3am

Firstly I want to thank everyone for your sweet words on our upcoming move. Your good wishes mean alot to me and help me realise that I'm not alone. Several of you suggested that I take photo's of the new house....oops.. the camera's packed, so I'm sorry you'll have to wait till I can find it. Today's the last day of Internet service here at the old address, hopefully we'll have it up and running again by Saturday evening, so if you don't hear from me until then, I'm not being rude and ignoring your comments or emails, just without service.
Tomorrow I have a 3am start, actually I need to get up at 2am to be ready in time. My sweetie starts work at 4am so I'm getting a ride to the new house at 3am. Oh my gosh what was I thinking?....lol.. Oh well I have the sleeping bag, a quilt and a pillow ready for a nap as soon as I get there.
We took a load of boxes over this evening and all the painting seems to be done. Just need to wait for a few other repairs to be done and I can start and clean the bathroom and kitchen floors etc and make a start on the unpacking. While I'm waiting I think I'll trim a few tree limbs from the windows and weed the front garden and have a stroll through the backyard and see what's actually there and check the fence line to make sure the dogs won't escape.
We have several people from church arriving Saturday morning to help with the furniture, so I'm hoping we'll be outta here by lunch time.
I'm looking forward to next week, and being unpacked and settled, then I can think about sewing again. First thing will be to make a start on the Home Town Christmas quilt, seeing as I'm behind everyone else. Sorry Miss Kim, I promise to do my homework and catch up, can't be letting the class down especially this early into the start of it.

Happy Stitching
Linda

Withdrawals

Yes that's right I'm having withdrawals, sewing, stitching withdrawals. This packing doesn't leave any time for stitching, plus by the end of the day my brain is complete and utter mush. Although I did manage to put a few stitches into my applique last night, and I'm sure this wall hanging is going to take so much time, at least a year or so, all those tiny leaves and teeny weeny berries. I'm wondering if I've bitten off more than I can chew with this project.

I picked up a magazine over the weekend, I can't even tell you which one it was, cause it's packed already, but it had a lovely Autumn quilt/table topper in it that I fell in love with. I usually don't lean towards greens/browns/oranges but this little quilt just spoke to me and perhaps because it was done in such subtle shades, it didn't scream NO...... So once the move is over with I'll be shopping for the fabrics. It would be so nice to have something that says Autumn in the house and this one says just that.

I have most of the packing done, just need to do the rest of the kitchen today and the back porch and that's the packing done, except for the last minute things that we're still using. We're down to eating off plastic plates.......

Now comes the cleaning, which shouldn't take too long and then hopefully I can have Thursday to relax a little, although I doubt that, that will happen. I'm sure I'll find something else that needs doing.

I've been informed by the water company that they won't turn the water on unless there's someone at the house. So Thursday evening we'll pick up the keys, and take as much as we can fit into the van over to the new house, so that I have something to do while waiting for the water man on Friday. I'm just hoping that DH doesn't have a 3am start, as he'll be dropping me off on his way to work. Oh the joys of not holding a US drivers license.... I'll spend the day unpacking the kitchen and cleaning out cupboards so we can at least have a meal Saturday after the move, clean and have the bathroom set up, so we can shower and have the fresh linen ready to go onto the bed, so we can sleep that night, and probably go through and clean all the windows. My plan is to have every single box unpacked by Tuesday, so that I can enjoy the rest of the week, probably after collapsing in my chair for the first couple of days.
We've had people from church offer to help us with the move on Saturday, what a blessing and a relief, as I know I wouldn't be any help at all to DH, plus he procrastinates so much, it would be dark before we made the first trip.....

Even though I don't have the time or the brain power to stitch I'm enjoying reading your blogs and seeing what your doing. I hope to be back blogging on a regular basis next week.

Happy Stitching, and thanks for all the lovely comments. I'll get back to regular replies next week.

Routines

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has some sort of routine to their day. My day usually starts with a cup of tea after a stop via the bathroom. While the kettle is boiling the PC is booting up. With tea made I stumbled to the PC eyes half open, trying to avoid all the boxes on the living room floor, still thinking about how comfy that bed is. First thing is to check my email and next is check my feeds to see who has posted to their blog. I love to see what everyone has been up to while I've been sleeping. I didn't think that today was going to be any different than any other day....... but then I heard this odd sound, it was like a tin can popping. Maybe I wasn't awake enough, oh well.....but then it continued. Where on earth was this noise coming from? Then I looked under the PC desk, oh my gosh. All I can say is I'm glad I had already visited the bathroom. This is what I found under the desk, in the corner.

Isn't it disgusting? I'm sure you can imagine my reaction. As my sweetie had already left for work in the wee small hours of the morning, I had to be brave and remove this creature all by myself. Hmmm what to use, without actually touching it, the broom. Now you need to know that having lived in Queensland where cane toads are as common as wheels on a bicycle, I'm used to seeing ugly toads, but NOT in my living room. I'd like to know how it managed to get inside, we don't have huge gaping areas under our doors. If the dogs brought it in I would have seen it dismembered across the living room floor. So this just goes to show that although we may have our routines there are ways of that routine being disrupted without any forewarning.

Have any of you had something similar to this happen to you?

Time to go and fill some more boxes and wash some more quilts.

Happy Stitching.

This and That

Thank you to everyone who has wished me well on the moving from one home to the next. Please accept this as my personal thank you, as you can imagine I'm rather distracted with boxes at the moment and just don't have the time to reply to each comment that has been posted.. The packing is going well. Today I managed to get the entire sewing room packed up and cleaned and boy am I pooped. Tomorrow I'll tackle another room, yet to be decided, and hopefully will have another completed room.
Ten days ago Joni tagged me for the middle name meme, sorry it's taken so long Joni, but here it is at last.
Players, you must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name
.
My middle name is Melanie. Hmm can I find two things for E? We'll soon see how well this brain functions at this time of the night.

M: Mercy, that's what God showed me the day I accepted Him into my life.
E: Eternal Life, is what He has promised me with Him.
L: Love, He showers on me, and hopefully I too am able to pass that love on to others.
A: Angels, He has His angels watching over me constantly, keeping me safe.
N: New, I am a new creation in Christ Jesus.
I: Intercede, Something I delight in doing for others.
E: Exercise, not my body, but my faith.

Possibly not the response that many would expect, but no apologies here. I am thankful every day for what the Lord has done in my life and am happy to, in this small meme to voice my thanks and gratitude to Him.

Making A Move

With all the goings on of this last weekend I forgot to buy the new screws for the rocking chair. So today I spent the day prepping part of the applique for the wall hanging. This evening hubby and I went to look at an available home...... We move in two weeks time. So as you can imagine the next two weeks will be filled with boxes, newspaper and buckets of hot water. No matter how many homes I've moved into I'm yet to move into a clean one, but this is no reason for me to leave this house in the same condition. I'm determined to leave it spic and span.

Tomorrow I'll make a start in the sewing room and empty it out and pack it up so that it can be used to store all the filled boxes. I think I can pack up a house with my eyes closed. That's what comes from having a father who was a builder and always renovating a house then selling it and starting another. Hopefully our next move will be into a home of our own....

So wish me luck with the boxes and newspaper, and I hope you'll all put in a stitch or two on my behalf.



Happy Stitching.

New Blogger On The Block

Well she's not that new to blogging, but new to me. This young woman, and I do mean young, is a mum of 2, designs quilts and stitches up a storm. She makes me exhausted just reading what she manages to fit into a single day. Oh to have the energy of a 30 year old again.
As I was chatting with Bren this evening I told her I'd send the link to Kimberly's blog, but then I decided that you all need to hop on over and say hello. She's a very sweet young woman and just starting to get her design business of the ground. So please pay Kimberly a visit and say hello.

Happy Stitching.

Bren very sweetly gave me this award while I was away visiting Hollie, thank you Bren.

From the author of the award:

The thing that I love most about blogging is that I learn so much about a person just by reading his/her blog. I have met MANY wonderful people with wonderful stories to tell and I am grateful every day for each person whom I have the pleasure of crossing paths in life with. I wanted to create something special for the top ten people who have inspired me through their blogging; the stories they tell, and the lives that they lead with grace and dignity. I visit their blogs for inspiration and encouragement. Although there are MANY people I want to give this award to at this very moment, I am going to choose ten bloggers:Please grab your badge and wear it(with a smile) proudly, and pass it on because you inspire and encourage me, thank you.

Apparently I can choose 10 bloggers to give this award to. As I want to leave some bloggers for others to nominate I've chosen 9.

So here's my 9 in random order.

Wendy

atet

Pam

Jenny

Yvonne

Rose

Nadine

Connie

Kim

A Fun Day (Photo Heavy)

What a fun day we had. Left here at around 7am to get up to Hollie in Kansas,OK by 10.30. Poor kid, we were 1/2 an hour late arriving and she was hop footing it from one foot to the other wondering where we were. We didn't want this visit to be the usual all day shopping adventure, so I looked online the night before to see what there was in the way of craft shows or fairs and managed to find one. We headed over to Arkansas, then up to Cane Hill, a dot in the road, for the their annual Harvest Festival. The weather was absolutely stunning, and there was plenty to see.
First was an open air pavilion where they were demonstrating lye soap making, apple butter and how molasses is made from sorghum.
Just outside the pavilion there was a chap demonstrating rope making with some sort of contraption that was wrapped around his waist.

And right next to him was a lady with a small table with the most wonderful display of old butter churns I've ever seen, and lovely home made churned butter to taste. (I thought of Libby when I saw these)
Just across from there were two demonstrations of sorghum crushing, one using a tractor with a conveyor belt type thingy and the other was this little sweetie, doing the work.

Then on over to some of the outdoor stalls. This one fascinated me, as guns have been banned in Australia.

There was a cook off going on, rather interesting to see that, something completely new to me, and an open air music concert going on. Time to go indoors, into the church and have a look at the quilt display. Unfortunately my photo's just don't do these quilts justice. Every single one was beautifully hand quilted, and many were antiques.

This one was made up of hundreds of 1 inch squares and looked to be extremely old and well loved. And last but not least just for Wendy and Libby.

After a quick bite to eat we headed on up to Prairie Grove in Arkansas to the Battlefield State Park Heritage Garden where they had moved all the buildings from the around the area to show what living in the time was like.

Time to head back into Oklahoma and do a quick shopping stop for Miss Hollie. On our way back we nearly passed a wonderful fruit stall that had the most beautiful peaches, apples and home grown honey, and this beauty parked out under the sign. Isn't it beautiful, I immediately thought of Melanie from Covered Porches when I saw this. I did manage to get a little bit of fabric shopping in along the way. We stopped at Hobby Lobby in Arkansas and I picked up the 2 major fabrics for the wall hanging from the Japanese magazine. Managed to get Hollie back to school by 9 pm and then we hit the road again to head home. Poor hubby was so tired, (too many 2am work starts during the week) we just had to stop and stay overnight at a hotel, lovely big king size bed, oh I want one, and managed to get home at around 10.30 this morning, a quick unload of the van and back to the house hunting.

Time for some vegging now I think, I'm exhausted...

Plans for this week, clean up the messy house and make a start on the prep work for the appliqued wall hanging. My slump seems to have disappeared, as I knew it would.

I hope you've enjoyed your weekend, and thanks for stopping by.

Happy Stitching.

Left Overs - Uh Oh

Can someone pass me the Tylenol or perhaps pour me a drink please? Today started out well, did it continue that way you may ask. Answer, a resounding No. I decided today, that I'd put the rocking chair back together and do the final sand and final coat of varnish, ready to put the new cane in. The process started at exactly 12, just after a quick bite to eat. Fortunately I'd taken photo's of the chair in stages, not quite as many stages as I should have, but enough to work with....only just. So with a pile of screws and all the parts of the chair laid out in front of me and the photo's glaring at me on the PC, I set to work, to get this back together. In my mind I thought perhaps an hour to get it all back together...ha, what a joke. 5 1/2 hours later and these left over....




Uh oh, 4 screws left over, but they don't fit in the holes left, darn......(being polite and lady like here with the darn). So a trip to the hardware store at some stage this weekend to buy 4 new screws just the size I want.... If you think I'm going to take it all to bits and start again, think again, I've already done that....lol.... So new screws it is. As you can see I didn't get any where near to what I had hoped to achieve today. I had hoped that I'd get up to this stage., but having read through the brief details included I see I need to buy some glycerine to soak the cane in..

We have a visit with Miss Hollie this weekend, an overnight trip. Are those plans still in place, again No....lol... seems to be the day for a great big No..... Apparently one of the house parents at the school has tickets for a Christian concert on Sunday afternoon/evening and has invited all the senior girls to go with them. So our overnight visit has turned into a day trip tomorrow as Miss Hollie really wanted to go.....Humfffff, tossed aside for a concert. Now mind you if I was her age and had the same offer I'd be saying hey mum can we have a day visit instead of an overnight...lol... It's worked out well really, gives hubby and I a chance to look for a new house on Sunday.
Not a lot of sewing going on here this week, seem to be in a bit of a slump, not to worry, I'm sure it will pass as quickly as it arrived.
Hope you all have a great weekend, and thanks for stopping by and commenting.

Happy Stitching.

Nifty Notions and Terrific Customer Service

Last week Nicole over at Sister's Choice told us about a new notion that she had the pleasure of using while she was at her Buggy Barn quilting workshop. Although my Singer isn't a Featherweight I thought I'd contact the store and ask whether it was suitable for a Singer Red Eye. The lovely Pam emailed me back and let me know that she was unsure but she would happily refund my $$ if it didn't fit. Let me tell you, that was enough to make up my mind and I quickly punched in the needed info and waited for it to arrive. This wonderful little gem arrived only half an hour ago and was ripped out of it's package and screwed down onto the bed of my machine.

It fits beautifully, and what a pleasure to know I can achieve a perfect 1/4 inch seam and if needed a scant 1/4 inch seam.

I can't praise the ladies of Buggy Barn enough for wonderful customer service, which I might add is extremely rare to find these days. So if you own a Featherweight or a Red Eye this little gem will fit your machine and give you that perfect elusive 1/4 inch seam.

Thanks Nicole for letting us know about this wonderful notion.

Happy Stitching.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Only one more coat of varnish this afternoon and the rocker will be ready to be put back together and have it's final sand and final coat.

Reminder

If you are sweet enough to leave a comment please make sure that you have your email preference set so that we bloggers can reply to you personally. It's very easy to do, just go into edit profile and click on show my email.

Kathy said yesterday that I'd love to have that recipe. I can even beg and grovel if necessary. ;) She was referring to the recipe for the cobbler. Kathy I can't reply to you as you have your email set at no reply. So it looks like everyone will be getting the recipe.



Mixed Berry Crisp


recipe yields:18 servings
PREP TIME
20 Min
COOK TIME
40 Min
READY IN
1 Hr

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups fresh blackberries
1 1/2 cups fresh raspberries
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
4 tablespoons white sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 cups butter


DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
In a large bowl, gently toss together blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and white sugar; set aside.
In a separate large bowl, combine flour, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Cut in butter until crumbly. Press half of mixture in the bottom of a 9x13 inch pan. Cover with berries. Sprinkle remaining crumble mixture over the berries.
Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until fruit is bubbly and topping is golden brown.



Very scrumptious.

Remembering

I'm reminded of today's date and the impact it had on me sitting in my comfy home in Australia. The impact that followed that day was a phone call from my son who was serving in the Australian Navy telling me that he was going to war. I am blessed to still have my son with me, so without this turning into an emotional roller coaster ride for myself or for anyone else, I just want to let you know that I'm praying for you if you have, or have had someone serve to protect our freedom.

"They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.
Lest we forget."

Where Did The Weekend Go?

Is it Monday already? I feel like we totally lost the weekend. It started out like any other weekend, me up first and DH trying to catch up on sleep. We decided to make an early start on the weekly shopping so that we'd have the afternoon and Sunday after church to ourselves, to do what we wanted. Do you think that, that worked out for us? Well of course it didn't. We got all the way into town, a 45 minute drive, only to discover that DH had left his wallet with license and cards sitting at home. So back into the van and head back home.... not quite...... About a 1/3rd the way home, we hear this klump, klump sound.... darn flat front tyre. Pull over and start to change the tyre when who should pull up behind us, but a State Trooper (remember no license). Lovely young man, changes the tyre for us and is about to fill out an assist form when he asks DH for license...oops. relay story of left wallet on table at home, he smiles nicely and we're on our way (no ticket for driving while not carrying said license). All I can say is totally BLESSED.

Limped back home on a doughnut tyre )what odd tyres), get wallet and off to the tyre centre. 3 hours later the tyre's replaced. Not feeling quite so blessed at this point. Head back into town for shopping and managed to get everything done, and returned home by 9.30 pm. Yes that's right 9.30.... Oh my gosh was I ever pooped, and a little ticked off that my Saturday was completely over and nothing to show for it, except groceries and half a roll of batting at 1/2 price (bonus).
Yesterday wasn't much better. I totally lost my weekend,and like I said nothing to show for it except for a messy house.


I decided as today didn't look like it was going to be much better and the place was a mess, I may as well add to it and spend the day in the kitchen. So we have the crock pot going with tonight's dinner, a yummy beef casserole, and as I type this delicious cobbler is cooking for tonight's dessert. Plus I managed to make some mini meatloaves, done in the muffin tins and a regular sized one which will all go into the freezer to another nights dinner and sandwich filling for DH.

DH and I have decided it's time for a move as the house we're in has terrible inefficient heating and cooling and neither of us want to go through another winter here. We did have thoughts of moving inter-state, but realised that, that wouldn't work when it came time for our monthly visits with Miss Hollie. so we've decided to stay in OK until she's graduated from school (sorry Bren). So now I have the wonderful job of finding another house to move into, and the thought of all that packing,arrrrg..... one of my pet dislikes and DH suggested last night that it would be nice if we could find another house within two weeks before we start the Bible Study in our home. Thanks honey........

On the quilting front, zero. I've started the machine quilting on the monster that was in the last post, but I think that may be put on hold for a while and I'll just have to settle for hand work at the moment until things have settled down and we're moved.
Happy Stitching and thanks for allowing me to vent a little.

The Boring Part

I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that I love the planning of a quilt, choosing the quilt design, the fabrics, deciding what colours to use, which colours bring the design out best. The cutting and piecing, quilting and attaching the binding. But (yes I know, I shouldn't start a sentence with but) I absolutely loath pinning out the quilt. I find it so boring and tedious. Today I spent ALL day pinning out another ufo, a queen size quilt.

I had the monster almost done when I discovered a wrinkle in the middle of it, darn, time to take out all those pins, smooth out the wrinkle and re-pin. I pin my quilts out, no matter what size they are, on a fold-able banquet table. This always involves pinning a portion and then carefully moving the quilt to pin the next section. I was taught many years ago to never pin a quilt out on carpet, because the pile alters how well the quilt sits. I don't have a nice large tiled floor, plus my knees and back just wouldn't allow it. Getting down, isn't a problem, but getting back up, well that's another story.... Picture a beached whale, and that's me.

