what the children are doing in school and get to spend some time with them.

Our younger grandson, Adler, was so excited about singing in the choir. It was hard to get a good picture because he was moving around so much.

I was hoping he would look at us so I could get his picture, but he was paying attention to his teacher. The girls, not so much. Ha. I got their picture.

We got to go into his classroom where the teacher asked several questions about the grandparents, like who had been a cheer leader,( I was, but my cheer leading career was very short) whether we had played a sport in college, those kinds of questions just to let the children know more about their grandparents.

After staying the night at a very comfortable motel, we spent the next morning with our older grandson who is an eighth grader.

A few days ago he hardly reached my waist. Now he has to bend over to get in the picture. And he is still growing.

The mural behind us was made by some high school girls, one of whom is our granddaughter who is a sophomore. I think it is pretty special. They signed their names in the corner.

Abby Craig. Soon we will be returning to the school to see Abby in this….

I can’t wait. I’ve been singing the songs from it around the house.

He is taller than Grandpa now.

This is his Spanish classroom.

Aidan’s history class. Guess who they are learning about? While there I saw this….

An original newspaper from when President Kennedy was assassinated. I remember it like it was yesterday. Part of a dark time in the history of our country. I was still too young to vote when he ran for president, but I think I would have voted for him.

We enjoyed both days with our red headed grandsons. Speaking of red hair. I have always been partial to red hair. Don’t know why. One of my best friends in grade schools was a beautiful red head.

DSCN1752

I told Aidan I could write a whole blog about his hair.

I love running my hand through it. I am sure he likes having his grandma do that. Ha.

It was a fun two days, but we had to get back to the dogs and the chickens so off we went for home. We did take the long way, however. On the way we came across this yard decorated for Halloween.

I think these people really, really like Halloween!

We even managed to get some antiquing in. Oh, yes. I got a few things.

Here’s to Grandparents’ Day and Grandchildren that make us so proud. Bye.

Wonderful Week in Weview Part one

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We have had a pretty busy week this week. It started out with a birthday party for a special lady. A lady who lived with her husband and five children next door to David’s family when he was growing up. I met her for the first time when David took me to her house after we started going together. She was so sweet to me and it was fun going to her house with all the children around. She always fed us and talked to us like we were the most interesting people in the world even though she was a very busy woman. We were just two teen-agers in love then.

This week her grown children, who we had not seen in decades, threw her a surprise birthday party for her eighty-fifth birthday. We were the only nonfamily members there and felt very blessed to be invited.

We drove over to Middletown and with the help of Miss Garmin found the house of one of her daughters where the party was to be held. The house was packed and no one knew who we were when we came into the door because it was all family and they all knew each other. I think they thought we were crashing the party until one of the daughters came up and we knew her immediately and then another daughter came up and we knew her too. Then the boys came up and I was so amazed because the last time we saw them they were young and now they are grandpas. One of the daughters is a great-grandma. Wow.

We visited and waited for the guest of honor to arrive. Then she came in the door.

Surprised could not begin to describe her face.

She looked around at all her family, some of whom had traveled from other states to be there.

She held her twelveth(I think) great granddaughter for the first time. How precious is that picture?

She had pictures taken with all her family members. These are her five children. Let me see if I can get their names right, From the left, Carrie, Tim, Robin, Rodney and Cheryl. I hope I got that right.

This was most of her family. Children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and brothers and sisters. She has certainly been blest with family.

She had a beautiful birthday cake. The food was delicious, the company was nice and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

Virginia is one the sweetest, nicest people you would ever want to meet. I hope she enjoyed her party.

This week I have been finishing up some baby quilts for Riley Children’s hospital in Indianapolis. I have been helping a senior girl with her senior project which was to make as many quilts as possible for the hospital. We started in September and have made twenty so far. She will have to do a presentation of them in November. I will show you some I made and I will write a special blog about this young lady who had undertaken a big job and done it well. She made ten quilts. Before she started, she didn’t even know how to sew. Quite an achievement.

In the past, I made doll quilts for Samaritan’s purse. Because I took on this project this year, I sewed four of the quilts together to make this larger one.

This quilt had a train motif.

A couple of others. I will show more quilts in the next post.

We have had grandparents’ day at school and I will tell you about that too. Bye.

Knee Deep in Summer

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I love Summer. Always have. My first memories of Summer is playing with my brothers in the yard on the swing set I believe Daddy had built. It was made of wood which is why I believe he built it. I would sit in a swing on that swing set waiting for the school bus to bring my brothers and sister home from school. Under the big walnut tree, swinging back and forth and watching for the yellow school bus. Then when I got to go to school, I looked forward to Summers and all the freedom we had as children on the farm to play and explore and help Daddy and Mother with chores and gardening.

