I am grateful for...a summer day that is actually cool enough for an evening fire,
an almost finished playhouse,
someone who shares my interest in photography,
travel plans,
zinnias - cut and arranged in vases by Miss P,
summer evenings at the lake,
newly installed ceiling fans,
and freshly picked blueberries
.What are you grateful for today?
One morning last week a friend who raises llamas came over for a spinning lesson. She had a GINORMOUS bag of llama fluff to play with and said she had several more at home. She even has baby llama fluff! She offered to give me some but I declined until I have spun the rovings that I have already.
I pulled out one of my big balls of roving and gave her a demonstration. We played for a while but I just couldn't stop when she left.
I spun all of this Border Leceister, kid mohair blend and ended up with five hanks of yarn. Here are two. I don't know how many yards this is.
I'm working on another ball of fluff now.
In doing this recent spinning, I have learned several things:
1. I want a wheel that allows for larger bobbins.
2. I should spin roving when I get it. Letting it sit around for 5-10 years allows for them to it mushed and start to felt. This roving has required more preparation before spinning that it would have if I had spun it right away.
3. I am easily diverted from one project to another.4. Spinning in a room with a running ceiling fan gets little, tiny bits of fluff EVERYWHERE.
Chelsea is the home of Chelsea Milling, the only place in the world where Jiffy Mix is made. I think it is fun to take visitors on the tour. Well, M's girlfriend said she had never been on the tour and since miss Petunia is now six, the minimum age for the tour, I thought we had to go.
They renovated the visitor entrance and remodeled the auditorium where they give the pre tour schpeel. It is all very fancy.
They have a video featuring an animated Jiffy box as their 'mascot'. I kind of miss the old slide show and the mention of the "blue and white box with the red accent."Hair nets are still required, of course.
It was a fun time.
The big kids made a huge batch of brownies with our free boxes of mix when we got home!
I fell hard for this sampler when I saw it on Alicia's blog. I immediately submitted my preorder for the kit and have been having a lot of fun stitching it since it arrived. There are quite a variety of stitches to try.
I had a little trouble with tension being a bit tight at first but then I switched to a small hoop as recommended; it worked like a charm.
This is really a great summer stitching project
.Also, if you need a refresher or are wanting to learn some new embroidery stitches, check out this site for some excellent tutorials. All of those beautiful pictures of interesting embroidery stitches make me want to embroider on everything in the house!
Between chores and trips to the lake to cool off I took some little sewing breaks on the weekend. By Sunday afternoon I had a stack of finished Lady of the Lake blocks.
Another day of sewing breaks between paint scraping and play house trim painting and they are all sewn together.
I am pretty happy with it.
I just love all of those half square triangles.
I am trying to decide if it is finished or if I should put a border on it.
What do you think?
I picked up a really cute vintage tea towel a while back and had to duplicate it.
I found another fun pattern in Doe-c-Doe's vintage transfer pattern collection on flickr.
These were the perfect project for the bus ride to Grandfather Mountain.I have a real weakness for linens with happy, animated, kitchen items.
These cuties now live in my sister's kitchen. I think her granddaughter will want to dry dishes with them.
After I had copied my vintage towel design I found the orginal Aunt Martha's pattern for the plates!
I see more embroidered kitchen items in my future. Aren't they cute! I think they might make time in the kitchen more fun, don't you?
Yesterday we harvested garlic.
We save the largest garlic bulbs for planting the next year and each year the bulbs that we harvest are a little bigger.
We cut the tops, trim the roots,
and clean them up a bit.
Then we spread them out to dry for a while.
Our total garlic harvest yesterday weighed in at over 28 pounds!
They will loose a bit of water weight before they go into long term storage.
I love that there are a few foods like garlic, onions, and potatoes that we haven't bought in years. We are able to grow enough and store them over the winter. We have just finished the last of our stored onions and the new onions can be harvested as needed as can the potatoes.
This was the best gig ever!
Here's a summary of the event in numbers.
96 hour trip
26 band members
10 performances
7 performance locations
6 sound equipment set ups
2 fourteen hour bus rides
1 visit from the Governor
countless new fans
and one charter bus full of exhausted CHO members and chaperones.
I was able to hear a few other performances while we were at the festival. Mother Grove, EJ Jones, and Ed Miller - all great performers.
One of the highlights of the trip was walking across the Mile High Swinging Bridge on Grandfather Mountain. Some of the kids took their instruments and played "The Kiss" from the film The Last of the Mohicans as they walked across. I went ahead of the group so that I could photograph them. It was fun to hear the drum and fiddles as the kids emerged from the cloud into view.
Visibility on the mountain top was nil while we were there but we did enjoy scrambling around on the rocks and the kids played a few more tunes. M took the drum to the mountain top because he played the violin on the bridge when they went last year and he wanted to hear the drum echo off the mountain.
There were a few blips along the way on this trip. On the way to the first show we had a detour and then a long delay because of an accident backup. We arrived at the country club two hours later than we intended - and then the bus was too large to cross the bridge to the club house where we were to perform which then required us to be shuttled to the event in golf carts. The kids had the quickest set up ever and the show still started on time, but we didn't get dinner until after the show.
