It's hip to be square

  Many moons ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was sitting around the campfire trying to keep warm, I decided I wanted to learn to knit.  Okay, maybe it was in the sixties, but to some reading this it might as well be the dinosaur age.  My mother and I took classes from a lady in town.  I learned to knit, purl, make cables, and knit in buttonholes.  I knit a cardigan sweater and was so proud of it I wore it all the time despite the fact I never sewed buttons on it.

  I proceeded to knitting more sweaters, vests, hats, baby sweaters and bonnets and booties and even clothes for my children.  I was pretty good at it.  Then I found a book for an afghan where each block had a different knitting stitch in each one.  What better way to get some experience knitting new stuff, I thought.  I began knitting blocks, one after the other.  Sadly, they were all supposed to be the same size, but I was never good at gauging my knitting stitches. Sometimes I knit loosely, and sometimes I knit tightly.  I ended up with several different sizes of blocks.

  As you can see, my blocks were not the same size.

  Some were quite gigantic.  After all the blocks were knit, they were to be crocheted around and crocheted together.  That was the catch.  I didn't know how to crochet and so the blocks sat in plastic bags in various rooms for years and years until a couple of weeks ago I brought them to David, my manly husband, who, by the way, knows how to crochet.  He taught himself years ago and crocheted baby blankets and a giant afghan, then, like me with my knitting needles, he hung up his crochet hooks and went on to other things like making a living.

  Then, one day, something crazy happened.  The blocks exploded all over David and he had no choice but to crochet his way out.  No, that didn't happen.  I threw these all over him while he patiently crochets a border around each of the blocks and crochets them together. 

  He is crocheting black, red and blue borders around each block to make them all the same size, so some have wide borders and some narrow.  This will be a sort of crazy quilt type afghan when he is finished.  Then if he isn't totally sick of it by then, he will crochet a border around the whole thing.  Eleven blocks done and thirty four more to go.  Next year, I will maybe, hopefully, or not show you a finished afghan.

   Meanwhile, Bonnie and Belle sleep on the sunwashed deck oblivious to all the excitement going on in our house.  Bye.

My birthday weekend

  Before I talk about my weekend I want to show you a picture of a new quilter with her first quilt.

   This is my friend, Shannon, who just completed her first quilt.  It is a blanket for her daughter's dog and it is so cute.

It has little owls on each block.  The material she picked was canvas and a soft fluffy minky type fabric.  Two fabrics you would not think would go together, but it turned out great.

  Shannon has already pieced another quilt top and is onto a third.  She is rapidly becoming a fabric and quilt addict.  

  Friday we started my birthday celebration by going to southern Indiana to a quilt shop I had discovered and to do some antiqueing.  Maybe not a good idea considering tornadoes were going through that area, but, thankfully, we were out of the direct route of them.  We found some really good antique stores with good prices.   I got this large white enamel pitcher for a song.  It is in almost perfect shape and will look good with a large bouquet of flowers in it.

  I found this bunny tree and I just fell in love with it.  I have a small collection of Easter bunnies and this is a nice addition.  Little bunnies, chicks and Easter eggs hang from the branches and the bunny family in the front with its basket of carrots is adorable.  I'm a sucker for cute.

  Got this vintage tablecloth at the same store and it came home to be added to my collection.  I use all my tableclothes and have them for all seasons. 

 

  We went to a fabric shop called Persnickety's, but I wasn't persnickety about buying fabric.  It had so many fabrics I loved and it was hard to choose.  I bought several fat quarters and a few fat eighths. 

  Mary Engelbreit always has the cutest, bright fabrics.  This one will go into a quilt I am working on right now.

  This is some wool felt I got.  I like making penny rugs and brooches out of it.

  I bought five yards of white muslim because I am always using it. 

  This fabric is going to be curtains for our family room.  We are putting in new windows and painting it this year so I thought it needed new curtains.  

    I also bought two wooden chairs and a birdhouse.  I have quite a collection of old wooden chairs.  I bring them home and fix them and stain them if needed and use them in our diningroom when we need extra chairs.   David knows when I see a chair I like it usually comes home with us.  These chairs were so cheap. I bought two! 

   We drove through heavy rains and wind coming home and heard about all the destruction in other parts of our state.  Our prayers go out to all those who were affected by the storms. 

   Yesterday, we met Sara and Jeremy and the boys at Olive Garden and had dinner.  Both my sons called to wish me a happy birthday.  It was a totally relaxing, fun birthday weekend and I look forward to next year.  Considering how quickly this birthday rolled around I will soon be writing another birthday post.  I don't think about growing older, I am trying to grow wiser and more faithful.  Somedays I do better than others.  Wishing all of you many happy birthdays to come.  Bye.

