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!