Then there was the excitement on the way home when the bus stalled on the highway and required a "regen." We left at 4 am last Thursday and returned at 4 this morning. Whew.
This trip was a great end to our time with the Chelsea House Orchestra. M has one more gig next week right here in town. I am sure that will be an emotional one. P has assured me, though, that I will be able to chaperone trips when she is in CHO.How was YOUR weekend?
My bags are packed.M and I are heading south to North Carolina. The Chelsea House Orchestra will be performing at the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games. We are heading out in the wee hours of the morning tomorrow and will return in the wee hours on Monday morning.If your are in the area, come look us up and enjoy the music. I will be wherever the fiddle group is. They have performances Thursday evening, several on Friday and Saturday, and again on Sunday before we depart.Have a great weekend. I'll not have internet access until I return.
We spent the day in Ann Arbor seeing the sights at the U of M Museum of Art and
the Natural History Museum.
It was a great way to beat the heat.
Last night I finished a quilt that I started many years ago. I don't know exactly when I started it but I do know that I only had two children then.
I started this in an applique workshop with Gwen Marston. The flowers were cut directly from folded fabric without a pattern.
I have always wanted to try a sawtooth border and finally did it on this quilt.
I really like how that bit turned out.
The quilt is all hand applique and hand quilted. The center portion is quilted with a cross hatch design and the border has a miniature version of the bishop's fan.
It is a happy looking quilt.
The quilt measures 39.5 inches wide by 44 inches high.
Saturday I took a class with Pat Holly!
We made miniature applique postcards. First we used the fancy stitches on our machines to embellish the background fabrics. Then we fused the applique on top and added some tiny blanket stitch. That scallop border was a bit tedious.
I don't think I'll be using this technique much but it was a fun day. I even finished my project during the class!
Pat brought a bunch of her miniature quilts to show. They are AMAZING. She does some pretty incredible stuff. I was also impressed by her stitch sample books. She stitches out swatches before making her quilts and had a whole notebook of different combinations of fabrics, stitches, threads, and stitch patterns for use as background fabrics. She had made an amazing plaid looking fabric by just straight stitching with different colored threads. If you ever have the chance to see her work in person don't miss it! She is one impressive woman.
"Ah, music. A magic beyond all we do here!"
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J. K. Rowling, 1997.
(M had his senior violin recital today. Beautiful music and good friends - you can't ask for more than that.)
We're having another busy weekend.
I've been baking.
Summer sewing has a different routine. I have company in my sewing room.Yesterday we had a very clean sewing table. When the fabric is out of the way we use this big surface for other crafty projects and activities, like working puzzles.
Most of the time it is not so tidy.It can look more like this. But usually it looks much worse.I have returned to an old but not too old work in progress involving lots of half square triangles.
After a bit of sewing I determined that I didn't have nearly enough half square triangles made so out came the scraps. Then there was a bit of mission creep and I decided to cut some 1.5 inch squares from the fabrics that are not quite big enough for the half square triangles.
I like to have these squares handy for some scrappy nine patches, four patches, or a good postage stamp quilt as the need arises.I'm trying to keep it organized as I go.
P has been working at a little featherweight at her desk while I sew at my machine. She has been commissioned to do some sewing this summer. I'll be sure to share more about that with you later.
Fun times!
They just don't make them like the used to. That is so true. Some of the old things are much better than new. This little beauty now sits on my freshly cleaned desk. How can I have a cluttered desk with THIS sitting on it? I tell you this will change my desk keeping habits1 - or so I hope. I love this "new" phone. It makes such a satisfactory sound when you dial up a friend and it is heavy enough that it doesn't move when you use it. Someone please call me so I can hear it ring!! It replaces this less than perfect but still fun phone.
While cleaning my desk, (I did a deep clean involving the drawers!) I found the box of 64 crayons I had as a child. I remember wanting the 64 color box for a long time. My sisters and I had lots of crayons that we kept in a shoe box all jumbled together. Many were broken but we still loved to color with them. I remember visiting my friend Mary and when we started to color together she got out her crisp new box of 64 crayons. Those crayons were lined up like little soldiers wearing pointy hats. Oh, that is when it hit. Crayon envy. I finally did get a new box - much later. It was so special that I made sure I labeled that box. My name is written on it in at least three places. And as you can see, I was old enough to write in CURSIVE!
The box in the background is the box I bought for the 64 colors project. (The colors have new names and I had to make sure I was finding the right color for my photos.)
I think the old box graphics are much better.
Maybe I just don't want to grow up. Whatever it is, these things gave me a little thrill today.Oh, and look what I found at a rummage sale this weekend - a flower shaped hankie!
Fun stuff.
I'm off to do some food preservation. We have garlic scapes and strawberries coming out of our ears and the peas are coming on strong too. We'll be shelling peas till the cows come home later in the week. I love it when the freezer is full of home grown garden bounty!
"Thou hast only to follow the wall far enough and there will be a door in it."
The Door in the Wall, Marguerite de Angeli, 1949.
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