Mountain Musings

Birthday Outing and Adventure at Appalachian Piecework

A week ago my sister came to visit us on her spring break and to celebrate her birthday with us here in Virginia.

We started planning the birthday meal: (Sweet & Sour Chicken from Mel's Kitchen blog), the cake (Lemon Bundt from A Pretty Life in the Suburbs blog), and the outings (The Factory Antique Mall and Appalachian Piecework, which I've written about before when we've shopped there).

Come along with us to our favorite local shop, Appalachian Piecework: Right inside the door we spotted this shaving pony setup -- she was in the process of crafting wooden bracelets: Granny was feeling well enough to go with us this time and gravitated towards the baskets, of course! There were many different ones!

Here's the write-up describing this particular basket: Here's Laurie, the owner and folk artist, talking to us about her wares: Absolutely love this egg basket holding spindles! I gravitated to the antique quilts you see on the back wall. Laurie rescues them, mends and launders them, and displays them for sale. The striking red one had a price tag of $750: Quaint and primitive wool coasters displayed in a handmade basket: Another photo of the handiwork displayed throughout the shop...a special method of dying the wool was used on these: Laurie is at work on her loom, demonstrating her weaving. We all thought everything was so fascinating: The scarves were amazing. My sister actually took a weaving class years ago and learned how to do this...so she could understand the work involved and the prices attached! She gave me one of her woven masterpieces back when she made one, a beautiful purple scarf which I use as a long dresser scarf: Appalachian Piecework also carries Hannah's soaps, and here's the display for those: A spinning wheel was also in use in the shop: And here's the black wool waiting to be spun: I thought this custom order below was very special. A person had brought in a variety of old shirts which had belonged to her parents and which were then torn into strips as shown in this photo: Laurie was weaving them into a rug so the customer would always have this display item in their home as a memory of the parents' clothing. That's different!: Here's a picture of the four of us together before we left: What a very, very enjoyable excursion! We all loved it!

Time to head home to celebrate:

My sister, Betty, the birthday girl, is ready to blow out the candles: Let's light those candles! Granny is patiently waiting for her piece: Thanks for joining along on our outing. So glad that my sister spent part of her spring break with us!

~Deb

Celebrating National Quilting Day

Did you celebrate this weekend with your sewing machine and some fabric? It was National Quilting Day!

I spent Saturday afternoon at my machine and sewed three Room and Board blocks to add to the eight blocks I'd already completed. Here are those three on the design wall:

I joined the online Sweet Escape/Room & Board quilt-along hosted by Camille of Thimble Blossoms on her Instagram. Knowing that hundreds of other quilters across the country are sewing the same pattern makes it extra fun.

Quilting Day was an added reason to make sure some blocks were finished! It's always productive for me to quilt with a deadline.

Here are the previous eight blocks completed: All this fabric was a Christmas gift from my son, Jonathan. How did he know to buy Thimble Blossoms fabric!?? Perfect! Here it is all laid out as I was deciding which colors to put together: Also in honor of Quilting Day...

• stuffing and finishing my heart pillow from the previous post.
• binding a baby quilt that I've already quilted.
• quilting the Sewing a Village houses, another sew-along I participated in last year.

Then I can start my original plan of making a quilt for Hannah. Of all things, I've never made Hannah a quilt! Fabric and pattern are already purchased, so I'll post my progress when it happens. Spring mulching may interfere a bit....but she'll get it eventually!

Nothing to do with Quilting Day....but everything to do with Saint Patrick's Day, here are Tom and Jonathan playing some Irish music to end our Sunday evening: If you'd like to hear a short clip of Be Thou My Vision and an Irish ditty called Billy Brocker's Reel, check out Jonathan's Instagram at jonathan_girotti for the real music.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

~Deb

Quilty Girls Weekend! ~ Sewing Retreat ~ Part 2

Our time at the 2019 Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival, which you read about in the last post, quickly came to an end....oh, but so much more quilting fun was in store for the next day!

