Fun with the kiddos

I haven’t blogged since. . .I had to go look before I typed this. . . the beginning of October!  It has been a busy winter!  I remember that I stopped because it was too difficult for me to get pictures on here with my blog entries.  But, I’ll give it another try.  Just words today, though.  I have such a cute story to tell about my grandson, John, that was too long for a facebook entry!

Yesterday, Amanda brought the kids over for the morning so that she could take care of some errands.  I had my sneakers and exercise clothes on because I was going to a Zumba Gold class after they left.  3 – yr old John could see my feet from the van as he was getting out and I was standing in my doorway.  I don’t usually wear sneakers around UNLESS I am exercising.  John looked at my feet and commented, “You have sneakers on.”  I told him that I was leaving for an exercise class as soon as they left that day.  THIS morning, Amanda brought them again for a few minutes on her way to take them to Home Depot for the kids workshop they have once a month.  John looked right at my feet as he was getting out of the van, and he commented that I did not have my sneakers on and asked if I was going to exercise.  I told him, “not today”.   He said, “Grandma, you NEED to go exercise!”

Truer words were never spoken, and from the mouth of a 3 year old!   I sure do love that kid!

 

I’ll try for a collage of pictures of life over the last few months, soon!  Other people don’t seem to have trouble with WordPress and pictures.  I can do this!

Knit and Crochet Show

This past weekend, I went to Concord, NC, right outside of Charlotte, with Betsy and 3 of my friends, for a Knit and Crochet show.  It was lots of fun!  We had decided beforehand not to take any classes, but to be able to relax, shop at the vendor hall, and search out yarn stores in the Charlotte area.  AND – we were right near the Concord Mills outlet mall!

 

Here are some pictures of what the vendor hall looked like.

 

We stayed in a Residence Inn just across a courtyard from the hotel where the show was.  I love Residence Inns – they are very affordable, very roomy, and there is that free breakfast!   Here are Betsy and Kristen in our room.  Wonder what she was signing about here?

Kristen –

Pam –

Luna, Betsy’s hearing dog; she was off duty when we were all together in the room!

 

My friend Debbie, lives in Charlotte, and she came and spent lots of time with us!

One of the vendors needed some help in her booth both days.  One day, Kristen and Betsy worked there, and the next day,  Kristen and Pam worked.  Here they are, helping customers!  I didn’t get a picture of Bets when she was working; sorry!

 

Betsy said we needed a good picture of me and Debbie!

It was such a great weekend!  Those gals were so much fun to be with!

Here is the Pittsburgh Steelers scarf that I finished for Jim while I was gone –

A Wonderful Day of Friendship and Quilting

I had such a nice day yesterday!  At the Virginia Quilt Museum, in Harrisonburg, VA, just 2 hours north of us, Jenny Doan from the Missouri Star Quilt Company, was speaking and teaching a workshop.  My good friend Polly, who I “met” via blogging many years ago, invited me to come and spend the day with her and her sister Barbara at the workshop.  I was delighted!  I was more excited about seeing Polly and Barbara, to tell you the truth, but I loved hearing Jenny, and her workshop was easy and fun!

This is the Jacob’s Ladder quilt she brought to show us –

 

Here are some other pictures of us –

 

 

 

Jenny is very enjoyable and easy to follow, and she is lots of fun!  She has some great tutorials online that I will be looking into!

It was also nice to have Polly and Barbara’s mother with us for part of the day.  I didn’t get a picture of her this time, but if you look back on another blog when I went up to the area a month or so ago, I got a picture with her in it then.  After the workshop, Polly and I went back to her mother’s, where we were looking at our hexie quilts!  I am still making my Grandmother’s Flower Garden, and I am getting near the end of the flowers – I have finished 68 whole flowers and 5 half flowers (I only need 14 of those, for the edges), and we got these pictures.  This one of mine –

 

And this is Polly’s with velvet hexies –

 

This is the pattern she is following –

 

And this is the one her mother is working on – such beautiful colors!

 

We sure did have a nice time sharing our love of quilting, and chatting about God and family and life in general!

 

So, now I do have yet another project to do – this new Jacob’s Ladder, which will be a twin sized quilt.  It is in beautiful colors, blues, creams, and lavenders, and it will be nice to work on because of the memories it will bring of my day with my friends!  I forgot to take a picture of my fabric and what I got done, which wasn’t much – we were busy chatting and taking pictures!  That will have to wait for another day.