I remember one Summer strolling down the gravel road to my sister’s , who lived just about a quarter of a mile from our house, singing “June is Busting Out All Over” from the musical State Fair. Dogs walking beside me about half way and then they would turn back and go home. We always had dogs which is why I think I love dogs so much. Mother did not have to worry about anything happening to me with the dogs along. My sister lived across from a big woods and anytime I went to visit her, I always made sure I was home before it got dark because the woods spooked my at night. I just knew something or someone would run out of them and catch me.

Summer was picking strawberries in the garden, gathering eggs, helping Daddy with the hay bailing by helping put the bales in the big red barn. He would drive the tractor and wagon stacked with hay bales in through the big center doors of the barn and my brothers would throw the bales up into the hayloft. I would help by dragging the bales to where they were to be stacked using a kind of hook to grab the bales. Summer was hours of badminton, weeding in the garden, playing with new kittens in the barn, playing baseball in the barnyard and taking hikes with my brothers. It was time for swinging in the porch swing kicking it back and forth as I read a library book. Playing hide and go seek and kick the can and battle stations( a game my brothers made up where we ran every time we saw a car coming down our road.) Oh, Summers were wonderful. It was catching lightening bugs in jars and taking the jar to my bedroom at night and watching them flicker off and on. It was swimming in the little pond my brothers made by damming up a little stream that ran through my Daddy’s woods. I never thought of snakes or anything else in the water, it just was fun to play in it. It was playing Davy Crockett at an old cabin behind Daddy’s farm where my brothers and their friends threw walnuts at each other as I hid in the cabin pretending they were Davy Crockett fighting the Indians.

My mother was a gardener and I got the gardening gene from her. I love the flowers of Summer.

We have had so much rain the flowers have grown big and blowzy all over the back yard. See the new fence David is building to keep Molly Marshmallow out of the garden? It almost disappears with all the flowers around it

Bonnie stays near the water bucket on these hot Summer days. She is twelve years old this Summer. Seems like we just got her as a pup.

And what does Miss Molly Marshmallow have in her mouth? I hope it isn’t another baby rabbit. She keeps all wildlife out of our backyard which probably is a good thing with all the flowers and vegetables growing there.

It’s pretty big, isn’t it?

It’s her chew bone that weighs about two pounds and she carries it around like it was nothing, but as long as she is chewing on it, she isn’t chewing on something she mustn’t.

Because it has been raining so much, I have had some time in my shop working on a few projects.

This barn quilt.

A chicken in the barn door.

Chickens marching across my shop.

And more chickens.

I especially love this polka dot chicken. Everyone needs a polka dot chicken.

Or two.

I bought a retractable clothes line, they call it a dryer. Ha. Just have to find some place to hang it now. I have yearned for the smell of sheets fresh off the line on our bed for a long time. I will just have to hang them where Molly Marshmallow cannot get to them.

I baked bread the other day in tiny loaves. Six of them. Three were regular bread and the other three were these….

Cinnamon bread. Yum, yum and yum. It didn’t last long around here with David’s sweet tooth, or mine for that matter. I plan to bake again this Saturday.

I will leave you with a picture of a big spider web that was built at the top of our back door. Big enough for David to walk into. And a poem.

COBWEBS

By E.L.M. King

Between me and the rising sun,

This way and that the cobwebs run;

Their myriad wavering lines of light

Dance up the hill and out of sight.

There is no land possesses half

So many lines of telegraph

As those the spider-elves have spun

Between me and the rising sun.

Bye.

Rhubarb, textiles and a Really Cute Quilt Book

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Enjoying your Summer? I am enjoying it so much, except for the really hot days that seem to sap all my energy. We are going to be in the nineties for the next few days and I am not looking forward to it. That is possibly why I love Alaska so much. I was never hot while I was up there.

We have had a bumper crop of rhubarb this year. For years I tried growing it, but never seemed to be able to until the last three or four years and now it is growing very well indeed. We had rainy, cool weather earlier, which rhubarb loves, and it grew and grew. I think all the chicken poo and composted cow manure I put on it last fall helped too. I have made rhubarb pies before, but this year I tried something different. Rhubarb and strawberry crunch. I have used this recipe for years to make apple crunch. Now it is David’s and my favorite way to eat rhubarb. Here is how you make it.

First you go out in your garden and cut several stalks of rhubarb.

Wash it well and then cut it up into small pieces.

Doesn’t look like much after this, does it? But then you do this.

You get these luscious strawberries that your husband found at Aldis and wash and quarter them.

You mix them all together with sugar. I used one and a half cups for two pies.

I also mixed in about a half cup of flour to thicken it because rhubarb makes a lot of juice when it is cooking. I think I could have added just a little more, but David says he likes the juice.

