emu

Remember A's Emu? This video (in the following entry) reminded us of him. The video made him laugh. It reminded me of the first time I really noticed Emu. A was about 3 and I had hold of his wrist to keep him from wandering off and he cried; really, he was very upset, 'Mommy you're choking Emu!' Although I had met his talking hand before I didn't really notice him until I was 'killing' him. Later when he was 5 we even gave Emu a birthday party.

run

mel's birthday pillow

Here is the back of Melissa's pillow. Notice the mother of pearl buttons and rick-rack. The front uses some of the 'mistake' triangles that I cut the wrong size for their wedding quilt. i used some of the same triangles for Eric's pillow. The rick-rack is from Great grandma Caughey. The edge is ball fringe; which I really like but have never figured out a place to use it before. Melissa LOVES rick-rack so I had to use it here.

thrifty

This is a linen outfit i bought today for $1. It is too small for me but too large for any of my girls, but somehow it will make a cool pillow-who wants to wear white linen anyway? It has to be lined and there goes it's cooling properties.
The pink jacket and shell is linen/rayon blend and it fits but I had to pay $4.25 for it! Lastly are the 2 blue and
white plates that were my big expense. $12.00 @ and now I really NEED to go to PA to justify having a souvenir from there.

Eric's birthday pillow

Now that I've been to CA I can show you the pillow I made for Melissa. I'll also post one of Eric's.... so I can't find Melissa's. This is the front and back of Eric's. the pictures were taken before it was stuffed with a pillow form so it looks a bit wimpy here. Go to Melissa's blog to see a pict of it really finished. The fringe is homemade with the only bright blue yarn I could find...I wish I had a close-up of the fringe; it is cool.

cake

This is the cover cake for Country Living this month. I tried to put up a picture of the magazine also so you could compare but I couldn't get a version that blogger would recognize-I'm sure someone more computer savvy could, but I'm stuck. Melissa said it was the best chocolate cake she'd ever had....it is chocolate pumpkin. The recipe calls for orange food coloring, but I think it needs orange paste food coloring 'cause this is as orange as we were willing to go with the liquid food coloring. The frosting is delicious; cream cheese and whipping cream and cocoa and even cinnamon. (If you want the recipe e-mail me).

California

I'm in sunny (it's cloudy) California. Melissa and I just got back from the Getty Villa, a museum. The museum was built to duplicate a country villa that was buried under Mt. Vesuvius's ash. Mr. Getty collected ancient art, and it is now exhibited in this museum in Malibu.

Zig-Zag cleaning method

I've been trying to clean house this morning and decided that I use the Zig-Zag method of cleaning. Pick up a book that belongs upstairs, take it upstairs, find the laundry that needs done, bring it down, put a load in, see a hammer that needs to go in the garage, take it to the garage, see a glass that needs to go to the kitchen, take it to the kitchen, finish emptying the dishwasher and put the glass in ....it does eventually get the house clean but it takes forever! and since I was pondering my method of housecleaning I had to blog about it, and since I'm at the computer I ought to check my mail, and check out one new blog... oh my I see a book that needs to go up to my suitcase...

teddy bears

So I was wandering around and saw this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0GGp5NTN9I
reminded me of some of the fun we used to have with our video camera.

new salad

I tried another salad today, from the same cookbook; The Best American Recipes. It was a watermelon salad! The dressing was made with 1 1/2 cups seeded watermelon, mashed, strained and then the 1 cup watermelon juice was combined with the white part of one green onion (gently fried) and 1/2 cup vinegar and simmered until it was reduced to 3 T. Took a while but it didn't tend to stick so I mostly left it alone until done, then cooled it and combined it with salt, pepper and 1/4 cup olive oil. Serve the dressing over a square of cold watermelon, with lettuce-the recipe called for arugula (a spicy leaf) but it was very good on lettuce too, add some almond slices. very good.
I'm getting another sinus infection just in time for my trip to CA in 2 days.

