Eleanor's Quilt

Baby Elli's quilt is done and was given to her at her shower today. She is such a tiny little thing! At 6 weeks old, I think she is only about 9 pounds.
I made the quilt top and Coleen machine quilted it. She did a wonderful job.....
The all-over design really brought the plain quilt top to life!The back is a cute pastel stripe I bought to border the Peter Rabbit quilt I made a while back (which I never used).
Elli's mom, Emily, was thrilled with the quilt. That is my friend Candy standing next to her. Candy is Baby Elli's great-grandmother!I was so pleased to see several hand made gifts for Baby Eleanor. Two crocheted afghans, her quilt, a fleece blanket, and a hand knitted sweater (which was ADORABLE!). I LOVE handmade gifts!

I am heading to Amish Country in the morning, bright and early. I better get a move on if I am to be packed and ready to go at 5:30am! Be blessed and I will be back on Wednesday!!

Like A Sore Thumb

Can you guess which one just doesn't belong here??? (I am hearing that Sesame Street song) That one fabric just sticks out like a sore thumb. It had to be replaced. Now this one looks much better, but still, it kinda sticks out....not so much in person. Not quite sure if I will leave it there.Sorry for the dark pics....it is stormy and dark here.

I will be heading out of town early Monday morning. My mom and I are going on our yearly jaunt. Last year, we went 2 hours west to Galena. This year we are going 4 hours south to......

.....Amish Country!!!!

We have been to Arthur and Arcola before, but only for an afternoon. We will have a day and a half to explore this unique town. There are 3 quilt shops at my disposal!!! Of course, they do not have websites, but if you click here, you can read about them. Another shop, The Wood Loft, has all hand stitched Amish quilts on display and for sale. Click on the link to see. I am looking forward to a nice, peaceful trip to refresh myself before school starts on Sept. 7th.

Have a blessed Thursday and I will check in before I head out of town!!!

Pumpkin Spice

Mmmmmmm. I love pumpkin pie and the colors that go into it! My next quilt will have all those colors. Deep pumpkin orange, dark brown nutmeg and clove, golden ginger, cinnamon, and even though it does not go in the pie, a deep, pumpkin stem, green.
Not one single pastel! Look at this pumpkin colored fabric I picked up. It is hard to get the right colors on the computer, but it is the exact color of a fresh baked pumpkin pie. It will be in the quilt, but will also be the wide border with a deep nutmeg as the smaller border.
Not sure about you but I can not wait til Thanksgiving!

A Full Weekend

My weekend was full of fun and laughing and squealing grand kids!! I was in a slight panic cause Emerson is on real foods. She has 6 teeth and does very well, but feeding time was going to be a hold your breath experience for me. I decided to throw Emerson's foods in this little chopper my Mother in love bought me. It is AWESOME!!!!
Start with big chunks of peaches (perfect size for lodging in a almost 1 year old throat!) and some chunky dinner....lots of peas and chicken....Give it a quick whirl and there ya go....choke resistant foods for at Grandma's house!!!
I did leave some texture for her. Rachel is going to think I am nuts!!!! Oh well...Emerson ate good all weekend....chicken pasta dinner, fruits, Grandma's spaghetti and mac and cheese!
She was looking for me over the top of the camera but could not quite see me.
There I am!!! She is talking like crazy! Bye-Bye, Da-Da, Whats that?, Yeah, Sssssssew (when she needs a diaper change), and I swear she says Paw-Paw!! Her new thing is she wrinkles up her nose and breaths in and out VERY loudly! She also has taken to "growling"! She is no longer in her walker or saucer seat. She climbs out :( She is climbing up to everything. Her daddy did not walk til 14 months and I think she will be the same. That is just FINE!!!
I was able to get some pics of TJ this time around. He played on the slip and slide with Zach on Saturday.And he played with Legos for hours!!Emerson loved the plastic Easter eggs!!!And we blew bubbles and played outside.They go home this morning, sometime. I have had a wonderful weekend with them!
I received an envelope in the mail containing a recent win. Valencia had a blog anniversary giveaway and I won some wall art.
This one says, "Friends are the flowers that bloom in life's garden" I put it in my guest bathroom. The other set is going in my master bath, I think. Thank you, Valencia!!Even with kiddos here, I did manage a little bit of quilting time on Sunday afternoon. I needed to figure out a motif or pattern to hand quilt in the solid 3 inch squares of the larger basket blocks.Nothing I had would work, so I free-handed a flower in each one. I had 4 to do, as those blocks were already quilted. I did all 4 plus another small basket block. Thank goodness all flowers are not the same!! Well that is enough for today. After the babies go home, I am going to relax. Yes, relax......well maybe my hands won't relax!!