Then you get out your pfaltzgraf? pie plates. Don’t have any? Well, just any ol’ pie plate will do. I spray canola oil in them, but you can butter them if you want to add even more calories.

Now for the crunch part.

Mix one and 1/2 half cups of flour, 3/4 cup of sugar, 1/4 tsp. of salt, one tsp. of baking powder together.

Take two of your disproportionate eggs that you found under your free range chickens. Don’t have chickens? Any chicken eggs will do. Break them into the flour mixture and stir with a fork until well mixed. Then add 1/2 cup of canola oil. (Do not use olive oil in this.) I have always used canola oil so that is the only thing I can tell you will work.

Your dough will cling together which is exactly what you want it to do.

Now here is the tricky part.(Or not, but you may think it is.)

After filling your pie plate. And I mean full, you pat the dough all over the top of it with your bare hands. Try to cover everything. You will think you don’t have enough dough, but it will cover it all if you work at it.

Now it is ready to bake. Wait a minute. I like to sprinkle sugar over the top as this is not sweet enough yet. When I make apple crunch, I sprinkle both sugar and cinnamon on the top. Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 to 45 minutes or until top is golden brown and dry to touch.

Now I doubled this recipe because I had enough rhubarb to make two pies. Doesn’t this look yummy? Sorry, both of these are gone already. We had company and someone really loved this enough to eat two helpings. It’s really so good.

If you have been reading my blog for even a short time, you know I love fabrics. I have been in love with textiles ever since I was a girl when I sewed my first doll from an old sock my mother gave me. I have been in search of fabrics and things to make with it ever since.

I also love ironing. I was cleaning out a dresser this week and found some old handkerchiefs I forgot I had. I have collected old handkerchiefs for years and have a lot of them.

I washed them and ironed them. I love to iron. Yes, I know, I am a throwback, a crazy woman, someone you must think has too much time on her hands. There is just something about taking a wrinkled piece of cloth and making it smooth.

How could I have forgotten these beautiful handkerchiefs? How could women blow their noses on them? They use to, you know.

Also found some curtains I bought at an auction years ago. I think I will hang these in my shop.

I washed and ironed this fabric I have had for years that we sold in our quilt shop years ago. I am working on doll quilts and this will be the backing for some.

I am using a lot of 2 and 1/2 inch blocks for these doll quilts.

I got this perfectly darling, wonderful quilt book in the mail the other day. I have been looking at it a lot the past few days. There are so many wonderful projects in it.

It is written by this very talented lady. I have been reading her blog for years and she has written some of the cutest quilt patterns and designed some really pretty fabric. She is a farm girl like me and her book is right down my alley.

Sorry for the poor quality of my pictures, but if you can see, this is a really, really cute barn quilt. Inside each block is another smaller block where the barn door should be. I am loving this.

This is another version and this is the one I am working on now.

This is one of the six inch blocks that go in the barn block.

This is another one. There are many quilt blocks to make. Boy, am I going to have fun.

This is my attempt at my first barn quilt block. A lot of tiny pieces. This is going to be FUN. Did I already say that? You are probably thinking, this girl needs to get out more. No, I just love quilting and cute patterns like this.

Oh, oh, oh, look at this darling chick quilt made with one of the six inch block patterns. What a cute baby quilt this would be.

This pattern was worth the entire cost of the book for me. A chicken quilt. I have made a chicken quilt before, but this one in pastels is just so, so, have I said cute enough? This one will get made by me.

Here are a lot of 1and 1/2 inch squares cut ready to make this six inch block.

Inserted into a barn block this will be, well, CUTE!! Have I gushed enough about this book and the cute patterns? I am just so glad I decided to buy this pattern book. It has already given me hours of happiness.

Now to the garden. My vegetable garden already looks like a weed patch although you can see the tomatoes, pumpkins and sunflowers above the weeds. I go out occasionally and pull a few weeds and a few hundred more grow up to take their place. I have never seen weeds come up and grow so fast before.

My flower gardens give me so much pleasure. In my little kitchen garden(kitchen garden used loosely as the only edible plants growing in it is the rhubarb.)

I am not sure what this is called anymore, but I know it just keeps spreading more each year.

Hiding among the foliage I found this lily reaching for the sun. Behind it is perovskia and love in the mist. This garden holds mostly blue flowers and this lily stands out like a sore, but pretty, thumb.

Here’s to rhubarb crunch, textiles and a quilt book that sends me over the moon. Bye.