My walk

   It doesn't take much to entertain me.  Really, it doesn't.  I know people will think I am kind of weird but I love to take a basket of laundry that looks like this:

    And make it turn into this:

  And then I like to...wait for it..... wait for it.  I like to iron the clothes in the basket.  Woohoo!  Okay, maybe I don't love to fold and iron clothes, but I really don't hate it either as I don't have to think about it while I think about something I would rather be doing.  Did you get that?

   This has nothing whatsoever to do with what I want to blog about today.  Two years ago I began an odyssey that turned me into a much thinner, healthier person with better balance and the ability to wear a pair of jeans.  I read online about the 10,000 steps program.  A doctor discovered that if a person would walk 10,000 steps a day, he/she would be healthy.  I liked to walk, but never paid much attention to how far I went.  10,000 steps is suppose to be about five miles.  I thought, "I can do that."  Well, it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be.  I started out walking 3 or 4 thousand steps a day.  I was determined to reach that 10,000 step goal.  I walked in the sun, in the rain, in cold weather and warm.  I roamed all over our neighborhood, met the neighbors and the neighbors' dogs.  People would stop to talk to me and tell me they liked seeing me walk with my dogs.  I celebrated when I finally reached 10,000 steps.   When I start my walk I have three ways I can go.

   I can go this way: 

  Or this way:

   Or this way.  Depending on how I feel I pick my direction and start out.

  I go past this concrete plant or cee-ment plant as I like to call it.  Remember the movie, "Mosquito Coast" starring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren where this family moves to central or South American and builds an ice making plant in the middle of the rain forest and eventually end up freeze drying two bad guys that cross them?  You don't?  It was a really good  movie and this plant makes the same kind of sounds theirs did.  It sounds weird when I am back there by myself.  Kind of freaks me out.

  Here are all the cement mixers or as I like to call them cee-ment mixers all in a row.  In busy times they are all lined up to get filled up with concrete and take it to a job site.  Today is their day off.    By the way, I am made fun of by my son-in-law for saying cee-ment.   He is from the Adirondack area and I use to call it Ad-iron-dak until he set me straight.  Really, that is how I said it.  No one ever told me any different and that is how it looked like it sounded to me.  Of course I also read mature as rhyming with nature when I was younger, but I am way off the subject now.  That is how my mind works, sorry.

  Here are the dump trucks or as I like to call them, dumb trucks....okay, I'm just getting silly now.  It's late and this blog is getting much too long and I'm not done yet.  These dump trucks go to the gravel pit that is across the road from us and bring sand to the concrete plant and gravel to other job sites.  This past couple of years they have all worked overtime while our city was putting in a new four lane road through town.  I have to watch out for all these truckers and they watch out for me.   We all wave to each other and they try not to squash me and I try not to get squashed and everything works out okay.

  See this big pile of dirt?  You don't?  Then you may need glasses.  Anyway, behind this pile of dirt is a lake.  We use to walk back here years ago through meadows and by streams, but when the gravel pit went in they all went away.  As the gravel pit grew, so did the lake.  We hope that one day it will become a recreation area with paths and  fishing areas after the gravel pit goes away.  It's only 500 steps from our house.  Wouldn't that be great having a lake so close to our house?  It would be for us.  The gravel pit is building high dirt walls all around the lake.  I'm going to climb one of the hills one day and see what's going on over on the other side. 

  This little tree has survived the dirt hill making so far.  I am rooting for it to make it and not have dirt dumped on it.    Alot of trees have been bulldozed down, but, hey, there's a lake.

   Years ago a family lived in this little house.  It now belongs to the gravel pit and is an office now, I think.  Alot of things disappeared when the gravel pit went in.  This is just a short part of my walk and I will be showing you more later.  It's getting late, the Oscars are almost over and I must go.  Bye.

I know it's Spring

After the cold days of January and February comes with Valentine's Day, I think winter is finally over. We could be standing in ten feet of snow and I still would think it was Spring because the crocus have come up and flowers begin to peek their little heads out of the cold soil. We have a little patch of crocuses by the front walk that are always the first to show themselves to the elements. I keep thinking I will plant some more, but these little brave ones have been so loyal to come back again and again, I never feel the need to do so.

A couple of years ago I planted hundreds of daffodils to naturalize in our front yard. When we first moved to our home 34 years ago, we had a half acre of grass to mow. We have slowly, but surely gotten rid of lawn and added gardens and mulch. It takes me about 15 minutes to mow the front yard. Now the daffodils are all coming up, some ready to bust into bloom. They ususally last about two weeks and are so beautiful.

This bunch will be blooming soon if the weather stays as warm as it's been.

