Busy Week and weekend

This week has been really busy and I haven't sewn on anything. Tuesday was tatting night and I couldn't miss it.  I'm working on my tatted bag and I'll show you that soon.

Wednesday evening, I took my grandkids Trick or Treating in their town. The businesses shut down the main street and hand out candy and treats to the kids.  It was alot of fun.  I took the two oldest grandkids and my youngest in the stroller.  Everybody else was busy, so I got to do it this year.  It was alot of fun!  This little town really does it up right for their residents.  This is the second thing I've been to in the last month that they shut down the main street and all the businesses had something going for the residents.  I am impressed. I have a few pics:

The Ninja turtle is my oldest grandson, the cheerleader is my oldest granddaughter and the baby is my yougest granddaughter.  This was fun!

Up in a firetruck checking out all the bells and whistles.

Crowd pictures.

Loved these costumes, bacon and eggs...too cute.

Playing games for candy.

Lots of candy and prizes and we had a great time and so did they!

Thursday night and Friday night, I was glued to the TV watching the games. Boo hoo, my Rangers lost, but I am so proud of them.  What a series!  It was so stressful, I had to get up and walk out of the room at times.  I did enjoy the game though even though they lost. 

 I cleaned house yesterday all day until it was time to go over to my son and DIL's for a birthday party for my oldest grandson, Brandon.   He turned 8 years old yesterday.  Wow, time flies so quickly!  I can't believe he is already that old.  We had a  quick birthday party for him with family and friends...

then headed over to my friends, Ann and Glenn's for their wonderful Halloween party.  It was alot of fun, but it scared the bejeebers out of my grandkids.  Ann and Glenn decorate their whole house for Halloween like some people do for Christmas.  Halloween has always been Ann's favorite holiday and she does it up right every year.  Her party's are family oriented and I just knew my grandkids would have fun but...some of the decorations were a little too much for them.  They liked the food and the candy but left fairly quickly after they ate. They didn't stick around for the games.  My son said that Alayna didn't want to go into her room alone when she got home.  So, she ended up sleeping in Brandon's room with him!  Oh, I felt bad as I just knew they would have so much fun.

Ann dressed up as the Itsy Bitsy Spider

Glen was a chef, somewhere he lost his mustache....I hope it wasn't in the punch!

Good food and munchies.

This couple was putting on the ritz- Halloween style!

A few scary decorations that talk when you walk by....

Fun party!

I've had a very busy week but plan on getting up to the sewing room this afternoon. I've had so many things calling me to work on....I don't know what I'm going to work on first. I'll show you later.  til next time, have a great Sunday.

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. 

Weekly Update

Wow, last week is gone and I did not get to blog anything. I was on vacation but it really wasn't a fun vacation. Monday and Tuesday was spent clothes shopping, shoe shopping, getting the dog groomed and just general errands. I had a Medical Seminar to go to on Thursday and Friday and I had to get ready for it. We (my husband and I) drove down on Wednesday to Houston for me to go to this seminar. He went with me and he was going to play golf and just hang out while I did the work thing...I am so glad he went with me. OMG, Houston traffic is awful! I thought Dallas was bad but boy, Houstonians drive way faster than Dallasites. I have lived in Texas my whole life and this was my first trip to Houston. I drive Dallas traffic every day and have forever. I worked in downtown Dallas for 20+ years and now work off of Hwy 635 and Central...It takes me about an hour and 15 minutes to get to work on a normal day so I am not new to traffic but....we stayed at a very nice hotel that was on the Hwy 59 close to the hospital where my seminar was. I did not sleep at all while I was there. The traffic noise at nighttime was unbelievable! The traffic never stopped. I was very glad to come back home and get some rest. I think I'll stay away from Houston for a long time. Nice people but too much for me!

I went to a Memorial Service for my friend that passed away last month. Marianne was flown home and buried in Michigan but the family decided to have a Memorial Service for her down here for all the friends...The service was very nice and afterwards, all the family and friends were invited to the quilt shop that she had worked at. The quilt shop shut down for business and served lunch and refreshments to her family and friends and we could just talk and visit. She would have really enjoyed this. This was so nice of Shelly and David to accomodate the family and friends like this. We will all miss Marianne's smile, laughter and great sense of humor. Goodbye, my friend....

Yesterday, I was able to sit down and do a little sewing. I finished, that's right, finished the intermediate quilt. I finished all the quilting on it and put a hanging sleeve on it too. I think it turned out very lovely. I so enjoyed working on this quilt. I also finished the quilting on the beginner quilt and I'll bind that this week too. Oh boy, two finishes in one week. I'm going to hang the intermediate quilt in my living room and admire my work for awhile. My older son told me awhile back that I should not hang quilts on the wall. He didn't like me decorating with them....Oh well, he'll just have to get over it.

Tomorrow I go to my tatting class. Oh boy, can't wait....Tuesday tatting. I'll update again later. Til next time....

Sewing samples and not enough time for my sewing!

I stopped by the quilt store yesterday and picked up some fabric to make a sample for the shop. Normally, I enjoy making samples but I have so much sewing of my own I want and need to do, it sometimes becomes a chore. I started making this little quilt top last night and it's going pretty quickly. I have enjoyed it and I only have one more border to put on it. It is turning out very cute. The pattern is called Cheep Housing and the fabric is bird fabric....I should finish it tommorow night and I will post a picture when done. It was a free pattern that came with the fabric...
As soon as I'm through with this, I'll be able to get back to my Orange Crush and other things I am chomping at the bit to work on....I have decided to make a heart quilt for my son's girlfriend for graduation. Saska from http://oklacookiemaker.blogspot.com/ has such a cute heart quilt on her blog, I just have to copy. I was going to change the pattern up a bit but after seeing hers, I don't want to change it. I think Steph will love this quilt so now I have to hurry and get busy doing just that....Too many quilts, not enough time! I think I'm going to take a few days off and do some sewing so I can get caught up on projects I want to work on. My civil war diary blocks are calling me and I still need to finish my Carolina Crossroads. I thought I would get to work on these at retreat but alas, no. I ran out of time there too. What's a girl to do but play hooky???

Going Green and musings

I have decided that I am going to go green. I have several patterns and I am going to start making grocery bags for myself and anyone else I can pass them on to...I've been wanting to do this anyway cuz I hate those plastic bags. I always liked the paper sacks we used to get . We would use those to cover our school books with when our bookcovers got too dirty. My Mom would use them for all kinds of things. We'd take them apart and draw on them. We'd cut them up and make paper hats out of them.... We were recycling when we didn't know what the word really meant....Do you remember saving your newspapers and having paper drives at the schools? My grandmother used to put newspapers in her quilts when she didn't have money for batting...She also used newspaper to cut out her patterns AND she sewed directly on the newspaper just like paper piecing today.
One of my favorite dresses when I was a kid, was made out of a sugar sack. I thought it was the most beautiful dress I had ever seen. It had red roses on it and I thought I was really something. We used feed sacks for dish towels and for diapers too.
We bought oatmeal that had the glasses in it just so we could have the glass. My Grandmother dipped snuff and she always saved her snuff glasses for drinking glasses. Jelly used to come in glasses too and we saved those for drinking glasses.

Isn't it funny how you do things all your life and then whamo, somebody comes along and names it something and gets credit for starting something? I've always turned the lights out when I leave a room, don't run water when I'm brushing my teeth, put a brick in my toilet to reduce the water needed, catch water off the house to water my plants, save plastic and aluminum for recycling....etc, etc, etc. I just thought it was using common sense.