Here we are ready to start our secret sewing project day: Barbara, Chris, and Deb: Chris first showed us the project she had selected for the day's sewing. She's holding up her almost completed heart pillow for our example. Instructions for making your own are on Chelsea Stratton's blog: To increase the excitement, below is the pile of prizes to be awarded throughout our day of sewing: Our sewing retreat was located in Chris's beautiful sun room, bright and airy and perfect for our sewing table setup. I was pretty much all smiles, all day: We had to be alert! We never knew when Chris would bring out the ol' bullhorn and call a winning number! So. Much. Fun! One of the first prizes was a mini design board for our heart pieces. You can find instructions to make your own either on Lori Holt's Bee in My Bonnet blog Part 1 and Part 2 or on Fat Quarter Shop's YouTube channel.

Barbara was so excited when her number was called: Here we are with our design boards ready to start sewing. The boards came in quite handy when we transported our pieces back and forth to the ironing board: Yes, we did get lots of sewing done...as you can see two of my hearts sitting there with my design board in use...but time out for another prize! Yay for opening gifts throughout the morning! What wonderful prizes...in addition to the design board there were pins, sewing machine needles, seam ripper, a magnetic pin holder from Pleasant Home...and fat quarters!! Thank you, Chris! Well, after all this excitement and sewing, we worked up an appetite. Butternut sausage soup and ham/cheese pie wedges were on our delicious lunch menu: And what do you think the guys were doing all this time?

Well...the day we girls were at the quilt festival, the menfolk all went to a indoor shooting range and practiced shooting handguns. They said they "had a blast." 

And while we were home sewing, they conducted a gun-cleaning party out in the garage. Here's Tom with Chris's dad, who also went on the shoot with them: Must keep the guns clean! Uh-oh, someone took a break and commandeered the bullhorn! And Barbara wins again! And this time a wonderful packet of fat quarters! I won fabric, too! By the end of the afternoon, we were basting our pillows and ready to start quilting the front: A good day's work! We will finish the remainder back at home: And some good accomplishment for the guys, too! They also installed a new weather vane for Chris on her garden shed: All in all, it was such an enjoyable Quilty Girls' Weekend ~ 2019...both at the festival and at the sewing retreat at home. Being with friends made it the most fun of all!  And I have a beautiful heart pillow for my bed to always remember our special time!

Thank you, Fred and Chris, for opening your home and hearts to us! I love making memories with y'all!

~Deb

The Simple Woman's Daybook ~ February

For Today Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loves is born of God, and knows God. He that loves not knows not God; for God is love. ~I John 4:7-8

Looking out my window... a very sunny and quite chilly February day. The wind is gusting, especially here on this ridge we call Mountain Musings. The front porch lawn chairs are tumbling upside down and being flung to the other side of the wrap-around porch.

I am thinking...of interesting questions to ask Granny. I've been googling "Questions to Ask an Elderly Person" for an interview post for the blog. I thought that might be fun! If you have any questions that you'd like her to answer...about her growing up years, her life before she came to live with us, her favorite memories, etc...ask them in the comments below, and a future post will feature Granny.

 

I am thankful...that Granny is doing much better and healing more each day from her fracture in early January. So thankful that she's able to get around and hopefully will be able to travel back to church soon to see her friends. I've heard from so many of you blog readers that you had been praying for her! Thank you!

 

I am wearing...a "winter white" skirt, aqua turtleneck, and denim over-shirt...my "going out" clothes since I was at my physical therapy foot appointment today. 

 

In my Kitchen...this week Hannah is planning meals and cooking for the family. She's always been such a great helper in the kitchen, but she also likes to do all the planning for some special meals. She usually picks Valentine's week....so I'm enjoying a kitchen-free week and sampling new recipes that I don't usually prepare. I'm especially looking forward to her Valentine's Day dinner.

 

Here is one of the delicious meals this week, Rosemary Dijon Chicken, Roasted Vegetables, and Strawberry Mandarin Spinach Salad:

We are creating: If you stop by to see us, most likely you'll find all of us involved in our various hobbies. Since Granny has felt better lately, she recently made a basket, her first in quite awhile...and here she is staining it outside. Everyone knows she makes baskets from old potato mashers, so someone sent her this one. She immediately wanted to get started!

Hannah collected aloe juice one day to use in her skin soother soap. Thank you to our friend Cindy for the healthy aloe plants she gave us:

Tom keeps occupied in his workshop. This bed has been in the works for quite some time...many, many setbacks and re-dos, but it's looking good now:

And Jonathan has been cooking in the kitchen recently....last week he made a chipotle-flavored chili for his co-workers...quite yummy. This photo below shows him in the middle of some cookie baking--orange creamsicles, which were a big hit:

I am reading...Brave Love. The author is Lisa Leonard, designer of jewelry for her own company and mom of two boys. My new favorite necklace is a Lisa Leonard design with 4 charms, each with the name of one of my four grandsons....with hopefully more charms to come one day. Her Instagram is here.

I am looking forward to: the end of the month when I again travel to Hampton's 30th Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show for a Quilty Girls Weekend!! I've posted about these quilting excursions in past years, so stay tuned in early March for a recap of my adventures.

 

I am hoping...the groundhog was right this year...an early spring would be nice!

 

A moment from my day...enjoying all the pink and red decor...Valentine table topper, floral bouquet from Tom, and reading a Valentine card from a dear friend that arrived today:

 

Great peace have those who love Your law, And nothing causes them to stumble.

~ Psalm 119:165

 

Happy Valentine's Day!

~Deb

Three Quilts + One

My sewing room stayed quite busy last fall, and I loved spending a lot of time in there creating special gifts for special people! This post is to finally document those quilts that I couldn't post about until they were gifted.

Quilt #1: Handmade with Love pattern by Thimble Blossoms This was such a fun, fun quilt to make! There were 20 different packages...and bows on top of each. I bought the quilt as a kit so the fabric choices were already made for me, but this quilt could also be made using various scraps making colorful celebration gifts rather than Christmas themed packages:Here are all the blocks laid out which equaled a 74x75 quilt. This is where I usually sandwich quilts...living room = project room: Since this was a Christmas gift for a special friend, I wanted to have a long-arm quilter quilt it for me. It's the first time I've ever had long-arm quilting done so I was excited to see how it would turn out!

Day trip excursion to The Quiltery in Fairfield....such a nice little shop in a quaint little town. Loved seeing the porch decorations! Maureen promised me she could have it ready the week after Thanksgiving, which worked out just fine: She chose this holly and berries pattern to go with the Christmas theme: Thanks to my hidden, but nifty, quilt holder-upper! I've sewn on the binding and washed the quilt to make it all crinkly. It's ready for gift giving! Usually every December we meet as a foursome with our friends, Fred and Chris. This year we met again at Whole Foods Food Court for lunch and exchanging gifts. Here's Chris opening the box, having no idea there's a quilt inside: And now she knows it's a quilt just for her! She loves it! Mission accomplished! Holding up the quilt together--success!:  

Quilt #2:  Pumpkin Seeds by Pattern Basket

Sarah asked for some decorative fall pillows for Christmas since she's a lover of holidays and seasons. So in addition to finding her some pumpkin pillows, I decided to make her a pumpkin quilt to decorate the back of her sofa for the fall season.

Here's my first pumpkin block. I absolutely love that the pattern makes a white star in each pumpkin: And then there were 5 little pumpkins... Here's a view from my sewing table....there are the 5 pumpkins up on the design wall. And on the table I'm auditioning the next set of oranges that I'll use. I love that design wall...it's great incentive to keep going to add to my quilt: The pumpkins are all finished and being sandwiched together for quilting. I decided to straight line quilt this since it was a smaller quilt, plus other quilters online making this same pumpkin pattern suggested straight line as a good method.

Two things to notice in the picture below. First, of the 12 orange pumpkins I decided to switch-a-roo a bit and make one white with an orange star. I love it! The second thing to notice above...any guesses? There's a bed headboard in the living room. Tom has been making a bed for Hannah for the past several months. Our living room/project room is the landing place until he's ready for staining. Okay. No problem.

Here's the last picture I have showing a portion of the quilt labeled and quilted with a soft minky backing. I packaged the quilt and brought it with us to Atlanta at Thanksgiving and put it under Sarah's tree. We were able to watch her open it using Skype on Christmas Eve. I think she liked it!

Quilt #3: And the third quilt I already wrote about in a recent post when we welcomed a new grandson in November:

With so much activity in the sewing room this fall, I have to say that I haven't even been tempted to sit down and sew....just needed a break!  Until this week....

Plus 1:  I just brought out the Sewing a Village 132 houses that I finished back in early summer when I participated in a quilt-along with Stitch Supply Company. The top was completed on time but was set aside for awhile.

I don't think I ever posted about this quilt on the blog...only photos on Instagram last spring:And, drum roll....this quilt will actually not be gifted! I decided to keep this one for myself, so there wasn't a rush to finish it. It will have a minky backing, and I'll do vertical straight-line quilting. There are so many different fabrics and just as many memories attached to some of these houses. I will enjoy this first quilt for me!

Thanks for reading about my projects!

"As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God...so that in all things God may be glorified." ~ I Peter 4:10-11

~Deb

Snow Day ~ Sew Day!

Spring is eight days away, and this is what I see outside my sewing room window this afternoon, at least 5 inches...maybe 6 by now. My view looks south towards the garden: I've been quilting my Fig Tree Mini-Pear today which I wrote about in the previous post from our Quilty Girls' Sewing Weekend. I actually wasn't sure how to quilt it...but decided to just go for it and use wavy lines. I'm about halfway finished quilting the white borders: Taking a break to check on the snow, this is out our front door facing west and the Allegheny Mountains, which are hidden today: Back to sewing...first thing this morning I started working on my Village Houses....for those of you not following me on Instagram, I've been posting completed houses once a week.

I joined the sew-along over at Stitch Supply Company and quilters from all over the world are Sewing a Village!

We sew 8 houses a week, and I'll show you my first 40 houses on my new design wall here so you can see. Since this photo was taken, I've sewn 2 more rows. When we finish in June, there will be 132 houses in this neighborhood.

I love them!!! And...I'm just using scrap fabric--win-win!: This view is out our back breakfast nook window facing east and the Blue Ridge Mountains...taken when there were only about 3 inches: Here are 8 of the houses up close, some I'm sewing with chimneys and some without...but all of them so very fun to make! A fellow Village sewer from California (a stranger!) found out I needed some fussy-cut doors and mailed me 8 special doors. You can see 5 of those in these houses...thank you, thank you!:Whenever I'm sewing at night, I have some special folks serenading me while I sew. Very calming to sew and listen to music. Thank you Dad and Jonathan: One final sewing project that was recently completed and mailed to a church friend who has had some trying times lately....Sunday Supper by Sweetwater table runner. I love the Amazing Grace fabric in this line and just included some leftover scraps on another house in my Village: Yes, I've been utilizing my new crafting room quite a bit lately and loving it!

Okay...back to sewing instead of blogging....but first, another look outside to watch the snow, hopefully the final one this year!
~Deb

A Week in Hannah's Life

We recently blogged about A Day in Granny's Life, and a regular reader asked that we do the same for Hannah because they were interested in seeing how she spends her days. Thanks for the idea, Alice!

I've been taking some photos of various aspects of Hannah's day-to-day life, and I'm titling it A Week in Hannah's Life so you can see a compilation of activities she does on a regular basis.

These photos show her involved in three different activities...on the same afternoon, all at the same time! In this first photo...she's baking bread and roasting butternut squash she harvested from the garden this fall:

And in this second photo, while the bread's rising, she's making Laurel Bay Shaving Soap. I hope she remembers which ingredients go in soap and which go in the food! The tube on the counter on the right is what she uses for a soap mold: Blending another batch of soap batter for Jasmine Vanilla goats milk soap:

Here's the finished product after the bread came out of the oven:

And here's Hannah's shaving soap that she's just finished cutting after it hardened in the mold for a couple of days:

Where does the soap go while it's being cured? If you guessed in my living room with all the woodworking projects, that would be an obvious guess...ha ha....but, thankfully, Hannah has a room dedicated for her soap racks as they await being cured, ordered and shipped:

Here's Hannah adding the newest shaving soap to the racks. She'll then pull down the blue tablecloths to protect the soaps from dust and light. I don't think we've ever shown her upstairs work space before now: Running a home business means a lot of keeping records on the computer. Hannah spends many hours here at her computer logging in how many soaps of each fragrance she has in stock, processing orders and generating receipts for the customer, writing her newsletter that goes out to customers, and maintaining all the records for the business: When an order comes in from a customer on her website, she then wraps each bar ordered in the appropriate labeled wrappers. This isn't done until the order is ready for shipping to insure that the wrapper is kept tight when it goes to its new home.