 

In my house right now, Jim and his brother, Kip, along with Andrew and Betsy, are downstairs watching the Steelers, with food, sodas, and all of the Steelers clothes, towels, and stuff they own!   And the Steelers quilt I made for Jim a couple of years ago!

 

 

Vacation, Knitting, Ravelry

I had a great girls get-away last week with a friend!  She used to live here, now lives in Maine, and had timeshare points to use.  She invited me to go with her for a week to relax and have fun!   We went to Fairfield Glade, TN, a 4 – 5 hour drive for me, with a stop at the Knoxville airport to pick her up!

Scenery at the resort – this is Mirror Lake –

It rained every day that we were there!  But we had a great time.  I brought sewing along to do – working on my Grandmother’s Flower Garden hexies and I made a few more “flowers”.  We shopped – here was a little sidewalk sale –

And a little music to go along with it –

With cows across the road –

A very nice yarn shop –

This guy was soooo cute –

Poles wrapped in yarn –

Loved this sign, since my daughter crochets more than she knits –

We ate some great food –

Thanks, Wendy, for taking me along on a girls get-away!

Today, Betsy showed me how to post pictures and projects on Ravelry.  Here are some of the pictures I posted of knitted projects I have done in the past couple of years –

And the one I am currently working on when I am not sewing on my hexies or cross stitching  John’s Christmas stocking.  I take different projects with me, depending on where I am going, whether I need space to lay the pieces out, or no distractions.  Last night, for instance, at a Ladies Circle meeting where we watched a Beth Moore video, I worked on this scarf because it is all knit, no counting, no need to pay attention to it, really –

Thanks to Betsy for helping me display, photograph, record, edit, and post on Ravelry!

What have I been doing?

“A Clean House is the sign of a Wasted Life”

My life isn’t wasted!  My house isn’t clean, that’s for sure!  It is dusty, and there are cookie and cracker crumbs around, apple juice spills, drips from spaghetti sauce, pieces of threads everywhere you look, lots of pieces of paper and stuff from projects that the kids were doing, laundry ready to go in the washer, laundry in the dryer, and clothes hanging around waiting to be ironed!

So, what have I been doing?  Making spaghetti sauce for the freezer, for one thing!  Here are some of the beautiful tomatoes from Amanda and Sam’s garden that needed to be used – 

 

And now that I have learned how to make spaghetti sauce from scratch, I am not sure that I can ever to back to buying it from the store!   All the tomatoes, and there seemed like a lot of them, were blanched –

 

put in ice water –

 

then peeled –

 

then chopped, cooked according to the recipe I used, and here are some of the finished products, ready for the freezer.

 

And, I have been knitting – finished up this scarf that is originally called an Advent scarf (not my idea – who has time to knit a different pattern for every day of Advent?), but changed by my friend Pam and I to a Lenten scarf, but – surprise, surprise,  didn’t get finished during Lent either.  I finally finished it last weekend!  Here it is all blocked and ready!

 

 

And I have been working on a cross stitched Christmas stocking – I have ones for all of my daughters and for 2 of the 4 grandchildren (my sons-in-law get interesting purchased ones) that we keep here at my house.  I am a couple of babies behind, and this stocking –

 

 

is for this little ragamuffin!

Hummingbird stay for a fractional sharp sweetness, and’s gone, can’t take more than that.
– Denise Levertov

I really wanted a picture of the hummingbirds at my feeder from outside on the deck.  When I walked outside, they would fly away.   So, I just took my camera and stood there, hoping they would get used to me and fly back to the feeder, and they did!   Here there are 3 of them finally sharing!

A day of quilts, friends, and other good stuff!

“Quilts – An investment of memory in cloth and thread from which stories are summarized for the telling.”   K. Musgrave

Today, Betsy and I drove up to Harrisonburg, Virginia, to visit the Virginia Quilt Museum.

 

I have been wanting to see the current exhibits:  Hexed, which showed and taught about quilts made of hexagons; and Vintage Revisited, an exhibit of small quilts that were made as a challenge – quilters were given traditional block patterns and they were to use the block, changing it in any way they wanted, to come up with a new small quilt that had at least some of the original block in it.  That exhibit was fascinating!  Such imaginative and creative work!

Unfortunately, taking pictures is not allowed in the museum.

