Family Time

Hey guys, sorry for the delay in posting. I have been busy with family and still more coming...

I have not been sewing this past week as I've been at the hospital with my MIL. She had to have surgery for a mass.  I'm really happy to say that it was not cancer and we are so relieved.  She is recooperating at my house and I'm watching over her.  She is doing very well but is very weak.  She's in her 80's but you wouldn't know it.  She gets stronger every day.  We did not have the grandkids over for Easter because we needed some rest time.  They went over to the other grandparents house to look for Mr. Easter Bunny and I sure missed them. 
Tomorrow is the due date for my new grandbaby.  The proud parents go back to the doctor tomorrow to see just how far along the little mother is.  If there's no changes, the doctor is talking about inducing.  Anyway, I will have my hands full this week as my MIL and the new baby and parents will be staying with me too. So, as soon as I know about the baby, I'll post it.  You will either hear from me or I'll show new pictures.  Anyway, I must dash for now.  Have a great week and do some sewing for me.  Hugs, Linda

What a great weekend! Sunshine, family time, sewing and tatting too.

I got to sew, get out in the sun (too much- I have a terrible sun burn!), be with the grandkids, be with family and get some quilting done too! 

This weekend was really busy but it was fun too.  I spent some of Saturday at the baseball field watching my grandson play baseball.  This is his first year to play regular ball. He played T-ball last year but I don't know if you should count that.  He mostly played with his friends and played on the ground.  This year, he's playing coach pitch baseball.  He's a little more focused this year and  these kids are so cute to watch. His team won on Saturday but that really doesn't matter.  What matters is that they are having so much fun and learning to play as a team.  The coaches are so good with these kids.  I had such a good time watching them and being with the family. It was noon time and I didn't pay attention to how burnt I was getting.  I had a hat on and I'm glad of that, otherwise my face would have gotten burnt too.  My arms are slightly pink but my neck and chest are so red, I look like a tomato.  I had a V neck T-shirt on and it looks like I still have it on.  It's time for the sun block!  I'll be more prepared next time!  Other than being burnt, I had a great time.

I left there and went over to my friends house for some quilting time. She called me early Saturday morning and said her machine was empty and asked if I wanted to come use it and visit with her.  She needed to sew but I could use her Gammill while she sewed. I said you betcha!  I went upstairs right then and started pulling out some small quilt tops and started putting the backing and battings  together.  I pulled out a community service top and one of my UFO's. I had hand quilted my UFO except for the border.  I decided I would take this over and see what Jackie and I could do with the border.  She didn't get alot of sewing time in but I got the little top quilted and we put my full quilt on the frame and I quilted the border on it.  I learned alot about her machine and she said she learned some things too.  It was so much fun to visit with her and get some quilting time in too. I finished both of those and they are ready for binding.  I'll show you those later when they are bound.  I didn't get to bind them yet, but I'll work on those this week.  I went home and went out to dinner with the family.

Sunday afternoon, I worked out in the garden and I planted two Knock Out Rose bushes that my MIL brought me.   She said one of them was Double Knock out roses...I'm not sure exactly what that means but they are pretty rose bushes. The Knock Out Rose bush is a new rose brought out by Texas A & M and is supposed to be very healthy and like the Texas soil.   We'll see how good it does at my house.  My roses are doing great this year and I have one bush that has bloomed out and another that is covered with buds and should be blooming any day now.  I'll show you pics as soon as it blooms.   After Mom left, I was able to go to my sewing room and do a little sewing. I pulled out some purple scraps and some blue scraps and made another purple quilt top and added to the Disappearing Nine Patch quilt top too.  Here's a pic of both.

Ok, this is now big enough for a baby quilt. I can add a border and it will be ready for quilting....

Yay!  It's purple month over at Angela's -So Scrappy Blog.  I have a little bit of purple and can make a few things. Here's the first one...

These scraps are from the purple baby quilt I made.  I'm making this one to give away as a community service quilt.  I just need to add a border and it will be ready for quilting.

And, last night, I got a little bit of tatting done too.  This will eventually look like a hexagon or maybe and octogon, I don't know which....I'm using up little bits of thread still left on my shuttles and am enjoying doing these little flowers.  It's called a Grandmother's Flower Garden and I saw this over at Martha's Ess's blog.  This just spoke to me when I saw it.  As a quilter and a tatter, I knew I wanted to make this.  My first thought was to swap little flowers with each other but you can't do that as you build this as you go and have to attach them.  You can swap thread and it takes just about 40inches so I might bring this up at my next tatting meeting.  Anyway, I'm enjoying this while I watch TV....

Three more blocks and my crowded design wall

Ok, here's the three little blocks I did this weekend.  They will be added to the 30's Sampler quilt I'm working on.  This one is a UFO I'm trying to finish and it is up on my design wall waiting to be put together.  I'm working on the little blocks that go around the big blocks to finish this up.  I'm afraid I'll be working on this for a few more weeks.  I still have about 18-20 more small blocks to finish.  I plan on taking this to retreat to work on. Maybe I can knock alot of this out before that and put it all together then.   I want to work on other stuff at retreat too so I'm going to try really hard to get more done.  I take way too much stuff to retreat but I would rather take too much than not enough...

anyway, here's my blocks and my design wall:

Wait until morning to see what you are tatting!

I've waited to show these because I didn't really want to show my goof ups but for all the new tatters out there, I think we should show them; so, here's one of my  mistakes.

