One more beautiful day!

It is going to be so lovely here today. They are calling for 67* with light winds. It is hard to believe that the wind was blowing so hard just a few short hours ago. Now it is mostly calm. Blew itself out I guess. LOL Anyway, a nice day like this is just begging for me to take a walk this afternoon with my crew. I think I will bribe Herc first, though, so he doesn't slow us down. Spring is getting closer, but I know we must put up with some nasty weather first. I believe rain is supposed to be coming in tonight, with colder temps the rest of the week.

I finished the Maple Leaf small quilt last night. It turned out pretty good. I am still not 100% pleased with one of the corners on the binding, but I took it out once and redid it, so it stays. LOL

I took an orphan block that I had and added some borders. Then I thought it was too plain, so I appliqued some little maple leaves around the border. My dh thought the orange border fabric was too bright, but I have seen leaves like that. I kind of like it. Here is a closeup of the center block.

Of course, here is a picture of the back. My camera flash really washed things out this morning.
I checked my sweet potatoes earlier. I had to add some more water, so figured I might as well take some pictures. It is exciting, how much they have grown in just 9 days. Look at the roots starting on this one. The little leaves are really shooting up. I think we will actually have some sweet potato slips to plant this year. Now if they just don't grow so fast that they rot in the water before I can plant them outside.
I am sorry this post isn't real interesting. I am sure you didn't come here to see pictures of sweet potatoes growing, but that is what is going on in my life right now. LOL I am not adding any more pictures today. They are uploading so slow this morning. I want to get out and enjoy the day, not sit here in front of the computer. (grin)

I talked to our daughter, Hazel, last night. She said they are doing fine. The kids are over their colds and little Izabella has 2 teeth in so far. I am sure it won't be long till she figures out how to use them. LOL Look out Noah, Sissie had teeth now! LOL

Tonight is the Biggest Loser, so I will be plopped in front of the tv. I have the Savannah Star ready to quilt, but may work on some applique as well. I am trying to do some needle turn applique, but I'm having trouble getting nice crisp points. I guess I just need to continue practicing.

Well, that sunshine is calling my name. (grin) I hope you all have a wonderful day. Thanks for visiting and please come again. I really do appreciate your visits.

Very, very windy day!

Wow, the wind is blowing so hard that I am afraid the roof is going to blow off. LOLWe have high wind advisories out till 6 tonight. I am upstairs and can feel and see the computer monitor swaying in the wind. LOL We had a light shower this morning, but the sun is shining right now. It is in the 60's, but no way I am going out in this wind. So I am spending the day catching up on the computer and house work. We had a nice weekend. Saturday was just beautiful, but I spent most of it in town. I know I said I was going to avoid JoAnn's, but I had to drive right past it. Surely it won't hurt to just run in for a second and see what is on sale? Right? Here is what I walked out with.

Now I do have plans for this. I thought the browns would work great to make dh's beagle quilt. Don't those look like beagle colors? The reds are only 1/4 yard cuts to add a little red to my collection. I am sadly lacking in red. I also need the template plastic since I am trying to do more applique. See how I justify this? LOL Of course, I had printed a 40% off coupon for Hobby Lobby. Now I couldn't just waste all the ink it took to print that little coupon. Could I? (grin) So I stopped by Hobby Lobby and found this scrumptious fabric that I thought would make a lovely background fabric for the beagle quilt. It is actually lighter than the picture looks. Also got some more template plastic.

Now you know I can't go to town without stopping by Wal Mart. Well they had some fabric that I have had my eye on for a couple of weeks. K said I should go ahead and get it or it would be gone and I would regret it. Can't argue with my husband. (grin) They are all prettier than this picture. The fabric on the lower right is a light red. I have no plans for it, but fell in love with it.