crazy mom

I just learned a new thing the kids can do to make mom crazy. Steal my chair, so that when I, very calmly mind you, NEED to sit in front of the computer the rug is pulled out from under me and I see that there is no, new just bought for in front of the computer, chair. And there is no chair in the room. Or in adjacent room. Whew! A. brought the chair back, he narrowly missed be maimed for taking my chair. (This is a new aspect of my personality that has hidden from me for 50 years-pain to the chair taker- who knew?) He took it into the family room so that he could spin in it and not hit another piece of furniture; he thought to avoid pain by doing so...
I was sitting down to tell y'all about my day spent in the kitchen yesterday. I had signed up to bring a side dish and a dessert to the H.P. Group social last night. I couldn't come up with a side dish so I went perusing through a couple cookbooks in the Stone library. I had a couple criteria, I wanted the dishes to be something R. would eat. I found my 'Best American Recipes 2005-2006' cookbook. I love that book, so far everything I've tried has been good. I made 2 salads; Greek Radish Salad and Alice Water's Coleslaw. I had thought I might include the recipe here, but then I worried about copyright ..so I won't. the radish salad was good even though I don't like radishes, pairing the spiciness of the radish with the mellowness of feta cheese and the sweetness of pickled red onions was pretty good. Those that love radishes loved the salad. The coleslaw had no mayo and had cilantro, lime juice, and even a jalapeno, I actually put in 1/4 the pepper, but when I got home I put in more. I loved the coleslaw! But I love cilantro.
So all of you are wondering what I did for dessert, right? I needed a light dessert, not chocolate; since one of the women is allergic to chocolate. Again I surprise myself at how good it turned out. A package of raspberries mashed; folded into a container of Cool Whip Lite. Then spooned or piped into a shell. I bought 3 packages of phyllo tiny cups, then in half of them I put about a 1/4 teaspoon of melted white chocolate (leftover from Liz's wedding) very, very good. I had seen this done somewhere, without the chocolate and done with blackberries; finished with a fresh blackberry on top. (that's good, too, since I made a batch with blackberries but didn't have enough shells and really more would have been too many for our small group.) Guess what I'm eating for breakfast?

Rice

Finally I found a hot cereal J and A like. Brown Rice! Sometimes J will just eat it with a bit of butter but he finally came around to trying it with brown sugar. A likes it with a bit of cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice and brown sugar. It helped to be completely out of any cold cereal that they liked. I cooked the rice the night before and then just warmed it up for breakfast.

fifi's bed

I've just spent 2 hours recovering from my 2 hours at the gym this morning. Most of that 2 hours was spent sitting in my new computer chair, found at the local salvation army...how cool is that? I also got to look at some blogs. I've been working on looking at all of the links posted on http://belladia.typepad.com/bella_dia/ I've gotten to the L's. While at it I revisited http://fabulousfifi.typepad.com/chez_fifi/ and found a picture I saw 3 weeks ago and halfway remembered but couldn't find again...but a bit down her blog is a pink bedroom, that I think would work. I've been shopping for a headboard and after looking at the prices I think this shutter would work just fine. In fact I have a shutter already trying out the spot. While painting the laundry room we took the closet door off and put it above our bed....not my favorite look but with paint it'll work... and I'll sew a country curtain for the coat closet.
Can anyone tell me why the music I downloaded into the computer from my cd's sounds awful? Do I need a different sound card? I'm trying once again (I do this about every 13 years) to organize our cd's.

new bag

Here is my Bag! This is what I did Friday and Saturday. I found the red and cream linen made up in a skirt at the thrift store Thursdayand thought I really needed it. A straight size 10 skirt does not have a lot of fabric in it, so under the outside pocket is a paisley that coordinates with the other 2 fabrics. This bag is big; it is about 12 X 17, so will hold a novel, a water bottle, a magazine, and a lunch so it will be perfect for my trip to California in 2 weeks. It needed heavy duty interfacing, and a stiffer bottom; I used plastic canvas but maybe fiberboard would be better. Jeffrey tells everyone that I made my bag, the missionaries came over and he showed them, we were buying a trumpet from an old man at the high school and he told him. He is so sweet, he thinks it is cool to sew. He started a card Sunday (sewing a card) when he gets finished I'll post it here.

truck

I had such a treat today, I wished for my camera so I could show it to you...but I'll have to try to create a picture in words for you. A truck drove up behind me, similar to this truck, although I could not tell you the color. Across the hood were words. Along the door were words, Covering almost every inch of this truck were words. He had used (and it was a man about 60-70 years old driving) the rectangular stickers that you can buy that I think are reflective background with black lettering to form short sentences about God. It was so Different that I had to smile. I got a kick out of seeing it. The sentences were in very neat straight rows and he had to have worked hard to do that...I would have liked to take a picture for you.

brain dead

Today started out so well, the boys got up pretty easily, they both caught the bus, probably they both brushed their teeth, I made it to the gym to do my weight routine, then I stopped at WalMart to pick up a few things. A bit of elastic, fabric for a bag, (I don't have enough here;),) some fruits. After exercising, and trekking to the back, front, back again in the store I started thinking about where I'd parked the car. I'd forgotten to look at their numbered parking lane but could at least remember coming in near the beauty shop; not! I walked up and down the parked cars from 9 until I found the car in row 2! (Remeber this is Houston, 92% humidity and it was about 11 am)What is the likelihood that someone moved my car just to make me crazy? I still remember parking at the other end. At least I got some cardio in today now.

