Category Archives: Quilting

My quilt projects.

Sleepy

I don’t know why, but for the last couple of weeks I have been so sleepy.  I sleep until nine or ten in the morning and by mid afternoon I am sleepy again.  Maybe it’s been this extremely cold, damp weather we have been having that chills you right to the bone.

Last night  after supper, I was so cold I got three blankets and laid on the couch with them over me and fell asleep until ten o’clock.  Stayed up for a couple of hours, went to bed and slept until almost nine thirty this morning.  My mother would tell me I am sleeping my life away.  I kind of feel that way.

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I wish I could be more like my dogs and not be ashamed I am sleeping so much.  They don’t seem to mind wasting away a whole day just snoozing.    Bonnie stays in my shop all day and doesn’t move a muscle for hours.  She doesn’t care what others might think.  Look at her, how peaceful she is.  By the way, she and Belle got new beds for my shop so now I let them in more often since they don’t get on the furniture anymore.  They are loving that.

It’s not that I haven’t been busy.  When I am awake my hours are full.  I just finished a Bible study, have been doing some Spring cleaning and have been cutting hundreds of two inch squares for a quilt I am making. It needs over two thousand squares.  As I cut them, I sew a few together.  I want to have this quilt pieced before hot weather gets here.  I’ve been taking care of the chooks.  They are beginning to lay more regularly now.  They might be getting some new friends later this summer if my daughter gets me the Austrolorps I want.    I’m too tired to download any pictures right now, but I will be showing you  what I have been up to soon.  I made a bunny garland today.   Just need to do some hand sewing on it.  If I can get out of this sleep funk, I will take some pictures.

We had some exciting news today.   Our contractor, Claude(He calls himself Bub) called us today and said he was ready to start work on our new front porch and put in some new windows.  I have told you our old porch on our hundred year old house is sinking and pulling away from the house causing cracks in the wall of our living room.  David said we had to replace the porch or the side of the house would be torn off eventually.  I don’t like that idea.  I kind of like to have walls between me and the elements.  Another winter like this one with a wall gone?   So, we are biting the bullet and getting the porch built.  It will go all along the front of our house instead of just halfway like the old one is now. It will have stone facings on the porch posts, a ceiling fan and tiffany like lights by the door. It will have low rise steps instead of the high steps it has now and railings down them so my friends and family won’t fall going up and down them.  I have seen people fall off our steps too many times.    If we have to do it, we are going to do it right and in style.

So now I have my work cut out for me.  I have dozens of flowers to move by next week.   If I don’t, I will lose them under the porch.  I guess I won’t be sleeping a lot for the next few days.

I am so ready for gardening, though.  David tilled the garden and we let the chooks in and they had a ball scratching and pecking at the newly turned soil.  I have dozens of tomato plants started and one pumpkin plant that is getting pretty big in its pot.  Hope warm weather will get here before it outgrows it.  I have flower seeds and gladiola bulbs and beans and squash, plus the rest of the pumpkin seeds to plant.  I can hardly wait to make that first trip to the nursery to buy more flower plants.  I am losing my porch flower box that David built me when the old porch goes, so I will have to plant hanging baskets now.

Now, if the weather will just cooperate and I can stay awake long enough, I may get something done.

Here’s to sleep, new porches and dreams of gardens.  Bye.

Juggling

Right now I feel like a juggler, juggling several different things at once.  And it’s all my fault.  No one makes me do these things.

I am a creative person loving to sew, quilt, knit, embroider and do just about any handwork.  My problem is I love to start something, but I don’t always get it done.  Right now I can say  I have at least ten quilts that need to be completed.  Probably more.  One I just have a very little bit of quilting to do and it just sits there waiting on me.  Making me feel guilty.

Then there is the knitting.  I just started knitting after years of not knitting a thing.  Suddenly I am in love with yarn and the working with the two needles row upon row as a hat or a scarf takes shape.  This week I have made three children’s hats and a scarf.   I want to start another hat.  I’m thinking these hats would be nice to put in Christmas boxes for Samaritan’s Purse. I only knit at night right before I go to bed, but the problem is I don’t want to go to bed until I get a hat done.  I can knit one in an evening.  They’re small.

Then I decided I needed to make a couple of new ironing board covers.  That entails making almost a twin size quilt and cutting it down to size to fit the ironing board.  I almost have one done.  I don’t waste any time when I get an idea in my head.

Then I went to a fabric store last week with some friends and got an armload of felts and decided I needed to make needle holders right away.  Today I cut out two, plus a scissor holder.  They will be so cute, I think, if I get them done. Lots of handwork on these.  I will show them to you when I get them finished.  They are not the hand needle holders I made last week and showed you.    I bet you are wondering what I am going to do with all these needle holders.  I have a plan.

