Monthly Archives: February 2019

Fresh Air and Fresh Findings

Ahhh, fresh air at last. It’s either been too cold or too rainy to spend much time outdoors, but finally we had a break and I have been out playing with the dogs with my new ball gun that shoots a tennis ball clear across the yard for the dogs to chase.  They do love the game. I think Molly would play it forever. Belle gets tired and starts to cheat and run a little bit toward the ball and then run back with Molly to get the treat.  I’ve got your number, Belle. But she always gets a treat, too, because she is so cute.  Today we are getting  rain and snow again.   If nothing else, the weather sure changes around here.

We are on the right side of winter now.  When I go outside I can smell Spring coming.  And around the garden, the flowers are awakening.

The Hellebore is ready to bloom.

Daffodils are pushing their heads above the soil.  In a month or so the garden will be a mass of yellow blooms.

This time of year the birds even sound differently. Soon we will have to watch for the Sandhill Cranes coming back north. They always fly above our house every year.  I don’t know how we got so blessed.  You have to be outside at the right time to hear them. Their call is like if you take your tongue and flutter it against the roof of your mouth.  They fly in large groups and sometimes there are more than one group.   They are heading to Camp Atterbury, an army base near us, where they will stay for a time at a lake there.   David worked at Camp Atterbury for several years and I use to take the kids swimming at the pool there every Summer.  There is an outlook you can climb and see Canadian geese in the water below. Geese don’t migrate like I remember them doing when I was a girl. Now they stick around all Winter.  I taught the boys to drive on the roads at Camp Atterbury because there wasn’t much traffic there at the time. Still scared me out of my wits!    Camp Atterbury was once a prisoner of war camp for German soldiers during WWll.  The old barracks were still there when we first moved here over forty years ago, but through the years and the wars in the Middle East, the camp has been restored to its former glory with new barracks and roads and fences.   Sometimes we can hear the soldiers as they train firing their weapons and once in a while huge planes fly over  practicing touching down and taking off at our local airport.

While searching for material for my Bullseye quilts, which I’ve become obsessed with, I discovered a quilt I had started years ago.  The pattern was in this magazine dated 2005, so that is probably when I started it.

I had it all cut out.  It was funny because I had been thinking about this particular quilt a while back wondering what had happened to it. I also wondered why I had not come across it last Summer when I was going through all my fabric boxes.  But it was a nice surprise, almost like Christmas and I have cut out a few more blocks for it to add some of my newer fabrics into the mix and I am having so much fun sewing it together.

I  am never happier than when my cutting table looks like this.

And I am so happy to have several projects going at a time.  If I get bored with one, I can lay it aside and work on another.    I have so many projects I want to make.

I’m going to have to hurry up because outside days are coming.

I completed this little quilt and am ready to quilt it.

Another one of Kathleen Tracy’s patterns.  Love her little quilts.

This brings me to the show on tv, Hoarders.  David said one time I was getting ready to look like a hoarder with all the fabric piled on my cutting table, but what he doesn’t understand is, this is how I work.  I get a lot of fabric out, go through it and get what I need, and then I finally put it all away. Now my table is organized again.   I watch the Hoarders only to make me want to keep from being a hoarder. I watched one particular show one evening, and I had just cleaned out my refrigerator, but after that show, I wanted to clean out my refrigerator again!   I don’t like to shop, so I don’t think I would ever get as bad as some of the hoarders do.  Most shop all the time and bring things home and toss them on the pile.  I only buy something I really need or know I will use a lot.   Of course, that’s what some of the hoarders say, too!

Being in my nice, warm sewing shop with my trusty dogs beside me on a cold, rainy day, sewing on a quilt, is the best thing I could be doing. Oh, I could be doing housework, the laundry, cooking etc., but No.

Molly has to be in her cage or I would get nothing done because she thinks anytime I am around I should be ready to play.

I’ve been reading the dictionary lately, I know, I’m weird and have decided to add a little something to my blogs.   I am going to have a different word and its meaning on each one for while   It will broaden our vocabulary and make us all a little smarter. Ha.  Of course, if you already know the word, you will be one step ahead of some of us. So this day’s word is…

Contumacious-adj. stubbornly perverse or rebellious.  Willfully disobedient.   The contumacious boy was sent to reform school.

Hope none of you are contumacious. Bye.

 

 

 

Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

I know I sound like a recording, but isn’t the time flying?  It’s almost Valentine’s Day already and we were just celebrating the New Year.  When I hear young people say the time is passing quickly, then I don’t know what to say because if it’s passing quickly for them there is something happening to the space time continuum of planet earth.  I often wonder if God is speeding time up for Jesus’ coming as He looks upon us and sees the evil that is in people’s minds and actions. I can hardly bear to read the news or listen to it anymore.

I also believe at times that I live in an alternate universe from many people.  I don’t understand a lot of people a lot of the time.  Maybe they feel that way about me.  I don’t know. Of course, my husband tells me I am weird all the time.  The last time I visited my doctor, he called me weird because of how my body reacted to the medicine he says helps everyone else.  So, maybe I am weird! But I’m a happy weird.

Well, that is about as deep as I’m going to get today. Just something to think upon and wonder about.  I try to live each day with joy and hope and I know how it all ends, so I’m not afraid.