So here are my fabric buys on Saturday. I really must go on a fabric diet. The sad thing is that JoAnn's is having a President's Day sale this coming weekend that I planned to go to. I may have to skip this one. Do you think I have some sort of a fabric disorder? LOLOk, my cutting mat has seen better days. It is several years old. I have been considering getting another one for a while. I started to get one in JoAnn's. Can't think of the name right off hand, but the green ones, with yellow printing on them. When I picked it up, the smell was horrible. Do they always smell that bad? I just couldn't see myself working on a mat that smelled that bad. Then I looked at a Dritz. There was a label on it that said it contained ingredients that have been proven to cause cancer and birth defects in California. Huh? Not getting that one! I ended up buying another June Tailor. Why not, I have had good luck with my other one. Here is my old one. You can see how worn it has become. And here is the new mat. Isn't it pretty? I keep the old one on top of the new one. Callie thinks the cutting mat is her personal napping area. I'll just move the old mat off when I want to cut fabric. This way, Callie and I are both happy. (grin) Yesterday I desided to get the Savannah Star quilt sandwiched and ready to quilt. So I took out my batting to rest while I prepared the backing. I came back to find this. Yep, Aeris making herself right at home on my new batting. (Sigh) Then I looked over to see this. Callie had taken over Aeris' place on the coat. Oh, what would I do without my girls? LOL Anyway, I decided to use the leftover flower fabric in the backing. It wasn't wide enough, so I split it right down the fold line. Then I got to work with the leftover strips from the front of the quilt. I just started adding strips till it was wide enough. Here is the back of the Savannah Star that is now awaiting quilting. (grin)I finished the quilting on the Maple Leaf quilt this morning. I just need to put the binding on and it will be done. I hope to do that tonight. I will post pictures of it tomorrow. I have also been doing some needle turn applique work. I am not good on points. I guess I just need to practice more.

Today was my weigh-in day. I lost another 4 pounds this week. YEA!!! It has not been easy, but at least I am to the point of not craving carbs all the time. Almost everything I like to eat is carb filled. My goal for this month was to lose 10 lbs. I am already up to 8, so I only have 2 more pounds to lose to meet my goal. I was so happy when I crawled on the scales this morning. (big grin)

Well, I guess that is all for today. The wind is still really blowing. I am holding off doing my chores till the last minute in hopes that it dies down. If you don't hear from me for a few days, I have blown away. LOL I'm sorry, I shouldn't joke about something like that. Time to get off here. Everyone have a good day. Thank you for visiting and please come again.

No subject, just rambling!

It is such a beautiful day out. We have 65* so far. If the wind just wasn't blowing 30-40 miles an hour, it would be a perfect day. Mom says it is blowing storms in. I haven't seen any weather forecasts for today, but wouldn't be surprised. Yesterday the high was 60*, but not as much wind. My three old dogs, old tomcat, and I all went for a walk during the afternoon. I kept having to stop and wait for Herc (the cat). So when I walk from now on, I think I will bribe him to stay home with some food. LOL I am afraid to just go on and leave him. I wouldn't want anything to happen to the old guy. He has been such a good old boy. It's not his fault he can't keep up anymore. Here is a picture I snapped of our old guy yesterday.

I actually walked further yesterday than I normally do, so maybe I should be thanking Herc. (grin)

Today I went to town to run a few errands. I only went to the small town where our bank is located. I managed to get a few bargains at the 2 grocery stores there. I bought a boneless pork roast for $1.19 lb, boneless beef arm roast for $1.99 lb, 2 heads of cauliflower for $3, 2 heads broccoli for $3, 2 big packages of ground chuck for $1.39 lb, and a few other items, but those were the main money savers. The little home town stores are normally higher priced, but they do have great sales. I also had to get a sack of chicken layer feed. I was pleased to notice it has gone down $1 a sack. I hope it keeps going down. I stopped and paid the electric bill, stopped at the gas station and headed home. I was home before noon and got everything put away just in time for K to leave for work. Glad I cooked up a bunch of stuff yesterday. I had lots of stuff in the fridge for K to heat up. Right now I am sitting here smelling the beef roast as it slow cooks in the crock pot. Sure is making me hungry, smelling that. LOL

I was very pleased when I got the mail today. My seeds came. Everything, but my sugar snap peas came. They sent me a refund for those. I will have to try to find some around here. See the little seeder and the 3 packets of seeds in front? They sent those to me free. I have always had good luck with Jung's. I have some onion sets and potato sets ordered from them as well, but they won't send them till time to plant in our area. I can hardly wait to start my tomato seeds, but know I must wait or they will get too leggy before I plant them.

I also had my favorite cookbook out. Almost all of the homesteading type books that we own were published by Rodale. They are another really good company. We have many, many of their books. This book was published back in 1984. I actually bought it on ebay. I just love the recipes in it. If you want to feed your family healthier, this is a great book to have, although I believe it is out of print. You can always check online like I did. I think I paid $12 for it and it was worth every penny. (grin)Even though I went to town today and bought some groceries, I plan to go to the city tomorrow and finish up. Not sure if dh will go or not. I am trying to avoid JoAnns. They have a sale that I might go to over President's Day weekend, so I don't need to go 2 weekends in a row. I figured I'd better post to my blog, cause weekends are usually busy around here. I haven't done much sewing or quilting in the past couple of days. I am working on the border on the Maple Leaf and got some applique pieces prepped yesterday. I have been making myself wait to start them till I have the ML finished, but may just start on it tonight.

