Indiana is beautiful in the Autumn. For a brief time the trees are in their glory before they shake their leaves all off and go to sleep for the Winter. David and I love traveling country roads to look at their beautiful foliage.
There is nothing like traveling the back country roads.
We see old buildings like this and wonder what they were used for. David thinks a barn and I think it could be an old warehouse. Someone knows. People in vintage cars like the back roads, too. How much fun to drive the back roads in this car. Up a hill to where two of our grandsons live and where we have some property. We have had this property for years and dream of building a cabin on it. Watching them practice their sports. The grandson in black is our youngest. He’s much too big. They grow up so fast. Our daughter has MS and has not been able to drive for about a year. She was told if they bought a certain car they could have special controls installed into the car which would enable her to drive. They would do this for free if they bought the car. Unfortunately, their budget did not provide the funds to buy the car so one of their friends put them on Gofundme and in a matter of a few weeks they had enough to buy the car. Gofund me is for people who need help with things like medical bills and things like this car that someone needs to be able to do things for themselves. They were certainly blessed to have people donate to this fund for them and are thankful for every one of them. Here is the car. As soon as they have the controls installed, our daughter will take lessons on how to use them and she will be able to drive her wheelchair right up to the controls and drive herself. She is so looking forward to this as she loves to drive and it will give her some of her freedom back. It’s been a difficult journey for her sometimes, but this is a bright spot in her days.
We took another drive today up north to visit our other grandchildren and eat breakfast at the Pancake House with them. I love eating at the Pancake House. I usually get French toast and it’s so good. Their coffee is good, too. I usually don’t like coffee at most restaurants because they make it so strong.
We finally got to see our granddaughter’s and her husband’s house they bought last year. They celebrated their first anniversary this Summer. They adopted their older dog, Hazel and she is a sweetie. Part chocolate Lab and part Pit Bull. My granddaughter is getting ready to run a 10K and Hazel loves to run with her. Their house is so cute. Much larger than David’s and my first house as we told them. We could have fit our first house in two rooms of theirs. But we loved our little house at the time, but then the babies started coming and it was much too small. They have room for at least one baby. I hope it won’t be too long. Hint, hint, Abby, if you are reading this! We sat around their table with Abby’s mother and visited for a while. It was so nice. Then it was off on back roads again. Past Geist Reservoir. We watched fireworks from our son’s boat on this reservoir one Summer.
The leaves were flying in the air today as we drove down the road.
When we got home I took some pictures of just a few things I will have for sale in my Christmas sale, December 3rd.
Patchwork kitties. I’ve made dozens of these. You could hang them on your tree, give them to your cat to play with or make a banner with several of them. I think I might put a banner together myself. They come in all colors. Just a small selection of the patchwork stockings I have made. I only made three bears and wish I had made more. They are so cute. Two of the bears are so fat, their shirts would not fasten, but David said it makes them look fashionable that way! These were from a pattern of my mother’s who made bears for our daughter when she was a little girl. I am so glad I still have the pattern. This is a barn quilt I have made. I love this pattern. It’s from Lori Holt’s Vintage Farmgirl quilt book. You can do so many variations with this pattern and every one looks different.
How cute are these barns with the quilt on the side? I have made several things from this pattern for myself and I never get tired of it. Just looking at this makes me want to go right out to my shop and make another one. The book is still for sale on Amazon, I think. But you can buy a finished quilt from me!
Just a few potholders I have made. I got the patterns for these from several places. Each one is different. This is a Kathleen Tracy design from one of her books. Kathleen Tracy takes a quilt design and uses vintage looking fabric to make her quilts to make them look old. This one is kind of like that. I love this pattern. I’ve made several for me and for others. It’s fun to use your scraps to make this quilt. It’s small, but would look cute on a table with a bowl full of apples on it or a couple of pumpkins or anything you love that you would like to show off. Another quilt that I will sell. No two quilts are alike. This is doll sized or you could use it, again, underneath something you want to showcase on a table. I roll up all my little quilts and place them in a basket or in an old doll carriage I have which makes a nice way to display them. I have dozens of small quilts. I even have one my mother made me when I was a little girl. Perhaps a little girl will get this one for her doll. More gift tags. I’ve made piles of them. They are like potato chips. You can’t stop at one. They would look cute on a Christmas package. I saw this quilt in a magazine years ago and had always wanted to make one and here it is. It’s in Christmas colors but you could leave it up all year. Each hand has a word of faith on it.
And last, but not least and certainly not the last things I will be showing you.
Bundles of mug rugs(or coasters if you wish.) Four in each bundle and tied with my homemade twine. I will also have my twine for sale. I have twisted dozens of yards of it and it is so cute tied around a present. With my gift tags, of course!
That’s all for today. As soon as I get all this priced, I will bring another load down from my upstairs and post it here before my sale.
Here’s to country roads and sewing for Christmas. Bye.
I finally thought I was done making things for my Christmas sale, so I have started a deep cleaning of my shop. Having kept three dogs in there while I was sewing, there was a lot of dog hair to clean up. The pups are going to have to stay out of the shop until after December 3rd. So, I’ve been going through all my things and finding more fabric I had forgotten I had and of course, I decided to make a few more things.
I found some of my cute Halloween fabric and just had to make a little quilt. I’ve already sewn another one that I will show you when it’s done.
Because my table was finally cleared off, having not been able to see the top of it since last Christmas and I got this idea to have a sale, I thought I would pin one of my quilts that I have been wanting to finish.
After hundreds of pins later, I finally got it all ready to quilt.
This quilt will be mine when I’m finished. It has a fine display of many of my fabrics I have purchased through the years to include some material from a dress I wore when I was a little girl.
Here are a few things I will be selling in December.
A doll quilt. I’ve made several so if you know of a little girl who would like to have a quilt for her dolls, there will be some to choose from.
Potholders. I have really enjoyed making these. I have so many pot holders of my own I have made through the years and I use them all the time. I don’t know how many I have made for the sale, but there are several in different colors. Honestly, this is my very favorite thing I have made for the sale and I love it so much, I am going to have to make myself one. It could be a baby quilt or a doll quilt or you could hang it on the wall of a child’s room.
Autumn has come and it looks like it around our house.
We managed to get three pumpkins from our two pumpkin vines that made it through the Summer. The dogs tore up one patch and we had to watch that they didn’t get into the other patches. Years ago, I planted this Viburnum. It would die out and sometimes only a stick would come up every year until last year when it really started to grow and it had the prettiest blue flowers on it in the Spring, but nothing else. Then, this year, no blue flowers, but these beautiful purple berries are all over it. I thought they looked so pretty against the blue Autumn sky. Proves you need patience when you garden because plants will do what they want to do at times and you just have to leave them alone. I am so glad we didn’t dig this out years ago when it wasn’t producing anything. The Mexican torch flower wasn’t as pretty as it has been in the past. I didn’t know the neighbors pine tree was a backdrop to it, but it does make them stand out. We hung the two wind parachutes that we got on our trip to Madison a few weeks ago. They twirl in the wind and are so pretty. I love them. Something else we love is this dog. She LOVES to play fetch and would do it all day, I believe. Here she is watching David closely ready to fetch the ball. I’ve been gathering zinnia and cosmos seed to plant next year.
I will leave you with a picture of a creature that has taken up residence on our front porch. Well, at least its home.
Can you see the hole where it hides? I don’t know what kind of spider is in there, but it has a huge web strung. It’s probably a good two feet long and just as wide. A structure to be proud of, I’m sure, if you are a spider.