I tatted Friday night after I got home from sewing. Afterall, it was International Tatting Day, right?! Anyway, it was late and I should have stopped but I wanted to finish this little motif and I ran out of thread. I searched and searched and thought I found it. I should have just stopped and waited until daylight but no....I actually was completely out of thread but used this thinking it was the same until I got it in the daylight. Boy, what a difference! But, it's done and I don't have anymore of the real thread anyway so it's staying just like it is. It was for fun anyway so it really doesn't matter. I made both motifs using two different methods. The one in bright colors was done with regular split rings and two shuttles. The one with the mistake on it was how the pattern actually said to do it. I made it with one shuttle and with the single shuttle split ring method. I learned this last year but didn't do anything with it and you know what they say...If you don't use it, you lose it.  Boy, I don't know who this quote was from but they are definitely right.  I had to go on Youtube and see if I could relearn the SSSR.  I found several versions out on Youtube and watched them until I could do it.  I remember now how to do it and I'm going to keep doing other little things with this technique so I don't forget it.  I'm also going to find some little motifs with other things I want to remember and practice those too like the self closing mock ring...

Here's the little motifs I did.  I've done these before several months ago and I just love this pattern. I pulled it out again in honor of the recent Mardi Gras holiday and tatting day...This pattern was done by Patty D from Intatters and is called Mardi Gras:  Click here for the pattern.

My Garden

Here's a tour of my garden. It's not much but it keeps me busy watering, pulling weeds and enjoying the soil. 

This is my onion patch.

My husband made these sprinklers out of PVC pipe and sprinkler heads. I can move these easily around my garden.  They don't weigh alot and are cheap to make.  This is our irrigation system! This one just has one head on it.

This one has 3 heads on it. It works great for me. I don't have to stand out and water.

I have two  more rows of onions here, 2 rows of potatoes, zuchinni, yellow squash, radishes and tomatoes.

My morning glories are starting to come out here.

My first green onion of the season. Ummm, good.

We had a small fence around this last year. We will be putting it back up this week but with some improvements.   We bought PVC pipe and chicken wire and we will have this fence up by next weekend.  We have alot of rabbits here and I'm not ready to share my vegetables yet.

I decided to put my tomato plants into my big pots this year. I only have 6 tomato plants this year and I think that will be enough for us. Me and my MIL are the only ones that like tomatoes.

Catching Up

I have been so busy and just haven't taken the time to post anything.

Friday night, I had a terrible headache. I went to the church to be with my friends and do some sewing but I didn't get much done.  I mostly just stayed and visited.  I tried sewing a block up and my thread kept breaking.  I finished the block and decided I would just walk around and visit to see what everyone else was working on.  My thread kept breaking because I had machine quilting thread on the machine from the last quilt I had quilted. Of course, I had cleaned out my supplies and didn't bring any regular thread with me!  I did have a wonderful piece of cake there and got the recipe too.  So simple and good and I plan on making it this week.  See below for the easy recipe.

  The weekend was so pretty I just had to get out in the sunshine and enjoy it for a little while on Saturday.  I planted 6 tomato plants, some geraniums, some morning glories and I pulled weeds and pulled my first batch of green onions. ( I took pictures of my garden and I'll share those tonight with you when I upload some photos.)  I meant to have the onions for dinner on Saturday night but that didn't work out. I kept the grandkids Saturday night and cooked supper for them and they are not onion lovers yet.  I cooked their favorites of Mac and cheese, broccoli, Edemame beans (they call these jumping beans) and Eckrich sausage.  I rented them a movie too.  We watched the movie and popped popcorn.  The popcorn was great but the movie was not a good one for small children.  It scared my granddaughter and she went and played in her room while it was still on.  My grandson wanted to watch it all the way to the end.  It was an owl movie called Legend of the Guardians or something like that...lots of violence in this one and it said it was a kids movie. Wow, I was not happy with this one for sure!  Anyway, we had a good time anyway and so did the parents. They went out and had some much needed couple time while I had Grandma duty. 

Yesterday, after being outside on Saturday, I paid for it with my allergies flairing up. The wind was howling too and stirring up all the pollen and that didn't help either.  I stayed inside yesterday and  did get 3 tiny blocks made for one of my UFO's but that's all I got done.  I didn't even take pics of those. I put the quilt up on the design wall  that these go to and planned on taking pics but didn't. I'll do that tonight and show you what this quilt looks like. It is a 30's reproductions and most of it is Aunt Gracies...This is the only one like this I have ever worked on.  I like it alot but it's just not me really. I do like the clean look of the blocks and it does look springy but I don't plan on doing anymore of these.  This quilt is one of my 10 UFO's on my sidebar.  I have enjoyed making this as these are easy blocks and go together fairly quickly but there are alot of them. 
I just didn't have any ummph last week to get anything done.  My sewing room is a wreck right now and I've rearranged things and just can't seem to focus on anything.  I'm going to have to pull out my list and get back on track. I will be sewing more this week and I plan on having alot more done by the end of this week.  I've got to really get busy before the new grandbaby gets here.  I still have the bumper pads to make for the baby bed...but everything else has been done.  Ok, I know you are probably bored with my rambling by now and I don't have any pics to show so I'll quit for now.  I will post pics of my garden and my blocks later tonight, so please come back and visit me again. Until next time, happy sewing.

Delicious and Easy Angel Food Cake (Low cal too!)

Betty Crocker Angel Food Cake Mix
1-20 oz. can crushed pineapple (Do not drain-use all the liquid as this is the only liquid you will have for this cake)

Mix all together and follow package directions to bake your cake. 

International Tatting Day

I did learn something today.  April 1st is not only April Fools Day, it is also International Tatting Day.  So, to all of you happy tatters out there, go play with your threads and shuttles and make something pretty to celebrate.