corrections

I am not very good at posting pictures yet, so to get my thought process correctly, go down to the blog labeled; 'fall quilts' and then scroll up and read them in the order I wrote them.

fall

And finally another stack of blocks that I made while teaching my mother how to do Perfect Pieced Triangles. I think I have enough to do this fall, don't I? This fall entry will not be complete until I post the log cabin I made that has orange in it, and the 2 antique quilts that look very fallish to me. So come back and see me soon.

oak leaf border

I loved the border I quilted on this. I adapted it from a wall paper border I saw.

oak leaf quilt

I love this! I made this with plans from a magazine.

pumpkins

This is one of my favorite quilts. I actually started hand quilting it and picked that out and machine quilted pumpkins leaves all over it. This is not an original design; I saw it done with a muslin background in a magazine.

block kits

Here is a portion of the 'block kits' sewn together. Although these are very slow in getting finished I have done a couple of other Fall quilts.

fall quilts

The question was asked, 'What do you like doing in the fall?' I always have a fall quilt I work on. The above is a stack of the first one. It was an exchange I organized about 13 years ago. Since it is a tessellated design we could not exchange blocks so we exchanged block kits. (I tried every which way to get these pictures in the correct order but it didn't work, so they are in reverse order, with each photo a different posting.)

Quilts

I just spent a fun hour looking at crazymomquilts blog where she posted all the quilts she had made the previous year. I decided to gather the pictures I have on my computer onto my blog but it may take me a while. I think the blue and yellow quilt is my best quilt ever and it belongs to my daughter and her husband. Made from Quakertown Quilts first Saturday blocks; yes, 13 twelve inch blocks really do make a very large quilt (a bit less than a king). Made for their wedding-but I give myself 5 years after the wedding before it is late and I think this was done in 2 1/2 years. The quilt behind me is a throw size but it deserves it's own photo---someday. There are several miniature quilts, even a Halloween quilt. but I love the trip around the world Christmas quilt.
This is a closeup of broccoli slaw (which I love) with craisins and a few nuts and mayo. Behind the salad is my small log cabin. It is hand quilted which I rarely do.
This is Tyler's quilt that I sell a pattern to and below is a closeup of the heavy machine quilting that I like to do.

This is the quilt my 17 year old daughter made before she went to college and was the inspiration for my son's wedding quilt- a queen size 2 ton jean quilt. I'll get a picture of it eventually.

Orange for angela

I found this quilt that I think Angela will love so here is the address: http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/2007/05/my-quilt.html

mosaic

mosaics

Hello!

My sister does these wonderful mosaics! I am posting this picture of one she gave me for Christmas so she can see how she did the neck. Beyond that I'm thinking of getting an etsy store to sell some for her. I figure that the 2 of us could do it together. What do you think?

This is where I tried to put the picture that is in the next post. But I couldn't find the right photo, it's raining here, so I tried to take a picture inside. The flash didn't work well. So here's my effort, it looked in focus before I posted it. I just need Roger to do the photgraphy!

I'm going to try to post some pictures of some of her other mosaics.

strange motivations

I am trying to get my 10 year old to help me prep the laundry room for painting and learned that he will do any of the high things as long as it means he gets to get on top of the upright freezer, washer and dryer. He even hurried to wipe down the baseboards so he could scrape the area above the w/d. (Painting any room in this house is a major chore because I HATE the texture that the builder put on the walls and each room gets scrapped down, then lightly sanded before the painting can start.)
Then Jeffrey (12) came in and he agreed to clean the front of the cabinets in exchange for a turn on top of the freezer. There is an air conditioning vent that blows right on you while up there and with the dryer going the room is not very cool; I wish I could get up there and work.
In a different life (while mothering my 28 year old) I could motivate her to clean her room so she wouldn't have to eat a banana split!
Another time we spun a long drawn out fairytale about the toy snatcher that would come into your home and steal toys that were not put away. ;( They wondered right away why the snatcher had not been there before. (smart kids) I told them that they had obviously been kept a secret but I was willing, and did, make a sign that said, 'toy snatcher; CHILDREN live here' and went to post it in the front yard. The toys were put away before the poster was finished. I kept it behind the couch for awhile and just threatened to bring it out occasionally. (I probably damaged my kids for life-- 'cept they seem to be all right.)
The best ever was to convince a young child (about 2-3y) to allow his mother and 2 teenage sisters to kiss him. We told him that he would turn purple if he did not get enough kisses; he continued to allow a ridiculous amount of kisses. One night after he was asleep we dotted his body with a purple marker, alas he was not convinced.