Now I am on a roll and want to get a Christmas quilt completed before gardening time gets here.  I almost have the quilt top finished.

Today it suddenly hit me I have way too many things going at once and need to finish a few and tidy things up a bit before Spring.  Plus I have been neglecting the pups and the chicks.  They demand my attention and I have given them very little in the past couple of weeks.  And I need to get to the beauty shop and get my hair cut or it is going to be to my waist before I know it.  Plus my “true” color is showing and I can’t have that.  But every time I think I will make an appointment,  we get another big snow and I don’t want to get out in it.

I need to plant tomatoes now.  Before we know it, we will be in garden planting season and last year my tomatoes were late getting out.  I had cherry tomatoes clear up to frost last year, but so many of them were wasted that way so this year I hope to get them out earlier.  The chooks really cleaned out the old garden and even flattened the compost pile so I won’t have much cleaning up of the garden before we till it.  I am amazed what good little dirt turners they are.  They have scratched up every inch of the garden area.  That is why you don’t let chickens into your garden when something is growing there.

I am sounding rather hyper here, aren’t I?  I said a while ago I have never been bored.  Now I see why.  I am where I think a boring day might be nice.  A long day of nothing. Maybe just me, a hot bath and a good book.  Sounds pretty wonderful.    But that isn’t going to happen for a while. Next week I start a new Bible study for six weeks.  Since it is going to be at my house this time I am going to have to do some cleaning.  And some baking.

Our Sunday school class is going to a dinner theater and I am so excited about that.  I love plays and musicals and things like that.  This is a special one for Valentine’s Day.

My chooks are doing well in this bitter, cold weather.  It doesn’t seem to affect them much.  We do have a heat lamp on in the sub zero temps.  They are still  laying from three to five eggs a day. I still have to give eggs away because we cannot eat them fast enough.   I notice someone is molting because I see a lot of loose feathers when I clean their coop. And it sure isn’t me!

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Finished my granddaughter’s book.  I find myself excited about reading the next one to see what is going to happen next to her main characters.  She is a really good writer.  As she matures I see her writing more and more and getting the public’s attention.  Her book is geared toward middle school aged children, but she used some big words I had to look up.

Another snow is expected this weekend.  Feed the birds.  They can’t find food under the snow.  I have the fattest birds and squirrels around because they are always feasting.  The squirrels just look at me when I go out to fill the feeder and just keep on munching.  I guess by now they know I don’t eat squirrel.

Here’s to sewing, quilting, knitting, reading and never being bored.  Bye.

Wonderful Winter Week in Weview

I have to tell you something about this blog before you read it.  There is a picture that keeps showing up that I cannot get removed.  My husband tried also, but it is a ghost picture that refuses to be removed so when it crops up at the most inappropriate times, just ignore it.  Just think of it as the crazy uncle who came to dinner and never wanted to leave.  Okay, so here goes………

Even though it has been bitterly cold and even though it hurt to go outside for very long and even though you’d get frostbit if you spent much time outdoors, it was a pretty wonderful week.

I look back and see all the things I did and got done and I think it was a very productive week also.

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Every year about this time I get the urge to knit something.  I got some yarn last week and began two projects.

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This yarn is so yummy, but I can’t tell you what I am making because it will be a gift one day.  It has a wonderful texture and is knitting up so prettily.

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I have had this pattern for a turban for too many years and decided to try making it.  All it is is knit 3, purl 3 on one row and purl 3, knit 3 on the next until it gets to be about twenty inches long.  Sew the ends together. Then I doubled it together and this is how it looks:

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It is toasty warm and easy to get on and off.  In fact, I found myself wearing it all day when it was really cold to keep my head warm.

 

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Here’s another view of it.  Yes, I need a haircut and color, but I haven’t wanted to get out to the beauty shop.  Maybe this month I will change my look completely again.

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I baked eight little loaves of bread that was very good.  Sorry, it’s all gone now.

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Because it was so cold and the labs were in the shop keeping warm, I moved the shop into the house.  I was working on several projects here.  Despite the fact I have three quilts I want to make for Christmas presents this year, I keep finding all these little projects taking my time.  But they are so much fun.

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A pile of churn dash quilt blocks will become a new ironing board cover soon.

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Because I now have all my pins and needles separated, I now have to have something to keep my needles in so I made these cute hand needle holders.

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DSC_0408  This is what they look like when they are closed.

Because cabin fever was setting in, some friends and I and David decided to take a day out.  We drove to Indianapolis to see this sight first.

