Exciting and Long Week

What started out as a normal last 2 days before school started ended up being entirely different. Sunday night when Tonya brought Gianni over to spend the night chaos broke out. Gianni slammed her thumb in the car door. The thumb is on the left and that is her toe on the right, Both should have pink polish. Her and I got about 3 hours sleep during the night because she was in such pain. We iced and we had Tylenol, we sat up and propped it, we laid down and propped it, etc. The next day we went to the doc. Thankfully it is not broken, they gave her a metal splint to protect it and all is much better. It still looks awful and she will lose that nail.

Tuesday after a decent nights sleep the cousins wanted to spend the day together at Mawmaw's house. Being the great Mawmaw that I am I agreed. We went to McDonalds and then took our lunch to the park. All is well with these two unless they are doing something competitive. They both want to be ahead and being young have not figured out how to be gracious losers yet. It was a good day, but hallelujah school started here on Wednesay.

Wednesday I rested and rested. Well don't you think I deserved some rest? LOL I did sit and hand quilt the initials on Will's quilt so now I can take it to the machine and quilt the nine patches.

Thursday I worked on my BowTie Quilt and only have one corner left to put on. These are 2 inch squares put together individually (not strip pieced) so it is a little slow. This is such a fun quilt and I love the colors. It has 7" borders.

Friday I had lunch with my friend Kathy. She has been taking care of her husband who had knee surgery and she really needed a small break. We went to work on our booths at Blue Suede Shoes Antique Mall.

So you can see it was a busy and hectic week, but on reflection there was fun in there too and I honestly can't say I was ever bored.

Growing Things -Or Not!!!!

It has come to my attention that I DO NOT have a green thumb. The tomato is one of 4 that has shown up on 4 plants, supposedly to be grown on the patio. False advertisement. I have watered, worked, and babied these 4 plants and they hate me.

Now on the other had these beautiful dianthius (sp) were not planted by me, well they were, but I planted them last year. Pansies (or was it petunias) came up by themselves earlier this summer. Now these beautiful plants have come up on their own.

It has come to my attention that I need to allow green things and flowers to be grown by others and I should leave them alone. Thanks goodness for farmer's markets and Wal-mart.

My Life in Catch Up Mode

Okay, I don't blog all the time, I do think about it, but my life is in full throttle mode most of the time, especially now with summer and the grandbabies.

Gianni has been here all week, sewing squares together on her new sewing machine. She does an excellent quarter inch and is a whiz at the "frog stitch". Since she is 7 we are not getting too technical, we don't have a lot of time left since school starts Wednesday. She has had a lot of fun making doll size tops and small pillows. Although I am in the sewing room with her, right now I am totally comfortable letting her fly with the sewing machine, although I did let her do quite a lot by herself Thursday while I did other things in the room. She is very careful.

Grandson Will had the swine flu this past week, but he got medicine right away and has not had fever since Wednesday. Thankfully I had not seen him for a week before because they had been on vacation. Nasty stuff and really need to stay away from it if at all possible with my heart problem.

Last night I got to go to see Julie & Julia with my friend Renee. She has 5 grandkids and I have 2 and we are both equally involved with all of them. A night out together to see a show and eat is a privilege and joy. The movie reminded me to blog for me- not for any readers - although the few I have I love to get comments from. But blogging is a way to talk to myself and no one worries!!! The movie is good, but not quite as good as I thought it would be. I would have liked to see more of Meryl Streep - she did an excellent Julia Child.

This week I hope to get more done in my sewing room that will finish a few projects. And I will do that as long as I am having fun!

Sewing with Gianni

Well it has finally begun. Gianni is now learning to sew at age 7. Wednesday I went and purchased a nice Kenmore for her to learn on and for me to take to workshops. It has needle positions and several decorative stitches. Mostly today we worked on mainly sewing straight. After about 3 hours of learning to thread the machine, fill a bobbin and sew a straight line she picked out some 5" squares from my stash.

Here is what she got done after about 3 hours. The blue one is a flying pig and the other one is a frog. Later we will adding some more squares to make some 9 patches. These 5" squares came from swaps I had done several years ago and they have really come in handy for little ones to play with and pick out colors.

