I've been meaning to post this clever idea...
Use a canning lid to trace around a milk or juice carton spout. Cut it out.
Attach it to the jar with the canning ring. Great idea. As you can see I use it for our honey.
I finished the quilting on this little beauty tonight and am trying to decide on the binding fabric.
The plaid on the left has the true colors of the quit. The stripe on the right has a blue and green, neither of which are in the quilt. However, the mix of the two colors looks like the turquoise in the quilt. Decisions, decisions. Actually I think either one will look good. I've been buying up bias plaids and stripes whenever I see them. I love the look of a bias binding but I don't like cutting them on the bias. For these, you just cut them straight, but you get that great bias look for your binding.
We went high up in the mountains for a couple of days to have some fun with my sister and brother-in-law.
Travelled on over to Cherokee, NC, where we had an awesome lunch at a little mom and pop place. Then back to the Dixie Stampede where we pigged out on the great food and enjoyed the show!
(Photo from Dixie Stampede website)
Took a trip today heading west....
...to Becky's Barn...
...inside the Barn is a shop...
..in addition to the shop, the barn is set up to accommodate several quilters for retreats. Each quilter has their personal sewing station...there are several cutting and ironing stations as well...
The place is full of beautiful quilts....on every bed...
....on every wall....
...and she has plans for more beds and sewing stations upstairs.....
...a beautiful place....truly a quilter's delight. Even a place to learn new skills....
...and show off your handiwork....
I have a couple of friends who love to frequent this place to relax and sew with their friends. I see why. Thanks Wanda for inviting me up for a visit!
On the way home, I stopped at a wonderful little store for a coke float...
Ring toss is coming along nicely.....this fabric sews beautifully. You can tell it is top quality.
Yummy.....
And this is the first time ever we have had the windows open in August. And it is nice!
Hope this doesn't mean an early winter....maybe a long, beautiful fall.
I don't think I made a before and after of my living room re-do.
It is such a beautifully cool day today, I pulled out my camera, went outside, and took some photos of my furry little model. He makes me smile.
And a couple of the color around our place.
Started my next project tonight. Going to use some of the fabulous fabric I won recently from Heather Mulder Peterson and one of her patterns.
The hubby is fishing a night tournament again, so my plan is to sew in the morning while he sleeps. Got it all cut out tonight. This will be for a gift for a baby boy due in November. We will find out what our little grand baby is pretty soon. I am very excited about making something sweet for my own little grand baby.
Just in case anyone is wondering about my running (yeah, I know, probably not anyone...lol) I was able to run again today after being off two weeks with thigh/hip pain. I only did a mile, and it was very slow, but I was so excited. I think I have some osteoarthritis in my left hip but I am determined to figure out a way to continue with the running. I may not be able to go very fast or do any long distances but I am confident I will get back to 10-12 miles a week. It is my favourite exercise program, ever. In addition to starting back pretty slow I am doing some hip exercises to strengthen the muscles around the joints. Everything I've read, says if you don't move those arthritic joints they will only get worse.
No sewing this weekend, but we did put up some corn. This is what four dozen looks like cut off the cob.
Eleven bags worth.
Had a killer of a migraine yesterday. The hubby thinks I got dehydrated and that is what brought it on. I can't run right now due to a thigh muscle injury, so I did the elliptical and the recumbent bicycle. It hit right after I finished forty minutes and was soaked with sweat. I always get the aura first, and it was about thirty minutes after that started before I could take the over the counter migraine medicine. Too late. It didn't do a thing for it. Spent four hours in bed with a throbbing headache. I probably was dehydrated. I got up four times last night because I was thirsty.
We finished up our skills building quilting class tonight. We taught this little star pattern to help the ladies learn the basics of quilting. Our plans for the next class will be to use a very basic square block pattern and build our machine quilting skills. We were missing three of our classmates tonight.
...and of course, being good Baptists, we brought food to celebrate our accomplishments.
Some of these first quilts were made to keep or gift as gifts. The plan for our next quilts will be to donate them to a child/baby ministry such as the local child advocacy center, Project Linus, the NICU at Children's hospital, or the Crisis Pregnancy Center.