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DSC_0408 A beautiful ice tree that some people had made in their back yard.   They just used twigs and water from hoses with water from a pond on their property and began making this.  It’s been a very good year for ice trees and this year it is very big and so beautiful.  Their family has been doing it for years, evidently, but this is the first year I had ever heard of it.  My friends didn’t know where we were going when we were driving there.  They thought we were going to a quilt shop and thought we were taking a very strange route.

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Isn’t it a gorgeous sight?  The ice tree is pretty nice too!

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I think it’s worth the drive if anyone wants to see it.  The family just enjoys the smiles it puts on people’s faces and we loved it.

We did manage to get to a couple of quilt shops.  I had found one I had never heard of before on the internet called Crimson Tate.  It’s a wonderful quilt shop full of the most luscious fabric you would ever want to see.  I had seen some fabric on their website that I was hoping they still had that I am going to use in a quilt and they still had it.  Dance a jig.

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Rows of these gorgeous fabrics.  I wanted them all.

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There was a wall of Love Indiana pillows.  Aren’t they cute?  I didn’t ask if they had a pattern for them. but they probably do.  They had so many cute patterns and if you like to sew clothes they have some dress patterns that are just darling.

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Everywhere you looked there was something pretty or cute to see.  Wouldn’t this be a cute quilt for a baby?  Have I used the word cute enough?

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There was this wonderful antique button display case(not for sale) as my husband quickly learned, but he sure liked it.  The owner of the shop was showing him some of her buttons.  Nice to have someone entertain your husband while you shop for fabric.  He likes to go into quilt shops since we use to own one and see what other shop owners are doing.

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This is Heather, the owner.  A really sweet and nice person.  Visit her shop. It’s at 845 Massachusetts Avenue in Indianapolis.  You will love it and she didn’t even have to pay me to say this.  It’s true.  It was a fun day.  We ate at Chick-fil-A one of my favorite fast food places that we don’t have in our town so I don’t get it very often.  Then we went to the Back Door quilt shop where I got a whole armload of felt to make things(I don’t know what, yet, but I like to always have felt on hand when the creative ideas start to come.)

Here’s to quilt shops, ice trees and good friends to share them with.  Bye.

 

 

 

 

Brrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!

Here in the midwest and in other parts of our country, we are suffering sub zero temperatures right now.  Well, I won’t say suffering exactly if you have a nice warm home and food to eat.  But, anyway, it’s darn cold.  I mean go outside for one minute to run back to check on eggs at the coop without a coat on and coming back almost frostbitten cold.  Why did I do that?

I worry about our eggs freezing.  We have had a few freeze before we could get out to gather them.  Those we feed to the dogs.  Sometimes one hen will sit out there for an hour or two on three eggs and I will have to reach under her to get the eggs and she says a few bad clucks to me, but I am not leaving those eggs out there in this freezing weather.

Our outside dogs are staying in my shop during this weather.  Normally, I don’t worry about them getting too cold because they have an insulated doghouse with several inches of cedar on the floor.  One winter when it got really cold I was worried that they were not warm enough in their doghouse so I crawled inside and they came in too and believe me, it got hot in there.  But with these temperatures and the wind that is blowing I just feel so much more comfortable knowing they are in my warm shop.  I don’t think Bonnie has left the recliner I have out there once except when we take her outside to go.  She’s getting old and her old bones are enjoying the comfort and warmth.

We took the Christmas tree down today.  I decided to leave our decorations up for the twelve days of Christmas.  Did you know there were twelve days of Christmas?  You probably know the song and it has a Christian meaning.  My girly room looks kind of empty now without the tree, but I have a wonderful view outside and can see the birds eating at the bird feeder. Oh, be sure to put out some food for the birds right now as the snow has covered much of their natural food.  There were about thirty out there at once eating.  Several cardinals which brighten up the landscape.  I am so glad we have cardinals in the winter because everything else is grey and brown and white.

As I told you my last blog I am working on Christmas gifts for 2014 already.  I have so many ideas in my head and cannot wait to try them all.  I have butterflies flittering around in my girly room right now and that is all I am going to say about that.

David was coming home from work last week and the brakes went out on his truck.  Thankfully, he made it home okay.  He called AAA and a tow truck driver came out.  Our plan only paid to tow the truck for three miles and it was one-tenth of a mile over the limit to the repair shop.  But the truck driver was nice and said he would just put down three miles and didn’t charge us the extra.  There are good people in this world despite the fact the news tells us differently.

David is lost without his truck and feels it is beneath him to drive the Pt Cruiser to work.  I don’t know why.  He drives it every place else.  Funny guy, my husband.  But he is my hero.  I opened the door to the basement this morning to go downstairs to get some canned goods and a freezing wind came up the stairs.  David went down and saw a window had blown open and broke the glass when the window struck the wall.  So he got some cardboard and taped it and sealed it so the wind couldn’t get in.  It will have to stay that way until Spring because we are not having a window out to repair during the winter.  I wonder sometimes what I would do without him.  A somber thought.  I guess I could have repaired the window myself, but it is nice to have a man around to do those kind of things.