Our Day At The Park

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Play Time

It has been pretty hot here in my part of the country. Life is about play these days. For me that means quilting and computer. Quilting is going great, though I wanted to make more progress yesterday than I did. My computer problems took care of that. I will come back to the computer problem. The baskets are showing signs of becoming an actual quilt.
The texture appearing on the back is always a real indicator of just how much quilting is done.
It has been an easy quilt in this stage. Enjoyable....finally.My computer.....I got a message on my Facebook page yesterday from a friend to view a "Coooool Video". I clicked on the link and all h&ll broke loose! It was a (triple)Trojan virus. My McAffee blocked a good chunk of it, but not all of it, as I am getting pop ups and all kinds of bogus scans running. I will need to have a friend look at it. Then that thing started sending it to my friends list on Facebook. I warned people not to open it, but I did delete my Facebook page. That took the message to view the video down, so hopefully no one got hit like I did. Facebook is not something I was very impressed with. It was a time sucker for me and even though I did not go there often in the beginning, I found myself checking it several times a day. I had been thinking of dropping it, as my blogs are more than enough to fill my computer time (which is limited by my own guidelines), but the virus was the kicker to end my time there. I have heard that Twitter and Facebook get these virus hits often. I think Blogger is enough for me. :0)

I mentioned that our days are about play....Zach and Charlotte have been keeping busy with their "arts" too. Charlotte is crocheting her little heart out in between hanging with her little friends. Zach, has been building with his Legos and wants to put this picture of his latest engineering masterpiece on Creations.com (??) Kyle has been working hard during the day and in the afternoon hangs with some friends playing basketball or watching his movies. Sweetheart spent a day at his Mom's and otherwise, he has kept busy around here.

My design wall holds my newest "toy". 72 Nine Patch blocks from my swap with Linda. The design wall does not hold them all! I am playing with lay out and color. I am thinking a brown for setting blocks??? Still considering.Not a lot of time for playing with quilt blocks today. I will not be doing Feminine Friday as we are going to a State Park hiking and for a picnic with the kids, so I will be wearing jeans. I will take the camera. Tomorrow my grandchildren come for an over night at Grandmas! I can hardly wait. I have not seen them in 10 (TEN) days!!!! Can you believe it??!! They only live a couple of miles away, and this terrible Grandma let that time pass. I will need to make that up!!

Have a wonderful weekend and be blessed!!!!

A New Dake & Aprons

Do you want to hear how good God is?? Well let me testify!! (don'tcha love it!!) I have been wanting a Dake Study Bible for....well, many years. My Pastor from my old church (before I moved to the city I am in) used a Dake. For 9 years I sat under this Pastor and learned more than I ever thought possible. He was a gifted teacher, and he studied from a Dake. Good Dake's are pretty costly and I could not pull 60-80 dollars aside to buy a Bible....since I already have a NKJV study Bible and a KJV reference (remember I just wood glued it back together recently?), plus the ESV I bought a while back (which was much cheaper), a new Bible of that cost was not using wisdom. Still I wanted one. Last week I was reading a blog and a reader mentioned she had a Dake Study Bible she was willing to give. I e-mailed her and told her I would love to have a Dake. Now I do not know this girl AT ALL. She does not read my blog, nor do I read hers. I expected a hard cover or paper type copy of a Dake, but still, it would have the same notes and I would feel blessed. What arrived at my door was a BRAND NEW (still in the box) bonded leather Dake Bible.It has that new Bible smell and everything. Not a mark in or on it. This sweet girl, Anna, would not even let me pay shipping. Now I know she will get a blessing from God for her generosity, but there is a part of me that is having a hard time accepting this. I want to send her something of equal value. Still, I am feeling this is a lesson for me in accepting a gift. Look at all the wonderful study notes....A Dake Bible is perfect if you want to really dig deep into the scriptures! It is a commentary, a Greek/Hebrew dictionary, and a full concordance all in one. Ok, enough testifying....but isn't God good??? Felt like He was loving on me through this gift!

Another package arrived too. Joann got some new scrubbies the other day and I mentioned I use to have some and could no longer find them. She sent me some...and in RED! My favorite color! I already used one and they work GREAT! Thank you, Joann. You are too sweet. I am going to let the Lord know I have learned to accept a blessing. ;)

On another note, my Mother in Love sent me this cute history of the Apron. I thought I would share it with you all, since I enjoyed it so much. Notice the apron pattern...a size 14-16 was a Medium. Hmmmmmm.The History of the Apron

I don't think our kids know what an apron is.

The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath,because she only had a few, it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and they used less material, but along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.

It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.

From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.

When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids.

And when the weather was cold grandma wrapped it around her arms.

Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.

Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.

From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.

In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.

When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.

When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the menfolks knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.

REMEMBER:
Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool.

Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.

They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.
I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron.