long arm

Maybe you know that I'm not refering to someone's long arm but a sewing machine, y'all knew that right? I'm investigating getting one and starting a small business quilting for others. I've had a desire for one for a long time but for some reason the logistics of it didn't hit until a few weeks ago. I have been thinking about working but didn't want to give up being home while my kids are here nor my daily exercise at the gym. So while I could substitute teach or teach for that matter I would have to give up the exercise; so my mind was going round and round with it for about 2 YEARS, because I'm slow I guess. So I can exericise in the morning, quilt for others, be here in the afternoon and earn some money. I don't firgure it will be alot but I'm ready.  So I'm learning about 

• Gammill
  
• APQS
• A-1

Are the main ones I'm looking at. There is also 

• Tin Lizzie 
• ABM Inova
• Hinterburg Voyager 17
• Nolting

Unfortunately I can't go the mall and test drive them all. I can go to Quilt Festival after Halloween and test drive them but I want it NOW. I can wait, I can wait, I can wait.

plaids

Are these gorgeous or what?

ike revisited

Galveston island was finally opened and Roger spent Saturday helping clean up. What a mess. You can see the water line on the front door and see one of the trees they moved. Anyone not grateful for what they have out there? Visit one of the ravished areas and your life will seem perfect in comparison. We had 50 people living at our chapel last week; some have moved out; we're down to 35. 120 families in our stake (combination of 12 congregations) lost their homes.  (Our stake includes Galveston.) The men are planning on going to G. to help for weeks.

One family they helped couldn't get anything out of their house because there were so many trees in their yard it blocked their access.

stump the mom

'Mom, how much fabric do you have now?'

'Mom, how do you make a glow in the dark tomato?

'Mom, how do you make a smoke bomb?'

'Mom, where can I get some potassium nitrate?'

tyler's cape

The first thing I made out of my new stash of fabric. This is a butter soft tiny-wale corduroy. Destined for my grandson Tyler. He called Thrusday and asked his uncle if he knew where his old cape was; he didn't, so Friday I made this. Wasn't sure how long to cut the eleastic but I think it will work. It is fastened with a piece of velcro; hopefully if someone grabs the cape it will come apart instead of choking him :)

9/29 a.m. It's in the mail. 

I found this tutorial on the web and kind of followed it. 

oatmeal

Is this what it looks like? Yes it is. My friend, Mary told me years ago that she got her kids to eat oatmeal by serving it like this. So I decided to try it. It's pretty good. So cook old fashioned oats, serve it in a bowl; plop a scoop of ice cream on top. EAT. Andrew likes it. We had it last Sunday so today Jeffrey wanted his oatmeal plain so he could have his ice-cream in some root bear later. (Andrew gets ice cream in his oatmeal and his root beer.)

plaids

I am getting excited about this new fabric! This is the stack of PLAIDS! A lot of fabric. Most is quilt fabric, some flannel and a few pieces for dressmaking not pictured. Anyone want pajamas? As fast as I get things done I should ask; Does any one want a pajama kit?(I remember getting one of those for Christmas while young... just fabric folded up and we understood it was to make ourselves pajamas...don't remember if we did though.)

So what can I do with this?

• make pajamas
• pillowcases for some lucky boys
• backs for quilts
• quilt top pieces
• plaid shorts (they are 'in', I know cause I saw some at Macy's; but Jeffrey said, 'no way' or words to the effect. I also saw some on a 12 year old boy recently.)
• dress for me
• Melissa loves plaids, so....would she like a purse/bag?
• a couple of madras plaids there cry out to be crocheted into a rug....oh wait, I started one of those 15 years ago.....
• some cool duffel bags/ sleeping bag bags
• I'm thinking .....

any ideas?

added 9/29

• tablecloths (can't believe I didn't come up with this first; I'm the queen of tablecloth making-I keep my Mother, sister and myself in tablecloths.)
  
• pillow
• apppliance covers; never saw the need for these but I'm thinking I NEED some now.
• curtains

new fabric

I have a dear friend that has given up quilting for photography. I mean photography in a BIG way; kind of take over your life way; similar to the way quilting is known to take over others' lives. So she was ready to give up most of her quilting stash and WHO should she give it to other than the one who got her started in the first place? ME. That's SIX; count them 1,2,3,4,5,6 big trash bags full of fabric plus a couple more of those small rubbermaids hiding behind the 6 bags of fabric; most, but not all, is 100% cotton quilt grade fabric. (I hope there are NO zippers in there.) I couldn't lift the bags; had to have Roger bring them in...no hiding the new stash when he got to lift it.

...Help I'm drowning in fabric....

Good news there were only 3 zippers! But I have to update my zipper log...

hurricane roger

We got the branches that fell from Ike by Saturday afternoon. Then 'Hurricane Roger' hit our yard. Roger did not go to work all week and since the brush was going to removed anyway why not cut everything down? He pruned and pruned and pruned. Then they piled up branches and pulled them to the front; over and over and over. I'm sure there will be no more pruning for years. We were tempted to hide the saws from him.

a tree and a rope

Camp Ike Fun


Do you wonder what your kids would do without any electronic devises? No television or computers? Mine found plenty to do with just a rope and a tree. 

• The first day I found the older one tying up the younger one; often repeated during the week
• Using the boyscout manual for pioneering they used the barrel hitch to suspend our water cooler in the tree. (The tree is a Bald Cyprus that is very tall and impossible to climb with out a ladder or a rope; it is 11 feet 4 inches to the bottom branch.)
• Made a 'swing' that they could lift themselves up in the tree.
• Made an 'elevator' to pull each other or themselves up the tree using a rock climbing harness. Jeffrey pulled Andrew up but then Jeffrey had to pull himself up since Andrew wasn't strong enough.
• After dark we lit a dozen candles and played; Murder in the Dark
• Bang (a card game we like)
• Apples to Apples
• They both spent time reading 'The Vampire Books'; Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse.
• and they worked and worked and worked.

ike food

So I'm sure you're interested in what I cooked while at Camp Ike. 

• The first day we really did live on banana bread. 
• We had individual containers of chicken spaghetti I had frozen for Roger's lunches that got dumped in the fry pan and heated up for dinner. 
• We had leftover bean dip to eat, one of my kids favorites. 
• Chili; to use up the ground turkey.
• The biggest hit was bacon. I don't normally have bacon but there was some left over from a campout and so had wonderful artery clogging bacon. What a treat for me.
• Chicken and cheese sausage links; easy to cook and serve just wrapped in a piece of home made bread.
• Smoked turkey and crackers.
  
• Homemade macaroni and cheese; I dumped all the bits and dabs of cheese I'd found in the freezer.
• Uncooked cookies; yes I really did cook cookies. The boys were really working hard and I had butter, oats, and chocolate chips, so why not? I should have some unmeltable candy in the 72 hour kits as the kids needed some sweets. (granola bars were available but they just didn't sound very good.)
• We had eggs to eat so we had scrambled eggs one morning then
• Omelets with smoked turkey and leftover cheese sauce from the mac and cheese another morning then
• a new Jewish egg dish I'd read about;Matzah Brei I wasn't crazy about it but I'll have to try it again since Andrew had 3 servings of it! The above link is the recipe I followed but from a cookbook.
• Barbecued chicken with green beans. We did not eat enough fruits and vegetables since we had so much meat from the freezer to use.

fall quilts

So what do you do when it is suddenly cool enough to get on the roof?

I send my kids up there and threw up all the quilts I don't have digital pictures of yet. Who cares if there is yard work to do? Branches to cut down and get on the curb for these guys to pick up?

Last fall I did a posting of fall quilts. This one did not get in. I have 2 quilts that I got at a garage sale in Baytown about 20 years ago. I paid $60 @. The woman who made them had Alzheimers and couldn't tell me about it but her sister told me that she had made them before her marriage and that she had lived in North-East TX. She moved to Baytown soon after her marraige and so the quilts never got used. They are very heavy quilts and I think the backs are a rough narrow woven gingham homespun. the quilting thread is heavy also. I figure they were made about 1928. 

I get them out every fall and drape them over the arms of my couch in the living room. They never get used but I've still had to mend one of them.

ike

So what did we do right? 

• We froze blocks of ice which kept our 4 coolers cold for several days. Two of our coolers are super; they kept the ice for over 4 days.
  
• We had plenty of batteries
• We had LED flashlights that strapped to our heads.
• I cleaned the fridge 2 weeks ago so it wasn't as gross as it could have been
• The cars were full of gas
• I baked banana bread which we ate alot of on Saturday
• Jeffrey did all the laundry on Thursday
• Andrew bakced 2 loaves of bread on Friday.
• Covered the coolers with added insulation; our down comforter.
• Had some leftovers in the freezer that made cooking the first 2 days a breeze.
• Had a smoked turkey in the freezer. Last hurricane (Katrina) we had a raw turkey in the freezer that we cooked at our friend's house. Having one of those might have been a wee bit difficult to cook on a camp stove.
• Had lots of trash bags.

What we should have done:

• Defrosted the freezer before hurricane season started ; there was quit a mess on the laundry room floor as the freezer defrosted. (I was waiting for cooler weather)
• Checked and made sure the drains were closed on the coolers; another mop job and the down comforter needs cleaning!
• Needed a good mop.
• Fix the chain saw before hurricane season.
• Had clear leaf bags.
• Get a mumu; so I'm not tempted to stay in my nightgown simply because it's the coolest thing I own.