I will share some older projects with you. I made this Thimbleberries table runner for a friend in 2007. It was fun, but what Thimbleberries project isn't? LOL I think it was called Christmas Apple. Here is the back. That same year, I made this place mat and matching coaster for my MIL. She lives alone, so I only made one for her. I just got in my scrap bin and started sewing blocks together. I think it turned out pretty cute. She seemed to like it. The quilting doesn't show up very good on the back, but here it is.

Well, I know this post hasn't been very exciting, but sometimes, my life isn't very exciting. LOL I am sure hoping that roast gets done soon. The aroma is so good. Everyone have a great weekend. Thank you for visiting and reading my long ramble. Please come again.

Just Dreaming!

Good day everyone. I'll bet you are wondering about my title. Well, I am just so sick of winter and so ready for spring. (sigh) I want to be in the garden and raising baby chicks, and even cleaning the yard and mowing. I just want it warm enough that I can walk outside without having to bundle up like a mummy.(another sigh) So I have been looking at my older pictures and dreaming. By older, I mean only back to 2006. That is when we got the first digital camera. I really need to get a scanner, but there are always more important things needed. I thought I would share some of my nice summery pictures with you. Ok? This was our garden in 2006. Doesn't all of that green look beautiful? It was a great garden that year and I was able to can lots of produce. Here is one canning of green beans.

And here is a day's canning of salsa. I like it mild. K likes it hot. So I make it both ways and mark it. (grin) Sure don't want to get hold of that hot stuff. Then I am dreaming about the baby chicks I hope to get in April. Orschelns gets baby chicks in every spring. I can just go there and pick the ones I want. I want some new layers. I only have 4 hens left and they are getting old. So it is time for more. These are some that I hatched out in our incubator in 2006. I have hatched out many, many baby chicks over the years, but I think I will just get them at Orschelns this year. I have a hankering for some barred rocks. Haven't had any of them in several years. Our flock in the summer of 2006. Aren't they pretty?

Here is a picture of the rest of our flock that year. We had lots of chickens. Probably won't have near that many again.

Since we need some quilt pictures... Our youngest daughter, Hazel made this quilt for Ashton when she was 16. When she found out she was going to be an aunt for the first time, she wanted to do something special for him. So I helped her pick out the fabrics and pattern. She hand sewed and hand quilted this little quilt. It turned out so cute. This was before I had a rotary cutter, so she had to draw around templates and cut them out. She worked so hard on this little quilt. This is Ava laying on it, cause once again, I didn't have a digital back then. I thought the quilting bug had bitten her, but by the time she got this done, she was burned out. I hope this means that she will want to get back to quilting someday when her life slows down some. Working full time and chasing 2 small children doesn't leave you much room of crafts. Now back to 2009...LOL I spent alot of the day sewing sashings and blocks together on a star quilt. It will be a large quilt, at least 86 inches square if I put the borders on. This was the star quilt along that Amanda Jean did last year. I'll try to get pictures when I get it all put together. So far I only have the sashings and the first row done. I didn't have enough sashing pieces cut. I was so glad to find some more of that fabric in my stash. I tried to bribe Aeris into laying in K's chair on his coat, but it was a losing battle. I kept chasing her off and she would wait till my back was turned and jump right back up into the middle of my blocks. Little brat! LOL

Here is what I decided to work on last night while watching The Biggest Loser. I am quilting a crosshatch in the big leaf. I plan to quilt around each of the little appliqued leaves. Not quite sure about the background yet, but I will come up with something. I am going to hate to finish this one. It has been alot of fun. I planned to add another border around it, but just couldn't find any fabric in my stash that looked like it went with this. So I decided it will either be a wall quilt or a small table topper. It would fit nicely on an end table . This is how far I got last night watching BL. I am itching to get back to it in a bit. I think Criminal Minds is coming on pretty soon now. Speaking of Biggest Loser, I was not surprised at all with the results last night. I felt so sorry for Carla. She worked really hard, but Joelle just didn't want to be there and everyone else knew that. I am having a hard time picking my favorite this season. I like all of them, unlike last season. Oh boy! Anyway, I guess I should end this. Time to settle down in front of the tv with my quilting. Everyone have a wonderful evening. I hope my post today made you smile and feel warmer. Thank you for visiting. Please come again.