And then it's time for a trip to the local post office: Often times soap orders will come in from local businesses...which means a trip downtown to deliver in person.

Here's the front of the Frontier Culture Museum, one of the several businesses which stocks her soap...I dropped Hannah off here for the delivery and took a picture of the Gift Shop--quiet and not many visitors in the wintertime at the Museum: Well, soap doesn't take up all of her time, although there's a lot involved in keeping the business going. When she gets free time Hannah likes to sew and is making a red and white quilt this winter...sewing along with me in the craft room...which is great fun for me to have company as I sew: Hannah recently signed up for an online flute workshop, so she's been working on her lessons on the computer and practicing the assignments: Everything can't be fun and games....so as far as daily household chores, Hannah is the clean dish put-away-er and also the clean laundry put-away-er...after I've done the dirty part of those chores. Ha!  Here she is hard at work taking care of the laundry: Hannah has always had an interest in calligraphy and lettering. Recently she revived that hobby and here's her latest scripture practice: She just took a few days off last week from household chores, soap orders, and other obligations and made a trip down to South Carolina to the BJU annual Bible conference. Here's Hannah with Aunt Bet after one of the sessions: And...drum roll, please...since South Carolina is close enough to Georgia, where some certain adorable grandsons live, we traveled a bit farther at the end of the conference to see Sarah and her family. Hannah is a doting aunt to these two lovable little boys: This post is a sampling of Hannah's day-to-day activities. Of course, she also does a lot to help me in caring for Granny and takes care of Granny's Etsy basket orders on the computer when they come in.

Gardening season is right around the corner, and Hannah happens to be the chief vegetable gardener. Oh my, I think she needs more hours in her day!

Tomorrow I leave for the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival and for a Quilty Girls' Sewing Day with my friend (post coming later), and I'll leave my day-to-day chores for Hannah while I'm away...only because she doesn't have enough to do now. :)

I hope you've enjoyed reading A Week in Hannah's Life! Thanks for being a faithful blog reader. See you on the blog next time!

 

~~ Deb

The Simple Woman's Daybook ~ August!

For Today: Monday, August 7th

 

Looking out my window...It's a chilly, rainy day here in the Shenandoah Valley...so happy for refreshing rain on the garden and yard. It's a perfectly cozy day to put on some Christmas music and sew...'cepting...too much cleaning to do this week to have fun today!

I am thinking...we have to baby-proof this house pronto! Two little munchkins from Georgia will arrive on Friday and that will make me one happy Granny! It's their first time to visit Virginia, and we're super excited!

Sarah sent me this picture of Andrew with the caption:  "I'm going to VA in a week?!?! Wha?!?!? I'm so excited!!!"

I am wearing...cleaning clothes: old holey tee-shirt paired with a navy paint-stained skirt.

I am thankful...that Tom's two sisters from Connecticut were able to visit us last week--it had been a long time between visits! We enjoyed them being here and especially enjoyed touring Monticello one day (future post coming on the Gardens of Monticello).

Here's a photo of Aunt Toots and Aunt Ellen taken Saturday morning just before we drove them to the train station for their return trip back home:

We all decided to ride over the mountain to see them off...with hugs and tears. Here we are waiting for the Amtrak train to arrive: In the garden...the black-eyed peas have started producing! We enjoyed a mess of them recently with our relatives for lunch; they had never tasted black-eyed peas! Oh, my! We're looking forward to many more pickings, shellings, and servings this season.

In the kitchen...in addition to all the tomato sauce canning and hot pepper pickling going on in the kitchen, Hannah made another Swiss chard quiche to use up some garden produce, along with garden cukes and tomatoes: I am creating...actually, it's Granny who's doing the creating. She recently taught a friend how to make a basket. Kathy came over to learn and went home with a basket she created in a few hours. We all had a good time visiting together and enjoyed the quiche Hannah made for lunch.

Here are Granny and Hannah...yes, using the new craft room for basket-making (not sewing!) as the very first craft done in there: Here's Kathy setting up her basket. She was a fast learner:

A Shared Quote...(passed on to me from Jonathan this evening):

"Women were created from the rib of man to be beside him, not from his head to top him, nor from his feet to be trampled by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him, near to his heart to be loved by him." ~ Matthew Henry

 A moment from our day...thankfully, cabinet varnishing (on the inside) was on Tom's agenda today and not mine. These are the island cabinets for the kitchen...slowly, slowly, one by one. When these are done, the kitchen will be finished!