How is your new year coming?  I have friends who have already lost loved ones so it isn’t so nice for them right now.  Hope it will get better for them as the year progresses.  We never know what each year will bring.  Joy, sorrow. new jobs, travel, getting new family members, losing others.  It’s all part of life.  Have to take the good with the bad which is why when things are good we should rejoice in that and savor every minute.  May you all be blessed this year.   Keep warm.  Bye.

Happy New Year Traditions

It has been a pretty happy and joyous holiday season and I have enjoyed it all, but now it’s time to look toward a brand new year and think how I will spend my time in it.

Before I get to that, though, I want to finish up some Christmas things.  We had such a nice Christmas.  Low key and quiet with some rambunctious children thrown in.  This year there were two gifts that were special to me.  I got a camera which I am still learning how to use, but that isn’t one of the gifts I am talking about.

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I was given this darling Jim Shore Santa and I love Jim Shore figurines, but if you look closely, you will see just why I am particularly happy with this one.  He is holding a chicken and a basket of eggs!

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That could be Freedom he is holding.

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His basket has several eggs in it. How cute is that?  I am wondering if this is the start of a chicken figurine collection?

The other gift I received came from my loving husband.  I have wanted one of these for years.  My brothers had one when we were growing up and I played with it a lot.

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A ukelele!!!!  Oh, how I love this. I am practicing on it all the time trying to get my fingers to make the chords sound right.

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It’s so pretty, too.  Green paisley.  It has a really good tone and my fingers are beginning to get toughened up by playing it so much.   I know I am going to get hours of fun out of this and I hope I get good enough that when some of our friends get together with their guitars and banjos I can join them on my ukelele.

Today, the first day of 2014 was a really nice day.  We went shopping and I got some fabric.  I haven’t bought fabric since, well, since we went to North Carolina two months ago.  This time, though, I was buying to make gifts for, what else, Christmas this year.  Yes, I am one of those people who works all year on Christmas.  No waiting until the last minute to buy gifts for this girl.  I like to spread the cheer all year and enjoy wondering how people will like their presents I give them.  I have had some specific orders for presents this time and they are going to take a little time.

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I came home with these treasures.

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Love these wool felt pieces for which I have plans.  I bought a new pattern today and it is so cute and know just the person for which I will make it.

David and I ate at Olive Garden for lunch.  I got baked shrimp parmesan and it was so good.

When we got home, I grabbed Belle and she and I took a four mile walk.  I wasn’t intending to walk quite so far, but the more we walked the more I wanted to.   It felt good to get out in the fresh air. I let Belle loose and she ran all over like a little kid let out of a cage.

When I got back, I started on one New Year’s tradition.  Every year for as long as I can remember, my mother made new pillow cases on New Year’s Day.  It’s good luck, she said.  I have followed in that tradition and I made a couple today.

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I used this pretty pink check fabric for one.

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No, this isn’t my pillowcase. I am going to sew yo-yos on the one I made today and it will look like this one when I am done.  It’s going to take about sixty yo-yos I think.

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I made a pillowcase for David for Valentine’s Day using this fabric.  I will put a York peppermint patty on his pillow.

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Here are my completed pillowcases.  Here is a quick tutorial to make a pillowcase.

This is for a standard size pillow.  If you have a King size or other size pillow you will have to adapt this to your pillow.

First cut a length of fabric 42 inches wide by 35 or 36 inches long.

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Turn down 1/4 inch on one of the 42 inch sides and press.

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Turn down another 3 inches and sew.

Put right sides together and sew the side and bottom seams together.

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I use 1/4 inch seams.

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Clip one corner where two seams meet. Be sure not to clip your stitching or you will weep and wail and wonder why you ever started this project.

Now this next step is not necessary, but I think it gives a nice finish to your pillowcase.  I zigzag all my seams.

Turn your pillow right side out.  Press the seams flat and then press your pillowcase.  You can starch it if you prefer.  I don’t, but that’s my preference.   There. You have made a pillowcase.  Wasn’t that easy?

Another tradition my mother had was to make something from cabbage on New Year’s day.  It could be sauerkraut, coleslaw or fried cabbage.  I made scalloped cabbage.   I don’t have a picture of it right now, but it turned out real pretty and is it good.  Even if you don’t like cabbage, you might like this.

I was going to show you another tradition I have, but for some reason my computer says no, you cannot add any more pictures to your post. Don’t know why. My husband and I have both worked on it with no luck.