Mainly Aeris and Savannah Star

I really must stop taking cold medicine. I am groggy till at least 9 or 10 a.m. when I take it. Last night I only took 1/2 a dose. I figured that wouldn't affect me so much, right? Wrong. Same thing, plus it made my tummy hurt. So no more cold medicine. I will just have to tough this cold out. Actually I do feel better now that I am awake today. I think I am on the downhill side of the cold. When I got awake enough to concentrate, I did my Bible study, then started working on borders for the Savannah Star quilt. I'll share some pictures of it in a bit, but first, I want to share with you what my dh does every morning before heading to work.

He spreads out his extra coat for Aeris to lay on. She loves the lining. It is really soft and warm. Sometimes Callie lays on it too, but usually it is Aeris. He has such a soft heart where Aeris is concerned. You see, she was dumped on us as a kitten. In fact, both of our ladies were dumped on us. (Callie was dumped a year earlier.) Jon came in one day carrying a half grown kitten. It was obvious her hind leg was broken or so we thought. Jon and I took her to our vet. He checked her out and said that her leg had been broken, but had grown back crooked. He said if she got around all right with it, that we should just leave it alone, since about our only other option was to remove the leg. We really didn't want to do that. So we brought her home and tried to keep her separated from Callie. K was so protective of her. He was afraid Callie would be too rough with her.LOL Callie is a year older. Aeris managed to slip out of the room we had put her in while we went to town. We came home to that little spitfire terrorizing my Callie. LOL Poor Callie really didn't want to share her house with a kitten. She ran around, hissing, with Aeris right on her tail. K kept saying, Aeris is going to hurt her leg. Make her stop running. Well, long story short, Aeris and Callie are now friends, but still wrestle and chase each other all over the house. Goodness, that little kitty can run, and usually is the one who starts things with Callie. LOL She may be crippled, but she can hold her own. Here she is right after we found here. Already making herself right at home.LOL

Here she is with her big sister, Callie. Callie finally decided she might as well accept the little aggravation. LOL Aeris was supposed to be Jon's cat. He even set up a litterbox, food bowl and water bowl in his room. We sleep upstairs and K didn't think she could get up the stairs. How wrong he was. LOL It soon became very apparent that she was K's cat. She waits on a chair by the front door every night for him to come home. After a belly rub, she is ready to go. She also sits on his lap while he watches tv. Yet, it is me that she wallows all over during the night. She likes to sleep near my head and Callie sleeps near my feet. I keep nice and warm. (grin)

Now I told you all that because Aeris appears in most of these pictures. Can't disturb her just to get some quilt pictures, don't you know. LOL I finished sewing the strips of the Savannah Star top last night. I thought I might like some borders on it, but decided to sleep on it. I had plenty of the multi-colored fabric left, so I decided to add borders. It measures 40"X40" so I was going to have to piece the borders. Then I thought about using some of the leftover strips to make corner blocks. The only problem with that was my leftover strips were 1 1/2" which made the 4-patches turn out 2 3/4" square or there abouts. I wanted my borders 3 1/2" wide. So I sewed an inch wide strip on all sides of the 4-patch blocks and trimmed them to size. Here is a closeup of one of the little 4-patch corner blocks. With these borders added, it makes the quilt about 46'X46". I think that is a nice size for a baby quilt. It is cold again today. I think we had 4* this morning, and it is up to 14*. I am so ready for this winter to be over. Tonight is Biggest Loser, so you know where I will be between 7 and 9 p.m. I just love that show. I think it keeps me encouraged on this long journey to lose weight. I need to get my chores done. I also want to get some handwork ready to work on during the show. I just can't sit and watch tv without something to work on in my hands. Not sure yet what I will do. I could crochet, or better yet, do some knitting before I forget how. LOL There is also some counted cross stitch projects that I haven't touched in a year. Even with all these options, I am sure I will pick a quilting project to work on tonight. I am just a quilter at heart. (grin) Everyone have a great evening. Thank you for visiting.

Happy Groundhog Day!