We did real well but then we didn't have a disaster on our hands like some did. Having the weather cool off saved us; actually we would have left after the hurricane if the weather had stayed as hot as it was Saturday and Sunday. We were packed and ready to leave Monday morning but it wasn't necessary.

ike

We were so lucky. Here is picture of our house early Saturday morning; the wind was still blowing but at a reduced level and it was still raining. Part of our Bradford pair went down just in front of the garage.  The pecan just a few branches.  The creek near our house just stayed in it's bed.

Hurricane Ike

Dear Readers...

I talked to Laurie/Mom this morning and the power is out but the family is fine and the house is fine. They have some damage to trees but everything is fine! They got a few inches of flooding in the street, the other streets in the neighborhood got closer to a foot of water in the street (they are closer to the creek). They hope the power will come on soon.. but they were told 2-3 weeks.



-DD 22

who knew?

I'm posting these pictures of my neighbors boarded up homes to show you that we are hicks. These people have painted, coordinating plywood to cover their windows! 

We just went for a walk around and met 2 people that have been here 25 and 30 years. It has never flooded here! It was good to hear; hope the record holds.

we are ready outside

For our kids! Look a car in the garage! Happens every hurricane; unless we leave.

getting ready

Here are our workers. Working hard at having a bit of fun.

menu

So what do I feed my family if we have no power?

peanut butter and jelly on the 2 loaves of bread Andrew has baked today

banana bread snacks

cold cereal

fortunately Jeffrey loves tuna from the can with some crackers

I loaded up on fresh fruit and some fruit juice boxes

we have a 72 hour kit that has granola bars and some main dishes that don't need to be cooked 

Andrew and I dried fruit last month 

we have canned fruit

we have a small camp stove

we have the barbecue

we made a bunch of ice and we have 1 large cooler that is super insulated...

but if you open the freezer the stuff thaws faster so how do you get the meat out to eat?

grandson's

These are my grandsons. Simple project. Andrew needed something to do; he was driving his brother nuts. So I called him to the computer and we chose a font and size; 500, and printed these in reverse onto cardstock. I chopped them out of the cardstock and Andrew and I glued them to pretty paper. He did most of the glueing; I did most of the cutting. 



Notice the blue Y; it got ripped so I patched it in a couple of places and like it better.

I did buy some green ribbon and the cowboy paper... but it was cheap and fun and done.

Hope you like them!

ike

Hurricane Ike looks like it is headed right for us. We decided to stay put since our street has not flooded before; we were an island with floods all around us but we were dry. 

I managed to make all of our frozen bananas into banana bread. (Wouldn't it be dreadful to have the power go out and have frozen banans sitting in your freezer... thawing...gushing slimy stuff all over it? It's not going to happen here!) I had about 9 cups of mashed bananas. We have breakfast at least for the next week. I hope, hope, hope we have electricity soon after the storm.... 

The grocery stores were a bit crazy today; I noticed Kroger's peanut butter shelves were empty...a whole lot of people are going to be living on sandwiches...

We need a couple hours of bearable weather in the morning to finish securing the outside; tie down canoes and board up a few windows. 

During Hurricane Katrina we evacuated to Northwest Houston and stayed with the Johnson's. I had brought some of the food from our freezer so we cooked a turkey and had a feast. We watched television and I got my granny squares from my granny sewn together.  We had a great time I hope this hurricane is just as memorable...

cub scout committee chairman

Just when I thought I was finished with Cub Scouts I got asked to be the Cub Scout Committee Chairman. Of course I said yes; pack meeting was tonight and our new packmaster couldn't make it so I was... everything. We have 5 new den leaders and several new parents so noone knew if I did it wrong or not! Luckily the old chairman helped me out this time.

We served 'kitty litter cake' for refreshments.... totally gross I will never eat another tootsie roll. The cake is a tradition for the new bobcats to eat. The Wolves 'got to' drink wolves milk and howl (milk with blue food coloring) and then the 'bears' got to fight a real bear outside the door. That was the hit of the evening. The audience hears growls and screams and the door gets bumped and thumped then the boy crawls in victorious. 

hurricane ike

My favorite Hurricane tracking spot. Ike is close enough that Roger is postponing the Scout camping trip scheduled for this week end. It's hard to canoe in 50 mile an hour winds. But I bet it's okay to put baseboards down in the bathroom during it!

frozen yogurt

My favorite ice-cream is Blue Bell Brownie fudge nut. So good. Not even made by Blue Bell all the time. It's probably been 6 months since I had any Blue Bell so I tried this; Ben and Jerry's FroYo. 170 calories per serving and 4 servings per container. I hid it in the freezer and got 5 servings out of it; which makes it ONLY 136 calories per serving. That works for me.
all gone!

happy birthday melissa!