So I will just wish all of you the happiest of New years. I am so happy you take some time out of your busy day to come read this little blog. I am thrilled beyond measure people all around the world are reading it. You there, in Norway, thank you for stopping by. That gal in Australia who comes here. Wish I could meet you all. The British ladies who live where I would love to visit one day. The one in Kuwait, China, France. I know  I haven’t mentioned all the countries, but I just want to say I love knowing you are all here. The local girls, too. I love you all. I look forward to writing about this life of mine. It’s not a large life, but it’s a fun, wholesome, happy life and I wouldn’t want to live any other. I’ll be telling you about some of my plans on my next blog.  BYE.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I Can’t Believe, But I Do

I can’t believe it’s less than a week until Christmas.  I have lived through many Christmases and each one has been different, but still the spirit of Christmas lives on.

I believe we celebrate Jesus Christ’s birthday at Christmas time.  Jesus was very probably born in warmer weather since the shepherds were watching their sheep out in the hills around Bethlehem when He was born.  December 25th was picked long ago as the date Christians would celebrate his birth.  Christ Mass is how the word originated.

Anyway, I believe Christmas is special because there is a spirit that surrounds the whole holiday.  The spirit of love, joy, peace and giving of gifts like the magi gave gifts to the Christ child.  I love the gift giving part.  As I grow older, getting gifts just doesn’t seem as important to me as giving them.  I wish I could give more.

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David and I have put on our Santa hats and gotten to work building, painting and sewing Christmas gifts.  This weekend I will be baking and making candy.  Some of the grandkids will be here so they can help me.

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Years ago when David and I had a quilt shop we sold this quilting book.  It has so many wonderful projects in it and I have made a few.

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I made this quilt and gave it to someone who is a teacher.  I would like to make another because I really love it.

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I made this quilt and it is put out every Christmas.  There are a few more projects in the book I plan to make for next Christmas.  Wish I had more time to get them done this year, but time is running out.

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These are some of the things I am working on or will be working on this week.  I forgot I had the Betty Crocker Christmas cookbook and am finding several recipes in it I want to try.  I also am going to make gingerbread cookies.  Something I haven’t done in years, but it just sounded like fun this year. I would like to make peanut brittle.  I love peanut brittle.  One time I was riding my exercise bicycle while eating peanut brittle at the same time.  David came into the room and laughed and said “You’re defeating the purpose of riding the bike, aren’t you?”  I just laughed and ate another piece of peanut brittle.

I told you I would show you my Jim Shore nativity set so here it is.

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I found this in a Hallmark store one year and fell in love with it.  Each figure has a quilt pattern on it.

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Look at the beautiful quilt covering Jesus.  He didn’t have something so lovely covering Him there in the stable with all the animals.  All Mary had were a few rags with which to wrap Him.  The Savior of the world wrapped in rags lying in an animal’s feeding trough.  How lowly was the birth of the King of the universe.  God’s son come to earth to save us all.  The best Christmas gift anyone could receive.

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This little lamb is so sweet.  Another quilted covering.  Jim Shore knew this added touch would make his figurines special.

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The Wise men.  Where did they come from?  So far away, Jesus was about two years old when they finally found him. They brought gifts of gold, frankincense and Myrrh which is why people always think there were just three. It doesn’t say three wise men in the Bible.  There could have been more or maybe only two with several gifts.  Still, they knew this was an important enough birth to make the long journey to see the Christ child and bring him expensive gifts.  Mary and Joseph probably used these gifts to help support their little family when they had to flee to Egypt because the evil King Herod was looking for this special baby who would be king.

To think, God’s son was threatened to be killed before He would have ever had a chance to die for us all on the cross.  But God had a plan for His son and for all of us.

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Mary probably rode a donkey on her and Joseph’s trip to Bethlehem to pay taxes,  Yes, taxes have been around ever since there has been governments. How would you like to have to travel eighty miles sitting on a donkey when you were nine months pregnant?   But Mary did it.  It was foretold thousands of years before that a virgin would give birth in the town of Bethlehem so she was destined to go there by whatever mode of travel.

I love this little donkey.  One year little hands dropped this donkey and then hid him under our couch where I found him with an ear off.  David glued it back on and you can barely tell it was ever broken.  Now I put this nativity up high where little hands cannot touch.

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These cats did not come with the nativity, but I know from experience there are always cats in a barn where there are cows.  My daddy use to spray milk right into our barn cats’ mouths straight from the cows’ udders.  I always thought that was so funny.

I hope you are looking forward to Christmas as much as I am.  Christmas will come whether there is a tree or gifts under the tree or a big dinner.  It’s all about the spirit.  I plan to spend a little time with Jesus this season enjoying His goodness and light and I hope you know Him and if you don’t, I hope you meet Him one day.  He loves you and cared enough for you to die for you.