I think the groundhog says we are having 6 more weeks of winter. Of course, the calendar says the same. LOL I have been missing from blogland for a few days. We had such a nice Friday and Saturday that I didn't even get on the computer much. On Friday I worked around outside and did some cleaning in the house. Time passed quickly. Saturday was so beautiful with highs in the lower 60's. (big grin) We went to town to do the errands that my sweetie wanted to do. We bought a whole pickup load of lumber. (More about that some other time.) Dh got that unloaded while I went back to town for some things that we needed. K didn't want to stop at Wal-Mart or Sams with the pickup so loaded down, so we drove home through the back roads at 45 miles per hour. He kept asking me to check and make sure nothing was falling off, even though he had 4 straps on the load. LOL He didn't really need to ask because I always watch when we have a load we are hauling. I guess he just needed to be reassured. (grin). I ran into my daughter, Carolyn and her husband, Bob, while coming out of Wal-Mart. We stood for a few minutes visiting, then I got my hugs and was on the way. I do not like to drive after dark. Always, good to get a hug from the kids. Anyway, by the end of the day, Saturday, I was pooped. I didn't even sew any, but did manage to come down with a cold. Bummer!

I got up early Sunday morning and visited my mom, helping her get her bills in order and medicine ready for the month. I met K. on the way home. He was going after a load of water. We have to haul our water. I finally got my sweet potatoes started. Here I have everything I need laid out. They gave me a head start. See the little leaves starting out on the ends.

Here they are, all ready for a sunny window sill. I just hope I can keep my cats from eating the leaves off. LOL I have started my sweet potato plants this way for over 30 years. As the leaves grow out the top. I pinch them off and stick them in water. Then roots will develop and as soon as it is warm enough they can be planted. I don't plant them till late May, but it usually takes quite a while to get enough starts, so I start them early.

After getting the sweet potatoes started I helped K change the oil in the car. Then he said we had done everything he wanted to for the weekend, so we could spend the rest of the day doing whatever we wanted. Guess what I did. Yep, sewed the whole afternoon away. We never even put the Superbowl game on. Neither one of us are football fans. We didn't even know who was playing. LOL Anyway, I got all the blocks done on the Savannah Star quilt I am working on, but not without some troubles. See the block on the left. Does that look square to you? Yep, I sewed an extra strip on 16 blocks before I figured this out. Let's just say my ripper and I were real good friends yesterday. LOL At least I caught it before I trimmed all of them.Strip piecing is easy, but one drawback is if you booboo on something, you might booboo on lots of blocks before you catch it. I had ripped all of them out before I thought to take a picture so you could see what I mean by the strip piecing I was doing. So I took a picture of the next section before I cut them apart and trimmed them up. First I pressed the green strip along the top up, then cut them apart and did any trimming needed.Here you have it, 64 - 5 1/2 inch blocks completed. I even ripped out and corrected, any time a seam got turned and sewed the wrong way on the back. I told you I was good friends with the ripper. LOL

I took a break after I got all the blocks finished and watched some tv with K. This morning after my Bible study, I started sewing the blocks in rows. First I laid them all out on my bed. Glad I had a diagram to look at, cause it is real easy to get these blocks turned around. Here they are in rows all ready to be pressed. I will sew the rows together this evening, then deside whether or not I want to put any borders on it. The original pattern doesn't call for borders, but I have lots of the center star fabric left. I may put a 3 inch border around it.
I had it all laid out pretty like the above on our bed. I went out to get the mail and came back to this. I think some naughty kitties were involved in some foul block play. LOL
That is it for pictures for today, but now for the exciting news. I started on the Atkins diet last Monday. I stay on it pretty good, but do drink a light Dan Active immune boost drink every morning. I haven't been real good about exercise, but have walked quite a bit. Now for the exciting news (for me at least LOL), I lost 4.2 lbs in the past week. Yahoo! I also lost 1 inch off my waist and 1 inch off my hips! Now I know that I won't do this well every week, but it is a start. I usually lose the most in the first week. I hope to incorporate more exercise this week. I was just so excited to get on the scales this morning and see the numbers. I was practically jumping up and down. LOL I still have a long ways to go, but baby steps, baby steps.

See what happens when I miss a few days of blogging. I end up writing a book for you all to read. (grin) I have 3 queen size quilts started. One has all the blocks done and just needs to be put together. One has half the blocks pieced, but the rest cut out. One has a long ways to go. Then I have a queen, twin, and a couple of lap size tops that need quilted, plus various table runners and wall quilts. So I am trying to finish a few of these, but it is hard. Every time I see a pretty pattern, I get the itch and just have to try it. Today I found one of my quilt books called 'Grandma's Best Full-Size Quilt Blocks' published by Better Homes and Gardens. Carolyn gave me this book a few years ago. It was in a different section of the bookcase, so I haven't looked at it for a while. Now don't you know I am going to find something in this book that I just have to make. (grin) I plan to sit and look at it tonight while I watch tv. So I will probably be telling you tomorrow about this darling quilt that I just have to make. LOL Everyone have a good evening. Thanks for visiting.