I’ve had so many projects going on and many more I want to do before the warm weather gets here and I will want to be outside in the fresh air playing with my dogs. They have been rather neglected in these cold and rainy days.   They have been spending a lot of time in my shop with me, listening to my radio talk shows, ha, and watching me cut out Bullseye quilts.  I am addicted to Bullseye quilts. I think I am because I love going through all my fabric and finding material that will go together to make a block, knowing I will cut that block into four pieces along with many other blocks and then sew all those parts together to make a pretty amazing looking quilt.  And I am discovering fabric I had forgotten about, so that’s a plus, too. It’s almost like Christmas when I find a forgotten fabric.  I made a pillow with a four of the blocks.

I love this pillow way too much. I had had it on the couch for a couple of weeks  David just noticed it!   My very observant husband.

How can one miss this bright and colorful pillow!   I’m going to make some more. Maybe give some away.  I have a Christmas Bullseye quilt almost all cut out.  Like I said, I’m addicted.

And wonderful things have been coming in the mail. I read Mary Etherington’s blog over on Country Threads Chicken Scratch. Mary and her friend, Connie use to have a quilt shop in northwestern Iowa called Country Threads. They wrote many patterns, some of which I sold in our store, Craig’s Vac and Sew, years ago. They closed the store several years ago, but still write patterns and they have a book out right now that I ordered.

I was so excited when this package arrived.

With the cutest little return label.

And a wonderful book inside.

Here’s Mary and Connie.

They are very good friends and were superstars in the quilting world years ago.  I met Mary, the one in glasses, years ago when we traveled through Garner, Iowa going out west. I wanted to visit their quilt shop. It was wonderful, but the best part was I got to meet Mary as the quilt shop was located on her farm.  You know you see someone who is famous in their field and you wonder if they are as nice as they appear in their pictures. Well, Mary is the nicest person you could ever wish to meet. She welcomed me and showed me around the farm. I’m sure she doesn’t remember me, but she had a hurt arm or shoulder and I grabbed her and hugged her before I realized it and she was so nice about it even though I probably caused her great pain.

I felt like I did when I saw the Beatles.  Mary was that famous in my eyes.  Their patterns sold very well in our store and I have made so many quilts from them. If you want the book, go over to her blog and I think you can still order it.  And they sign the ones you buy from them.

I’m just saying. Superstars!  I plan to make several quilts from this book.

I got more flower seeds.  I honestly don’t know where I am going to plant them all as my garden is pretty full already, but I will stick them in somewhere.

Zinnias are one of my top five favorite flowers to raise. Just toss the seeds in the ground and in a few weeks you have a wonderful display of blooms.

And I got some more fabric.

Just some basics to use in my Bullseye quilts.

And last, but certainly not least I got more yarn.

It came in a bag that had this on the front.

And each skein of yarn had a yarn marker attached.

An extra little bonus.  I will be ordering from this business again.

Her yarns are amazing.  And fun to knit up.

Years ago our city had a major flood. They called it the hundred year flood because in theory it only happens every one hundred years.  But this week, people were getting worried as the rains kept falling for hours and hours.  We drove past a park in town and this is what we saw.

I’ve climbed that tower from which you can see the downtown.

The amphitheater where shows and bands perform. Not going to right now.

The playground.  Many years ago before this park came into existence, there were people who lived down by the river in shanties.  I have seen pictures from years ago of those shanties flooded. Finally, the city moved all the people and put in this park that gets flooded every so often because the river runs right by it.

Friends of mine, who lost everything in the last flood, were getting concerned and I didn’t blame them. It was looking scary for a while, but finally the rains stopped and the sun came out and the water is receding.   Today it is snowing and sleeting.

My church helps support a Crisis Pregnancy Center. Every year we are given baby bottles to fill with money to give to the center.  I am always happy to contribute because they are saving babies’ lives there and with what we see in the news today, we must continue to fight for and protect the unborn.

I am glad my church participates in this. I pray for all the babies.

My chickee-poos are still laying during this crazy weather.  We get just enough eggs for us right now.  I must show you the one a hen laid.  She certainly gave her all.

Almost as big as a duck egg and I should know. I use to raise ducks.

 

What are your plans for Valentine’s Day?  If I don’t plan anything, we won’t do anything. I do have a delicious looking Valentine Jelly Donut cake recipe I am thinking of making for David.

I bought these candy hearts. You know, the ones that have cute words on them for Valentine’s Day, but you can hardly read the words they’re so dim.  And it’s a brand name, too.   What is wrong with them!   You really have to look to see what each heart reads.   Oh, well. That’s the way of things today.  I may be getting old, but things really are more poorly made than they were years ago except for maybe cars because one rarely sees a broken down car on the side of the road any longer.  When I was a girl you’d see them all the time and cars use to rust out faster than they do today. Our car is ten years old and still going strong and we’d like it to last another ten years.   That car has been all over the United States, to Alaska and down the Alaska Highway through Canada. North, South, East and West.  I’d like to keep her a while longer.

I sincerely hope you have a Happy Valentine’s Day.  Whether alone or with a loved one, you still are loved by the One who loves us all.  He never disappoints. He will never forsake you.  He is the best Valentine a person could have. Jesus. Love you all and God bless. Bye.