Peace, joy, and love to you all.  Bye.

‘Tis the Season

It’s that time of year again.  The time when I say I am not making Christmas gifts this  year and then I begin to madly start making as many homemade gifts as I can.  I don’t know what it is, but I always start getting all these bright ideas right around Thanksgiving.   Actually, I started a little earlier this year as my sister-in-law and brother-in-law gave us a great idea for gifts for our younger grandsons.  We have been working on them and having so much fun doing so.  I say we because there is some building involved and since I am pretty much useless building things with wood, I am leaving that part to David.

When I am working on a project I all of a sudden get ideas to work on other projects and before I know it, I have four or five projects going at once.  My shop is in shambles  right now with fabric and paints all over.  I have a sign on my door reading, “‘Tis the season not to be nosy.  Santa’s workshop.”  This is to keep nosy grandchildren and others out of my shop so they won’t see what is going on in there.

But I  am so excited I want to give a little hint about what I am doing, so here are a few pictures that I don’t think gives too much away.

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This may or may not be the start of a present.

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These are a few of the fabrics I am using in a project which is not a gift.  At least not for this year.

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I love this quilt.  I am going to modify it because I think the shepherd  is a little wonky.  Here are a couple of my sheep.

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They started out with all these pieces.

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When I finally got one of the heads done, I was so happy.  It’s going to need some eyes, probably buttons, but I know a man who has thousands of buttons so I’m okay on that.

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I really admire people who write up patterns for quilts.  They can take a few squares and make them turn into a sheep’s head just like that if you follow the pattern carefully which I don’t often do as I get ahead of myself in the excitement of making the block. But this time, it actually looks like a sheep head.  I did make a mistake on both the blocks, but I think the block looks better with the mistake in and will do the same to the rest of the blocks.  I need to make six more sheep.

This pattern comes from this book.

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Look at all the wonderful things you can make.  You can make ornaments, quilts, a tree skirt, pillows or a table runner and anything else you can think up using these patterns.  You could put things on towels or aprons.  Let your imagination run wild.

I may be a little busy for the next few weeks so my posts may be few and far between, or maybe not.  But I want to wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Hope you get to share it with family and/or friends and have a feast and fellowship all day.   God bless you all.  I am so thankful for all of you that come here and read my little blog.

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Happy Thanksgiving.  Bye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Gathering of Quilts and Seeds

We spent a night in the beautiful hills of brown in Brown County this week.  We stayed at our daughter and son-in-law’s beautiful house in the woods.  You have to drive a long, long drive to get to their house.  It is surrounded by trees and this time of year it is so beautiful there.  Have I used the word beautiful enough???

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I broke my camera and cannot use the zoom on it so you will have to use your x-ray vision to see the pygmy goats in their pen.  They can get out in the larger pen and I did let them loose and had a hard time getting out the gate because they wanted to come with me.

Anyway, for me it’s almost a vacation to go there.  We babysat our two youngest grandsons and had a fun time with them, then when they went to sleep, I sat out on their back deck and looked at the stars. They seemed so close and crystal clear out where there are no city lights to dim them.  I think I saw a star explode, if that is possible.  There was a bright, flash of light and then  it dimmed slowly.  Planes flying across the sky were more visible in the night sky.  All that could be heard were the cicadas in the trees.  Complete silence except for the passing of cars way down the hill.   Oh, and the baaing of the pygmy goats.

I have given my daughter several quilts in the past and she has hung them all over her house.  Here are a few.

 

 

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I like how she used a tree branch to hold it.  I believe this is a Country Threads pattern.  We use to sell these in our store.

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I really love this quilt, but it looks better in her house than it does in mine, although I would like to make another one.

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  I had this log cabin fabric and it worked perfectly.

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This block makes me thing of Alaska.

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Kind of a blurry picture, but this is the double wedding ring I made for my daughter when she got married.    I have since made two more.  They are really easier than they look.

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I called this Cardinal in the Pines. Do you see the cardinal?

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As I tucked my grandsons into bed I saw the quilts I had made them for their beds.

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I made this Double T quilt because my grandson’s name starts with T.

I also completed piecing a quilt from some quilt blocks a friend from church gave me.  Her mother or grandmother had pieced the blocks a long time ago from old fabric and feed sacks.

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I really loved how this turned out.  Kind of Christmasy I think.  It made a pretty big quilt.

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I love the old fabrics in it. This could have been someone’s dress at one time.