Even though it's Spring, we still like our comfort food. David makes the best chili, but I don't ask him what he puts in it or I would probably not want to eat it. He likes it spicy and tones it down for me, but I can still feel the heat when I eat it.

Nothing is better than a bowl of chili with a little cheese on top. Okay, alot of cheese on top. I'm eating a cup of it right now as I type. Hope I don't spill it all over the keys.

Now for your entertainment a little dog wrestling. In this corner is Bonnie Blue weighing in at 85 pounds and in the other corner is Belle weighing in at 80 pounds. Bonnie body slams Belle down and much barking and growling ensues. Tails are going a mile a minute, of course.

Bonnie wins this match by keeping Belle down until the bell. Belle until the bell, ha.

"Come play ball with me, Mom." You know what that means, folks. Bye

Granny squares

  Hi, I'm Belle, Kate's most beautiful, bestest, obedient chocolate lab.  She thinks I'm pretty special, but she isn't going to talk about me again today.  She's going to be saying, "Blah, blah, quilts, blah, blah, fabrics, blah, blah sewing."  She's got quilting on the brain and I can't make her change.  Oh, well, as long as she feeds me, plays with me and takes me for a walk every day, I guess she can have her one vice.  So I will go lay out in the sun now while she tells you what she is up to.

  Has that Belle been talking about me?  Don't believe everything a dog will tell you.  See this pile of fabric?  I am all excited about a new quilt project I found on a blog.  It is a quilt that looks like a crocheted granny square afghan.  I don't crochet, but I love granny afghans.  This is a wonderful pattern.  It only takes two and a half inch squares sewed on the diagonal and trimed to a nine inch block  Choosing and cutting out the fabric is the best part for me.  I love to look through my stash and see all the fabrics I can use in this quilt.  I figure it will take about eighty-one of these blocks to make the quilt with a two and a half  sashing between the rows and a five inch border. 

  First I will cut out two and a half inch squares from many different fabrics.

  Then from the smaller scraps left I cut out two inch squares for another project.

  Then from the tiniest scraps left from that I cut out one inch squares.  I have a quilt book called "Little Quilts all through the house" that we sold in our store many years ago.  I have just about worn my book out making the quilts in it.  I will show you the book and some of the quilts I have made from it another day.  None of the quilts in it are larger than 25 inch by 25 inch and some are much smaller and many of them take one and a half inch squares. 

  Here is my first granny square block. There is a real good tutorial on how to make it on Blue Elephant blog.  There are also many granny square quilts exhibited on Flicker.  I am really excited about this quilt as I believe it will go together easily and will be bright and colorful which I like.

  If you know me, you know I don't just work on one quilt at a time.  Right now I have one ready to machine quilt and this one I am sewing right now that I can only show a tiny bit as it will be a gift later in the year.  I have so many ideas in my head I am about to bust.  I have also been making purses to give away and I will be showing them soon also.  I got the tutorial on a blog also and will try to put that up for you soon.

   Hey, Belle, is Mom done talking about quilts and sewing and stuff?    Yes, I am Bonnie, you precious pup.  Maybe I will make you a quilted coat to wear some day.  What's that, you say.  You would never wear a quilted coat or any other coat for that matter?  Okay, Bonnie, love you anyway.  Bye everyone.

Happy Valentine's Day!

  Happy Valentine's Day to all you sweethearts out there in blogland.  Hope you are having a wonderful day.  

  I spent the day sewing on quilts with two sweethearts and friends.  This is the only the second quilt Shannon has made and she sewed it in a day.  All she has to do is add the borders and she will be ready to quilt it.  Love the colors.

  Linda is cutting out her quilt.  She has to cut out 250 2 inch strips, sew them together and cut them apart in 2 inch pieces.  She is an accomplished quilter so this will probably be a breeze for her, but it looks hard.  I will enjoy seeing this quilt go together.   We do alot of laughing and talking which makes the time fly and we get alot done too.

  Who is this coming into my shop?   No flowers?  No candy?  Hmmmmmm.  But that smile is worth everything to me and as long as I can see that face every day, I am happy.

   Belle peeks in the window at us wondering what we are doing.  "What you doin' Willis."

    This is the cutest pincushion I have ever seen.  A little owl sits atop it with  a rose in front.  Shannon gave it to me today because she doesn't think I have enough pincushions.  We are always looking for mine.  I told her this one was way too cute to stick ugly pins in and make it all holey. 

   So as this Valentine's Day comes to an end, I send you my love and hope you know there is always someone who loves you.    I'm going to make myself a cup of hot chocolate with heart marshmallows.  Why don't you join me?   By the way, David took me out for dinner.  The best Valentine's Day present ever.  I didn't have to cook or do dishes all day.  Hurray!!!  Bye.