I can't believe I almost went to bed without blogging this important date. TODAY my oldest child, Melissa, turned 30. Unbelievable. It really seems that she was born just a short time ago. Should I get sappy? No, it is exciting to have children grow up and have children and see the love shining in their faces. Remembering how much 'in love' I was with my babies. I love seeing the same emotion shining in theirs. 

courthouse steps log cabin

This was a headache! No sewing and thinking about other things; one block bled into another, so the first row is the easiest; then it got progressively harder. This was a challenge our guild did with a bright orange/red/yellow/purple fabric. I still think mine turned out best. :). If you want to see the challenge fabric it's next to the yellow with black polka dots. I used it in 11 blocks. I had very few orange or purple fabrics so I called a lot of women in the guild and asked for a 1 1/2 inch strip of one of the colors; then I drove over and got it and used them.
The colors combined with the block pattern inspired by genealogical stories of trying to get records; 'but the courthouse burned' so it was impossible. so this is my first and only 'genealogical quilt'.

You'll notice that my quilts won over recipes in my label area. Looking through my old postings there are several postings with more than one quilt pictured; I won't make that mistake again.

little quilt star exchange

Thirteen years ago my friends and I worked our way through 'The Little Quilt' book. I organized many little exchanges and some of the quilts actually got finished. The stairway in Virginia was lined with a group of them. Here's one. I did a bit of hand quilting and some machine quilting. I would do a lot more machine quilting now... so it may go back under the needle if I run out of things to do. I also did one combined with 9-patch that is blogged about here.

new project

A few weeks ago I saw a paper garland in a blog; good+happy days and thought it would be fun to do. I also read about a woman's mobil in her play room; circle cut out of children's books and I've been thinking about that for months; looking for just the right book to cut up. Tuesday I found 4 of these golden books of Christmas stories and the 2 ideas jelled.
You can see that I got to use some of my red and white string and some of my scrapbooking paper. I used 36 circles cut from my least favorite of the books. It's a cute story though and I enjoy the illustrations. The littles elf is a misfit until he finds what he does best, then he's happy.
I think this would look great in a child's room at Christmas; playing 'I spy' with mom at bed time; adding a cheerful note up by the ceiling. (The center row appears upside down because I zigzagged the garland to photgraph it.)

It turned out 15 ft. 4 inches long... that's a long garland!

chronic cough

My family has listened to me cough for years; Jeffrey runs and gets me a glass of water. Strangers listen to me cough and ask if I'm going to live. Every time I've gone to the Dr. for the last 6 years I have complained about my cough. She'd say, 'have you tried this?' and I'd try a new medication. FINALLY she ran out of things to try and sent me to an allergist.

Today I found out that I am not allergic to anything! Nada; no reactions to any of the allergens. Turns out I have a 'sensitive upper respiratory track' and will have to live with it; but there are medications that can help. So I'm on steroids for 11 days; antihistamines/decongestants (2 a day) and 2 different nasal sprays. We'll see if it goes away so that I can sing in church again.

The picture? That's flooding from tropical storm Claudette in 1979. The cutie is Melissa our oldest. Later I learned it was dangerous to play in flood waters in the south. This picture was taken in our drive way; the water stopped a few feet from the garage door. Luckily we didn't see any water moccasins or alligators. Roger got his canoe out and took the neighbor children for rides and the men met at the end of the street with shovels and dug a ditch so the water could escape to the big drainage ditch behind our subdivision. Later we found out that the drainage pipes in our streets were blocked with debris.

rainbow quilt

This is what I'm working on;

The socks; oh my word, they are cute. I am beginning to believe anything knitted small is cute. We'll see if they fit anyone since I am knitting so tight I'm afraid they will be knee socks for a 6 month old.

The string; oh my word I bought too much string; I'll be using this for the next 20 years.

I love this rainbow Trip Around the World quilt. It is an exchange I organized 12? years ago in Lynchburg, Virginia. I pretended to be 2 people so I had to find double the fabric. Each of us had to do 2 shades of each color; light and dark. NOT an easy task unless you are willing to go buy fabric and I was trying to use my stash. I am going to quilt it ....soon. (You can also the BIG project I am working on; raising those 2 in the background. Jeffrey is 20 months older than Andrew. Oh my word he has gotten big this year. He wore a size 12 1.75 years ago and I need to go buy him an 18 suit jacket now.)

a town like alice

Our Relief Society has a book group; this is the first time I actually read the book. After reading the book we get together at someone's home and discuss it and then have a potluck dinner with the book being the theme.
The book is; A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute. Oh my word, I enjoyed reading it. Historical fiction is my favorite but I wasn't sure I wanted to read about the Japanese camps in Malaya during WWII. Actually they never made it to a camp; they just wandered around the country since nobody wanted them. Alice is in Australia; the book doesn't get to Australia until 3/4 ths of the way through it. Interesting book.
So now my job is to find something to cook that is Australian... or I could do Malaysian... rice or fish soup? They did have chicken once and wild pig.