After our visit there, we drove to the Dayton Farmers Market, which is a building of about 20 shops, including a restaurant.  We met a quilter friend there – Barbara Cline, who I know from my years of blogging.  I have had the privilege of taking classes from Barbara and meeting many of her family members.  Today, Barbara, her mother, and her daughter Autumn, met us for lunch.  What a delightful time we had!

We asked a man to take our picture – I am going to put this one on here because it is such a good one of Betsy, Barbara, Autumn, and Mrs. Heatwhole – I’m not happy that I wasn’t really smiling OR that the trash from lunch which I tried to move out of the way is front and center!  And I was trying to figure out if the man was clicking the camera correctly when he took it.  🙂  

 

And I was able to buy a copy of Barbara’s newest quilt book, Diamond Chain Quilts!

After lunch, Betsy and I shopped a little, went to the quilt shop that is nearby, Patchwork Plus, and then headed toward home.

BUT – we weren’t finished yet!  We went to one of my favorite yarn shops on the way home, Orchardside Yarn Shop.  

 

We had a great time, and we left a few skeins of yarn in the shop!  

Silly hummingbirds! And silly kids!

I have two hummingbird feeders out – one of them is right off our deck, and I can see it from my kitchen window.  We have LOTS of hummingbirds coming to our feeders every day this summer!  I tried to get a picture, but it was difficult out of the window, and when I tried from on the deck, they flew away –

 

There – at least you can see the one at the feeder, and another flying in.   Anyway, they are quite silly!  This morning there were about 12 hummingbirds, chasing each other away, so none of them got any food!  I keep telling them to share!  If they would only share, they could eat!  I guess they listened, because by this afternoon, they actually shared, and there were at least 3 at the feeder every once in awhile.  I love watching them!

It was a rainy day here, so my grandchildren, who were hoping that today might be a pool day OR a park day, wanted to come over and play with Aunt Betsy and Uncle Andrew!  So, Amanda brought the kids for lunch.  And they were ALL silly!

Megan wearing an old lab coat of Grandpa’s –

 

Piled on top of Uncle Andrew –

 

After lunch, everyone settled down on the porch.  Charlie has been sewing old fabric of mine together –

 

John wanted sit with Bets and Andrew –

And Megan was dusting –

 

Amelia woke up and Aunt Betsy was happy to hold her –

 

Uncle Andrew does cross stitching and is working on a beautiful picture of an eagle –

 

It was a fun, silly day.  I am loving the cooler temperatures we are having – I could live with temps in the low 70’s all year long!

Exercise, weight challenges, and hexies

“If I were to draw on a paper what gym does for me, I would make one dot and then I would erase it.” 
― Elizabeth Berg, Joy School

 

I have been exercising and eating less.  I have been logging my food AND my exercise on my cute little phone, thanks to the app that my daughter set up for me.  I have been to the Y, walked in the neighborhood, stretched to a DVD – all of that.  NONE of which I enjoy doing.  But I am participating in a weight loss challenge with some friends.  Sigh.  Not to mention that I still have my doctor wanting me to lose weight.  A lot of weight.  Sigh again.  And now we have just gotten a fancy new machine that is suppose to help with exercise too.  Don’t ask.  The kids put it together tonight.  BUT – the only exercise I am going to do tonight is cut out more templates for more hexagons for the hexie Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt that I am still piecing together.  There is hope!  I am getting near the end of the flowers I have to make!    

Birthday for a 6 yr old

Last Thursday was Charlie’s 6th birthday!  He knew exactly what he wanted for a Super Heroes cake!

 

He designed it himself!  Mommy made the cake part, and they all came over, and Aunt Betsy decorated it.  Charlie had drawn out on paper exactly what he wanted, and showed her some pictures online to be sure it was exactly right.  It was quite a process, decorating this cake!

 

Charlie came in his new birthday cape, that had Superman on one side and Batman on the other!

 

Supervising the decorating –

 

Betsy and Megan –

 

And the decorating continues –

 

 

 

 

And then there was the party!  Charlie wanted tacos, and we had lots of family and friends here!  Amelia was a happy little girl – here she is, on my ottoman, right next to a cute crocheted hippo that Betsy was making!

 

Balloons for Charlie from Grandpa –

 

Random pictures of people, and Charlie opening gifts –

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then it was time for birthday cake!