Wilmington, NC

A couple of weeks ago I spent a wonderful week with my good friends Mimi and John in Wilmington.  They had come to NY for a wedding and I hitched a ride down with them. (I flew back to NY).

Our first stop was Gettysburg where young John works and teaches.  John gave us a great tour of the college.  Luckily we had time to view the battle ground. This was my best attempt at pictures:

I know it does not look like much but when you hear all the history…Well, it was very interesting.

I wonder how many people here in B’ville are aware of this.  There are monuments for the militia that fought here. I took pictures of all four sides.

And of course along the way we did some shopping!

Trader Joe’s in VA.  Rochester finally has a Trader Joe’s. I talked my sisters-in-law into a road trip next week.

This next picture will seem strange but it brought the teacher out in me.  Do you remember learning about Fibonacci’s number?  I don’t remember exactly but it has to do with patterns in nature.  Look at this cauliflower.  Isn’t it amazing?

G Street Fabrics in VA. A real fabric store with actual gorgeous fabrics!

When we got to Wilmington, Mimi-and John – and I kept busy. 

Katie, do you remember the plant you gave Mimi? Well it is thriving!

I put bindings on three quilts for Mimi…

…including this house warming gift I made for them.

We also organized all of Mimi’s fabric.  I thought I took a picture. Dang! (because everyone loves pictures of organized closets!

More pictures in my next post!

Let’s Dust this Thing Off…

Why do I find it so difficult to blog?  One reason is that I have been keeping busy. I went to N. Carolina to visit with Mimi; I have taught a couple times at Mission Rose and have subbed at the Y; I have been sewing and knitting. Is that my excuse?  No, my excuse is that I get too lazy to transfer pictures from my camera to my computer.

Is it difficult? Not at all!

So today I loaded a bunch of pictures and over the next few days I will post my adventures, completions and works in progress.

But today….

Look at these beauties:

Oh my goodness, I love these shoes! And they are soooo comfortable!  Karmen from A Quilter Awakens turned me on to Alegria shoes and I am sorry it took me so long to buy a pair!

I may have a new addiction….

Labor Day

Yes, I know this is late.

Katie, Lauren and I spent our Labor Day weekend at our own annual Tomato Fest.

This year we canned tomatoes and sauce.  The sauce takes forever!

Lauren had so much '”fun” she bought 8 more bushels of tomatoes and did her own canning.  If I am nice to her, she might let me have some.  Yum!

Happenings

Two interesting things occurred last weekend.

The fun thing was my fortieth (Yes, that is 40th!) high school reunion.  I was a little apprehensive about going but I had a great time.  I thought we all looked pretty good after all these years.

  

Below is my very, very best friend Paula and her husband, Richard. I met her my very first day. I was new at school (as a junior) and that dreaded time came I had to choose a seat to eat my lunch.  I looked around the cafeteria-her table was laughing the loudest so I sat there.  It was one of my best decisions!

The second thing that happened was not so great.  A storm blew through on Saturday and our neighbor’s tree fell down on our pool fence.

(That is Buddy doing some investigating)

Luckily my husband and Dave were able to fix the fence so things are back to normal.

It’s Done!

And we are quite pleased with the results!

I never realized just how hard it was to gut a room an completely rebuild it (OK-the shower stayed).  I am not a good decision maker normally, so picking out everything was a little bit daunting.  But it is done.  Yay!!

A New Floor!

Just grouted.  We are in the home stretch!

Quilting Decisions

I am working on this quilt. I did not take a picture before I put it on the frame but it is a Double Irish Chain (Eleanor Burns).

I did not want to do an all over meander and I felt each block should be quilted separately.  But the blocks are 10” and I can quilt up to about 7” in width with each pass.

This is the quilt pattern that I want to use.  I had the block resized to the correct size (@ Staples) and then I went to work.

Now some people are very talented and can do simple marking and do beautiful quilting.  I am not some people.  I ended up tracing each half of the block pattern onto long strips of tissue (Golden Threads).

I will pin each strip to the quilt and then sew through the paper.  I traced out 10 pattern strips for the body of the quilt, 4 for the border and 4 corners.

Interesting.  I just compared the little picture of the quilting design and my templates and they are not the same.  Hmmm…Evidently I traced my pattern from a different variation of the design…

I will keep you updated.

Go Socks! White, Blue…Whatever!

Two pair have been completed.

A new pair started...with one sock done.

I love this pattern! And I love knitting socks!

Movie Monday…Wednesday

Hey! I found a great new sight.  It is called New Stitch a Day and if you sign up for e-mail, you will be sent a new knit and crochet stitch to learn each day.  The sight also gives you each pattern in a written version.

At first, I thought the crochet videos looked a little clunky, but then I remembered I am left handed. Duh!!

Go check it out!

The Big Bathroom Redo

(And yes, I know it has been over two months since I posted!)

We are redoing the downstairs bathroom. There have been a couple glitches but things are going well.

After peeling wallpaper for two days, we decided to just go with new wall board.

After 31 years, we will have an actual working fan!

Below is a picture of the ceramic tile I picked out.  The 6” square (on top) will be a majority of the floor and the mosaic (in 3 x 3 squares) will be interspersed.

More updates as the job progresses!

Movie Monday 6/11/2012

Pretty, pretty this week.  I have some sashiko to show you.  I never realized there were so many designs.

I think I will get out my little sampler and finish it up…

Enjoy!

Sock It To Me

That was bad, I know. And if you are old enough to remember that line, good for you!

I an learning to make socks.  Here is my progress so far:

I am working on this pair of socks on my own.  I am a little disappointed because the second sock has a different stripe pattern.  But I will still wear them!

These are the socks that I am doing in my class.  I will pick up the stitches to finish them in my next class.  This pattern is different from the blue socks above.  The blue socks have the wrap and turn thing going on.

I already have the next couple of pair planned.

Oh dear! More projects!

Happy Birthday Buddy!

No cake pictures this year-just Buddy enjoying his day!