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This fabric looks like fabric from pajamas that my brothers use to wear.  Just a side note.  When my brothers outgrew their pajamas, guess who they were handed down to?  Yes, I wore my brothers old pjs.  Funny thing was, I liked it.  The fabric was always so soft because they had been washed so many times and besides, I very rarely got new pajamas when I was younger.  I was a tomboy, though, so it didn’t bother me.

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More pajama looking fabric.  The blocks were very uneven and I had to do some trimming to make it all come together, but I think it turned out well.

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This time of year I gather seeds from flowers for next year’s garden.  I order zinnia seeds from Wild Flower Seeds out of Texas.  I usually get a pound of seed and I can have flowers all over my yard that way.  I like to mix the old seed with the new to get several varieties of zinnias.

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I go through the garden picking off seeds like this and storing them until Spring.  I use to help my mother gather seeds when I was a girl.  I enjoyed doing it and Mother always had a beautiful garden.

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I gather lots of Cleome seeds. These flower actually reseed themselves, but I like to spread them all over.  They are an old fashioned flower that has been around for a long time.  David does not like them because they always grow around the pool and lean over and drop their seed in the pool.  I did not plant many this year and I still had lots.

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This would be several packets of seed for several dollars so I save by gathering the seed.

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I gathered them in this little china cup from a tea set I bought at Walt Disney World one year.

Well, I have done nothing this morning but drink coffee, watch the news and quilt so I have got to get up and get moving.

Here’s to Brown County, saving seeds and quilts that make a home cozy.  Bye.

 

Where Am I?

  What has happened to the time?  Where am I?  Is it Summer still or is it Autumn?  I don’t know.  I just wrote about Spring and planting the garden and enjoying the warm weather and now I am so looking forward to cooler temperatures, falling leaves and wearing sweaters, sitting by campfires and drinking hot chocolate. 

  The chicks were tiny little balls of fluff only yesterday and now they are laying an egg every day.  A dozen every two days.   One hundred and eighty eggs a month.   I can’t use them fast enough.  The dogs get one in their dog food every other day.  I boil them, fry them, scramble them, make egg salad, bake cakes and cookies and still they keep coming.  The hens are like little laying machines now and the eggs are getting bigger.  The thrill is still there, though, every time I go out to the coop and find the pretty brown eggs, some still warm from the hens’ bodies. 

  We got an automatic chicken coop door opener today.  We are hoping we can go away once in a while and not have to worry whether the chooks are able to get out during the day and are safely shut in at night.  The company that we ordered from included a free gospel of John in the box.  Was a very nice thing to find.   The company is called Fleming Outdoor if you are interested.

  I am still getting tomatoes.  The cucumbers finally stopped producing, thank goodness.  We got hundred of cucumbers this year.  I have Roma tomatoes just coming on and one cherry tomato plant that is starting to produce.  I love this time of year.  We can eat from the garden and the chooks.  We haven’t gone to the grocery as much lately for some reason.  David said the other day we hadn’t made a big grocery store run for some time.  Don’t know why.  We seem to be eating pretty well.  

  I am sewing on Tuesdays with a friend.  I need to get into another Bible study soon, but I just haven’t felt like studying for a while.  I have taken Bible studies for years and needed to take a break, but I have one in mind I am planning to do.  The new Beth Moore.

  I also need to get into my walking again.  I kind of slowed down when it got so hot and have had a hard time getting myself motivated to get back to my five miles a day.  I’m hoping with the cooler weather coming, I will start again.  I really love walking, but find the first mile is the hardest.  After I can get past that one, I feel like I could walk for hours.  I also need to find a new walking place as where I walk there are so many trucks, trains and automobiles.  Sounds like the name of a movie.  I read blogs where they have beautiful hills and valleys and fields and quiet roads on which to walk and wish I lived in such an area.  I guess I could drive somewhere to walk, but somehow for me that defeats the whole purpose of walking.  When we go on vacation to North Carolina, I am hoping we find a lot of nice walking areas like we did when we went to Alaska.  I walked to Alaska I always say, because every day we found a park or safe area for me to walk and I would walk my five miles.  I even walked five miles a day on the boat going to Alaska.

   I need to get new glasses, but am too lazy to go to the eye doctor.  I hate going to any doctor. Both my dentist and my family doctor are wonderful, don’t get me wrong.  I have a doctor’s appointment this week for a check-up and a dentist appointment the week after.  I don’t know why it spoils my whole day when I have to go have anything done with or for my body to include the hair dresser.  I am sort of afraid what my beautician is going to say to me when she sees my red hair.  I refreshed the color yesterday and still love it.    Anyway,  I feel so out of control in a doctor’s office because I am afraid he will find something wrong which would mean tests and more time spent in medical offices.  I think my fear comes from when I was a little girl and my older sister would tease me about the big, long needles the doctor was going to use on me.  She use to scare me to death.  I grew up in the time when you had to get multiple polio shots and it seemed to me that we were always going to Dr. Barton’s office to get yet another polio shot.  Then I developed a very stiff neck and my parents were afraid I had gotten polio.  Thankfully, it wasn’t, but polio was scary back then.

