Round Robin

I'm in my first round robin with my stitching group. The challenge is to piece a block only using the color blue. All embellishments have to be in blue as well. Luckily there are various shades of blue that are allowed. There are six people in each group and so that means that there will be six people working on each block. This is the stitching I did on the last block I received. I'm getting anxious because I get one more block to work on and then my original block will come home finished, or nearly finished. I didn't work on it yet, so I will finish it up when it comes home. In the meantime, here is part of the block I just sent on to New Jersey. I did the fan.

To Paint or Not to Paint!!!

Ok, I realize that my sister is anxiously waiting to see the kitchen face lift, however... it's not quite finished. Viewing today's photo you will get the idea. Today I purchased this geranium print. I remembered it from the beginning of the summer, but I remembered it in a black frame and just a single geranium. hmmmm, I'm afraid my mind will not be improving from here on out.

Anyhow, now that I have it hung, do you think it should be a black frame to match the furniture in the kitchen? I'm guessing I'll only use it in the summer and I'll hang something else there later but right now since I have been thinking red in the kitchen, I will be keeping the print, just not sure about changing the frame. What do ya all think?

Strawberry Jam

I am the administrative assistant at a church. One of the things I like about my job is that people sometimes remember to do something nice for those of us on staff here. Last week one of the ladies from our congregation brought me a jar of freshly made Strawberry Jam. I am really grateful for it since I don't take the time to make jam. I don't usually purchase it either but when someone gives me a jar of homemade jam, I quite enjoy it. So this week I am enjoying the pleasant surprise of a lovely little gift and having freshly homemade strawberry jam on my bagel.

Monday morning when I opened my office door I found this lovely bouquet of flowers waiting for me from another friend. I hope you have a good week where you work too!

Yard Sales

I used to be an avid yard sale-er but now that I work full time, I really don't have the time that I wish I did to go to yard sales. I did see one in my neighborhood on Friday on my way in to the office and drove past it, then backed up and I'm sure glad I did. I picked up a very pretty little plate and asked the price when she said ten cents I picked up a few more old things that caught my eye and then found some old books that I wanted to stack to vary the height of some objects in the bedroom. Anyhow, I photographed my loot for today. Can you believe when I asked how much, she told me $1. I gave her two and left happy!

Out of Your Comfort Zone

I participated in the "Out of Your Comfort Zone" challenge at my favorite crazy quilters yahoo group. I'm a newbie stitcher and I just had to complete a block and the challenge was to do something you don't usually do. I have never done any silk ribbon embroidery before so I knew that would have to go into my block. I also have never had a feature patch on a block that I did. I was disappointed it that though, the patch that I bought on etsy was printed on a tightly woven fabric so it was kind of hard to stitch through it. Maybe I needed a smaller needle, not sure what I may have done wrong. Anyhow I didn't get the block finished by the deadline so I'm still working on it, but here it is as I photographed it for the challenge.

Happy Birthday Molly!

My little girl has grown into such a lovely young lady. She will be turning 22 today and graduating from college in December and who knows what after that. She has a lot of ambition so I am sure she will do well in life.

We will be celebrating with a shopping trip on Wednesday. She is working in Harrisburg doing an internship today and will probably be exhausted. She just arrived home tonight from a weekend in LA and is somewhat jet lagged,add that to the fun filled jam packed weekend and I'm hoping she won't be to tired to shop!

The photo is of her 2nd birthday.

Happy Birthday Molly.... Love ya!

Auction

Today I cleared my schedule and did something that I enjoy doing, I went to an auction. It was an estate sale and located down the street from where I live. The family lived in the house from 1943 until about 9 years ago and the sale was today. The weather was almost perfect and the sale was held in a big old tent.

There was a lot of depression glass....I don't collect depression glass, nor do I collect slag ware or milk bottles which were all in abundance. There was a lot of primitive stuff but among all that, there were a few treasures....

I love the candelabra that I purchased, it looks great in my turquoise dining room. The large pitcher and glass has a repair and is not perfect. I was not happy to hear the auctioneers announce at the beginning of the auction that they don't have time to inspect the glassware and you buy it as is....so they were not announcing the condition of anything.... I don't like that at all.....I bought the pitcher to put on the floor in the kitchen to fill with hydrangeas or something dried so it's ok that it isn't perfect. My husband put it on top of the china closet in the kitchen when I brought it home and it may stay there for awhile.

For $1 I bought some vintage dresses. One of them is already on my mannequin, they were not in good condition but good enough for Miss Frannie. I got great buys on doilies and dresser scarfs, etc. I was able to get the stuff for $5 a box. Can you believe no one else wanted them!

I love ironstone so I am always on the look out for it; the only ironstone that they had were two large platters. The biggest one is a size I don't have and weighs 8 pounds....can you imagine that platter with a 20 pound turkey on it? I would need to have someone carry it to the dining room for me! They sold them together and I bought them. I'll be using the large one to replace a metal tray I have propped up on the top of a bookshelf. The smaller one will be added to my collection of ironstone platters in the dining room on the shelves above the windows.

So that was my day.... I needed a day to just sit and do nothing! Today was the day.

Babies!

This past weekend Molly came home so that we could visit the newest baby in the family. My nephew, Tim and his wife, Emily had a baby boy born 13 months to the day after their first child that makes two boys for them. I guess that will be an active household. Molly loves babies so she was excited to go play with Evan. He slept the whole time we were there (that's the kind I like). Anyhow, congratulations to Tim, Emily and Tucker, here's wishing a bright and happy future to Evan.

Photo of Molly and Evan Devine. That reminds me....I want to paint Molly's old high chair white, it was wooden and the finish baked off in the attic so I want to get it prettied up for Tucker (the older of the Devine boys) to use when he comes to visit. So be watching for that project.

Wild Black Raspberries

Last night Molly text messaged me to let me know she would be coming home to visit today.  I had something planned that I knew she would be excited about and sure enough when she said "what can we do?" I was ready with an activity and I suggested that we go pick black raspberries.

From the time she was a little girl we have had a secret black raspberry patch that we can walk to and pick from.  We don't get a lot of berries  but it has always been an activity that we have done together and have done every year. 

The night before on my evening walk with the dogs I discovered that they were ripe and I picked a few and thought to myself that I'd be picking raspberries with the dogs this year.  So as it turned out I was as glad as she was that we could pick raspberries together again one more year.