Windows, Chickens and Flowers, Oh, My

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Been busy around the old house the past few days, or is it weeks? I’m not sure, time is flying so fast. I have to keep my shirttails tucked in to keep them from flying, time is going so fast. Did I say time is going fast? In my Bible study this week I learned that time is not going, it’s coming. There is something really big coming our way. The Bible speaks of her time coming, his time coming, the time came. I find that fascinating. I don’t really worry about time. We all have a certain amount of it on this earth and we should make the best of it and give God the glory and love one another. That is really all we can do. We cannot change the weather. We cannot change time. We really don’t have control of much of anything when you really think about it, but if you put it all in God’s hands, it will all work out for the good(to those who love Him.)

Whew, I didn’t mean to get all theological on you, but that’s how I am. Things have been happening around here. We called our ever faithful contractor to replace more windows. This house has so many windows and they all have been in the house since about the fifties, I believe, so one by one we have been replacing them with brand new insulated, double paned windows when we save up the money. This time we replaced our big window in our dining room. Our contractor said we saved the hardest window for almost last. It had to be rebuilt, repainted and replaced.

Here it is taken out. Nice breeze today.

We have a nice view. Well, when the trucks and ladders aren’t there.

Reframing it. These men are pros. They have worked together for years and work like a well oiled machine. They almost know what the other one is going to say before he says it.

New windows at last! I was a little afraid that by replacing these windows we would lose some of the old woodwork around it and change the look, but now that they are in, it looks just the same, except we don’t have those awful, old, ugly storm windows on them any longer. They will be so much easier to clean.

I couldn’t wait to get some curtains hung. See my new ladder. It’s mine. I picked it out and I will be the one using it for painting walls. It’s sturdy, not like our old wooden one that rocked when I climbed on it and swayed with each movement. This one stands strong and firm and I love it. Really.

I am using lace curtains this Summer, but I have bought new insulated checked curtains for this Autumn and Winter.

After the windows were in, I painted our dining room. A soft grey. Sometimes it looks cream colored and other times really grey depending on the light. I like it. I was getting tired of the yellow walls that I really loved when I painted them a few years ago. I’m fickle like that. David and I went to Hobby Lobby this morning because we(I) wanted to get some flowers to put in my chicken feeder that I received as a Christmas gift last year.

Remember when I wrote about this surprise gift that appeared on our front porch? I didn’t know what it was or who it was from.

It was this really nice, antique chicken feeder. I told my friend who gave it to me that I was going to design a room around it, and I have. Here it is, Shannon. Look what you made me do.

I sent away for these chicken posters. The flowers I found at Hobby Lobby had feathers in them! How appropriate. Now the feeder sits in all its glory. I love how this turned out. Hanging the pictures was fun(not.) David measured and measured and measured again and one of the pictures kept looking lower than the other. I measure things with my eye and kept telling him they were not level with each other. He measured and measured and measured again and finally decided our lopsided old house was the problem so he let?! me eyeball the pictures and we finally got them almost level. As a friend use to tell me, “You will never notice it on a galloping horse.”

I love these pictures.

He could be the husband of one of my barred rock hens. Wish I could have a rooster.

We rehung this picture our daughter gave us last Christmas. Kind of goes with the theme of farm and chickens.

I have been picking these the last couple of weeks. My favorite flower. The peony.

I have tried to get a little of this in, but haven’t got much done on the doll quilts lately. I am hand quilting them as I get them pieced.

I saw this purse on a blog, I wish I could remember which one and got on Fat Quarter Shop and ordered the pattern. The Abby Bag. I hope I can find time to make it. Of course, I will have to make my granddaughter, Abby, one some time.

Just finished reading this for the second time. I got this book either at an auction or an antique store. It’s about a woman who was left behind at her family’s cabin in Alaska one winter when her husband couldn’t get back to get her. She went through many trials and tribulations like being in a landslide and breaking her arm and hurting her leg right off the bat. Besides that, she was expecting a baby and had to deal with that and give birth all by herself. It is a true story and when I read it, I realized I don’t have it hard at all, although I would really love to live in Alaska.

Maybe hard times is what hones us and makes us stronger. To live a life of ease and relaxation all the time would be a complete bore to me. I like action and hard work and doing things myself even if they don’t always turn out so well. Anyway, if you ever get to read this book, I think you would enjoy it. It was also made into a movie. I’d like to find it. I saw it a long time ago.

Just wanted to show you something my Sunday school children made last Sunday. They did all the cutting out and gluing and putting on stickers and I brought home the squares and tied them all together and will take it back to show them next Sunday. We should do as the words say, “Love one another.” Bye.

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Snicklefritz

So glad you came. Come sit a spell and read about the tale of my life.

Category Archives: Quilting

Merry Month of Many Memories

Where Did Last Week Go???

Cold and Snowy

The Needle Arts

Four More Days

Wonderful Week in Weview Part 2

Wonderful Week in Weview Part one

Knee Deep in Summer

Rhubarb, textiles and a Really Cute Quilt Book

Windows, Chickens and Flowers, Oh, My