  I feel like I am in a kind of limbo right now between seasons and what I want to do.  I need a goal so I am going to think of one and put it up on this blog so that I will have to meet the goal.  It will probably be about walking distances or something like that.  Or maybe I will try to finish a quilt a week.  I have so many quilt tops that need to be quilted and bound.  Or maybe I could pick an author and try to read all his or her books.  Right now I am reading a really good Jodi Piccoult book.  I have read some others of hers and liked them.  I would like to find a book with about a thousand pages. The book I read about Deitrich Bonhoeffer had over a thousand pages and I loved every one of them.  It was such an inspiring book, but sad also. 

  I am finished with American television for the most part.  There are very few shows I like and the reality shows just turn me off.  We have Netflix and have been watching British dramas and comedies and those people know how to write a good story.  We are watching “Doc Martin” right now about a surgeon who becomes sick at the sight of blood and goes to a small British town as a GP.  He is rather gruff and abrupt with his patients, but they don’t seem to mind.  I laugh out loud at some of the things that happen to him.  The townspeople are rather quirky and I like quirky people. 

  Have I rambled on long enough?  I felt like I should come here before people decided I had given up blogging.  I haven’t.  I have so many things I want to blog about, but it takes time to upload the pictures and then write the blog and I have been kind of busy.   I have children’s stories I have written I went to put on here.  Oh, no, I am not finished blogging.  I have this need to write whether anyone reads it or not.  I am hoping I am making a kind of diary for my children so they will know their mother a little better. 

  Here’s to rambling on and on and people kind enough to read it.  Bye.

 

Pretty in Pink, a New Door, etc.,etc.,etc.

Remember that movie, “Pretty in Pink,” with Molly Ringwald back in the eighties?  I loved that movie and still watch it when I catch it on tv.  But this post has nothing to do with that.

I was walking around my garden and noticed that the prevalent color right now is pink.

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Zinnias.

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Gerbera daisies.

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Hydrangeas.

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Geraniums.

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Not sure what this is called, but it is so pretty.

Speaking of pink, er, red.  I have been a red head for almost one week.  I have learned a lot from doing this.  Some people who know you and see you only one way act very shocked when you do something so out of character or look so different.  I am not surprised.  When I go by a mirror or a window and see my reflection, I have to stop a moment and make sure it is me. I am still a blonde in my mind, so when I see myself, it is a little disconcerting.  It has given me a whole new outlook on life.  I feel braver some how.  Anyway, at least for a few weeks I will remain this way until I make a visit to my beautician.  Boy, will she be surprised.  I also have doctor and dentist’s appointments in the next few weeks and I am looking forward to their reactions.   I’m going to see one of my best friends in a few weeks.  The last time she saw me I was a blonde.  I may call her and warn her, or not.

David decided this week to put a new door in my shop.  It’s not really a new door. It’s half of the old patio door we took out this Spring.

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David made a big hole in the side of my shop.

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After much huffing and puffing he managed to get the door installed.

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He added some pretty trim.  All that is left to do is paint the brown around the door.  It was too hot to do this.  I’ll do it when the temperatures go down again.

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Now I can look out and see the garden, the hot tub and the porch.  The dogs can also look in and watch me.   My shop is lighter now so all the work was worth it.

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Speaking of gardens, this is what I picked this morning. The slightly pink tomato is an heirloom tomato.  They are so pretty and very meaty and good to eat.

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A few days before, I had picked all this plus gathered a couple of eggs.  We could eat very well from our garden and from the chooks right now.  I had fried eggs for lunch today with  tomato slices.  It was so yummy.

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A friend from church gave me these quilt blocks that her mother or grandmother had made.  All stitched by hand.  I am slowly sewing them together into a quilt.  The blocks were all different sizes so I have had to do some trimming, but they are all going together well.  I love the old fabrics.  Mary Lee told me it was probably scraps of fabric from clothes and flower sacks.  I love old quilts and I really love people who give me old blocks to sew together.   I hope I can get this done soon so I can show it to her.

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While cleaning my shop and going through patterns and quilt books, I found this pattern for a Christmas quilt.  I plan to make this in the near future.  I think it’s so cute. It’s from a book with several Christmas projects and ornaments, many of which I would like to try.

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“Are you looking at me?”  Yes, Belle, I am. Want to go for a walk?

When your dog wants to walk, you must take her.  Bye.