How do you pin your quilts out? Do you have a nice large floor space and the knees to allow you to use this space, or do you also use a table. I'd love to hear how others pin their quilts ready for quilting.

Happy Stitching and thanks for taking the time to leave a comment.

Practise Piece

I seem to have been bitten by the applique bug. So many wonderful blogs with beautiful applique pieces, it was just too hard to resist any longer. I decided I needed a block that I could practise my skills on for a little longer than just the leaves on the 4SQS. It's been a long time since I've done traditional applique, usually opting for speed, I've used the more naive look that goes with blanket stitch. In the past my preferred method of applique was back basting, but it takes probably more prep time than needle turn or freezer paper, and seeing as I invested in a clover mini iron, I had to give it some use so it wouldn't feel unwanted.... plus after reading Wendy's quick tutorial on freezer paper I thought I'd take the plunge.

So here's my practise block, all basted ready to stitch.









In case you're wondering why I want to do a practise block, this is what I'd like to tackle next. I'm sure it will take me a couple of years to do, but I just fell in love with it as soon as I saw it, in you guessed it, that beautiful Japanese magazine.

Friday evening I spent hours tracing the design onto tracing paper. The master design is on a pattern sheet, not unlike the Burda pattern sheets, all the sizes on one sheet of paper and the only way to know which pattern your tracing is by the different coloured lines. A challenge for sure. Saturday I took it to Staples and had it enlarged to the correct size, so now it's ready for more tracing and prep work. That in itself is a job and a half, but one I think will be worth the effort. I'm thinking I'll combine the three methods of applique on this one, freezer paper, needle turn and back basting, but I don't want to do anything on it until I've done my practise block, except maybe go shopping for the fabrics..... Not that I need an excuse to shop, but it always sounds better to my hubby if I have a list rather than just shopping, for shopping sake...lol......

Well time to go do some housework and have a look through my stash and see what I have and what I need to use in the Hometown Christmas Quilt.

Happy Stitching, and thanks so much for stopping by and giving your input and thoughts.

Progress & Beautiful Mail

Saturday, and the weather is absolutely beautiful, a balmy 31c or 87F. I did have big plans of going outdoors and working on the rocker a little more, in the hopes that I'd have it finished by the end of the weekend.....but... We all know how plans can change, forgot we had appointments for haircuts this morning, thank goodness, now I can put my broom back in the cupboard, and had to dash to the post office to mail off Jenna's quilt and Yvonne's giveaway Bucket Tote.
I managed to get the 4 season's swap quilt finished yesterday, including the label. Just need to pop it into the wash to remove any traces of blue pen then it can be parceled up ready for the post next weekend.
Darlene asked yesterday why she and others blog, here's proof of my previous post about Earthly Angels and one of the reasons I blog, because there are just so many wonderful women out there in blog sphere who are just so generous of their time and resources. Early this morning we had a knock at the door, oops still in pj's so a quick "hang on" was shouted out while dh put some clothes on. Hmm the Postman with a parcel, all the way from Japan. Inside wonderful contents from Sachiko, thank you so much Sachiko, and the biggest surprise was it was posted 2 days ago, now that's what I call fast.
Inside the parcel was the magazine that I've been lusting after for far too long and two beautiful pieces of "Kimono" fabrics, so pretty, and a lovely little card from Sachiko. Some wonderful projects for me to ooooh and ahhhh over and contemplate making, and this one just has to be made. Sorry my photography skills really do need improving.

And these, just adorable.

So plenty to keep my mind and my hands busy with over the weekend. In fact I think I hear the pattern sheet calling to me, so time to go get the tracing paper,pencil and light box and sit in the comfy chair and get some tracing done.

Happy Stitching, I hope you're all enjoying your Holiday weekend and can manage to find some time to pick up a needle and thread. Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment, and sharing my joy.