Gianni ask me if I was going to teach Will to quilt? Well that depends on if he wants to and his Daddy thinks it is okay. I really think he should at least learn to thread a needle and sew on a button - necessary skills for any young man. We will look at that road a little later. Right now he is content to come over and just hang out at Mawmaw's, play Wii and PS2 and play with little men and cars. He gets to do that on Monday - we have a play date!.

Gianni and got dressed and went out - we were starving by 12:30 so we went to Red Lobster for lunch. That little girl can eat. She had a salad, the cheese biscuit, popcorn shrimp and fries and Choclate Wave for dessert - glad she has her Daddy's metabolism.

We left and went to an estate sale. She got a dolphin and a turtle to sit on her shelf at home. Then we went to see Jim Gatling's petit point and needlepoint exhibit at the Historic Arkansas Museum in Little Rock. What an awesome exhibit and it is not near all of his actual collection that they are showing. Gianni liked the miniature doll furniture -she thinks it is Barbie furniture?

It was a full day and a lot of fun to share all of these things with Gianni. As my friend Pat says - we are making "memories".

A Relaxing Trip

It has been a while since I have been on my Blog. Maybe I got TOO rested on my recent trip to Cedar Hill, Texas (a Dallas suburb). A group of 6 quilters went on a littel retreat and it was one of the best times I have ever had. In fact my Dr. suggested maybe I should move there, but he knows I won't leave the family, especially the grandbabies. The place we went is the 1890's House (www.1890quilters.com). Oh how I hate to tell you that because I want it all to myself. You may take up to 8 people there to rest and to create. Our happy group of 6 did both. The first picture is the The Sewing Cottage and it is fully equipped except for your sewing machine and fabric, etc. By the way paper artist, mixed media artist, etc are welcome also. The house has been in the same family for 4 generations and is extremely well maintained and clean.

This is one of the 4 bedrooms. Each room has 2 twin beds. There are 3 bathrooms, two upstairs and one downstairs. One of the bathrooms has a clawfoot tub, but alas I didn't get that room. Maybe next time.

You can see that 3 of my friends are enjoying the parlor. We kept waiting for the farm family to come home and greet us it was that authentic. The dining room is next to this room and then there is a fully equipped kitchen. You bring your own food and can cook if you want to???? There are LOTS of places to eat within 5 miles, so we did breakfast there, one other meal and ate one big meal. And for you who have to have special coffee, I reccommend the White Rhino in Cedar Hill.

This is all 6 of the happy retreaters on the last day, standing on the wonderful back porch, where we had been visiting and talking about coming back on that last day. Don't we look rested and happy and having fun. I really can't wait until I can go again.

Blessings to you.

Flea Market Shopping Finds

Is this not the cutest little egg cup. I bought 3 of them on a recent trip from Springfield, MO back home to Little Rock. My sister Martha and I went to Springfield to meet our brother Eddie at an ABA meeting he was in charge of. We made the most of our trip and I picked up all the finds you see in this post.

I found 2 bundles of beautiful wool for less than $2.00 each for these rolls. The green swan salts I thought were delightful and they look really nice for sale in my showcase at Blue Suede Shoes.

The teacup has my favorite color flowers on it and it will end up in my china cupboard with my mother's Tea Rose dishes. These delicate tea cups just say elegance and the joy of sharing a cuppa tea with a friend.

These are small handmade doilies that spoke to me. Don't you think they will look pretty as little toppers on those pincushion candlesticks I plan on making.

Anyway I wanted to share my finds with ya'll. My sister and I had a wonderful time on this trip together.

Does This Need A New Cover?

Last Thursday some of us went antique/flea market shopping in Morrilton, AR. Their downtown has several shops to choose from and we tried to hit several. I think everyone of us came away with some new treasures. I know I did.

This rocker sewing caddy called my name. It was made by a local company in Morrilton, probably not that long ago because the address includes a zip code. When were zip codes required? Anyway, old or not, it has personality.

Now my question - do you think I should change out the seat cushion. It does not seem original and I thought about using wool to make a new cover. Do you think the wool will give it character?

Thanks for letting me ask for suggestions.