See what I mean by baby-proofing? All this mess has to be vamoosed before Friday! Postscript...Our 37th wedding anniversary is coming up in a couple of weeks. I'm not sure yet what adventure awaits, but I'll be sure and post pictures after we get back!

If you'd like to read other August Daybook posts, visit The Simple Woman.

 ~ DebSave

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Sewing Room Reveal!

I know! I know! I've been missing in action, at least around these parts!  I haven't been home very much lately...I know the weeds in my flower beds must be missing me!

If you read Sarah's recent post about the birth of little Matthew, then you know that I was down in Atlanta for the month of May helping out both before the birth and afterwards...what a blessing to be available to Eric and Sarah! This Granny became quite attached to two certain little munchkins!

Anyway, when I returned home, the family had been working on a BIG surprise for me. Yes, they turned Sarah's old bedroom...aka...Tom's cabinet workshop into my sewing room!!! Finally!! Yay!

Here's a picture looking in from the living room at the door to my new craft headquarters. One of the first decorations to go in the room was the Flower Garden pennant strung across the mirror made by Dawn, formerly of 4:53 a.m. blog. She made it for me several years ago, and I treasure it here in my new sewing room:Below is another view from the opposite direction showing my shelves of fabric and the cabinets that Tom installed. He didn't make these because he's busy still working on cabinets for Jonathan's house...these cabinets are from Lowes. I picked them out after I saw this room and knew I wanted some storage on the wall: Here's a view below taken standing behind my sewing machine and chair, looking towards the double closet doors at left. The mirror on the wall makes the room look bigger, and I love it as a focal point on the wall. Can you get the idea from these photos how much I'll enjoy this space??? I absolutely love how Hannah arranged the two tables into a L-shape and how the room turned out! I've been busy adding special touches to make the room my own special place!

Would you like to take a close-up tour around the room? Follow me....

This is my favorite corner below! It includes the New York Beauty Flying Geese mini-quilt on the wall that I won from Quilter in the Closet that I wrote about in Nine Months to Birth a Mini. My quilting calendar is on the wall, and there are two items made by my dear friend, Chris...the green sewing satchel on top of the scrapbook paper bin and the seasonal mini-heart quilt that's on the metal quilt stand:Here's the sewing satchel filled with supplies that I've taken to quilt classes in the past. Isn't it darling, and it's so useful!: And as far as other seasonal quilts for the quilt stand, here are several that Chris has made for me: She also gave me the antique sewing machine drawer you see on top of the scrapbook paper bins, and here's what I'm storing inside: The quilting mug by my sewing machine was also given to me by Chris when I visited her for the annual Hampton Roads Quilt Show earlier this year. My goodness, it sure looks like she's had a big part in furnishing my new sewing room! And I can't leave out this beautiful Spools lap quilt I have on the back of my chair which she gave me for my Surprise 60th birthday! You can see a photo of Chris giving it to me at the birthday party on that post: Here's a close-up of the opposite corner...a recliner for reading (under the cabinet lights are installed for ease of reading in the corner)...and the gorgeous quilt on the back of the chair was also made by Quilter in the Closet. You can see the front and the back of this patriotic quilt in the Nine Months to Birth a Mini post: And just a touch of nostalgia on the wall above the book binders on the shelves above...a small license plate that gives a nod to my hometown of South Boston, Virginia. The tag used to be on my dad's old Chevy truck, so it has some memories that go along with it.

This "sewing" room will be used for scrapbooking, cross-stitching, knitting, letter-writing, and whatever else I can think of. Here's a closer view of the antique blue basket which I found at 3 Seasons Antiques in Fairfield, Virginia, and I'm using it for balls of yarn: A glimpse of the main door (left) into my sewing room showing my quilt ladder made by Tom (you can read about him making 3 of these ladders in the post Honey Do List x 3! The D.E.B. letters were a gift from my sister...just in case there's any doubt who's sewing room this is! On the small wall behind the door is where I'll put my quilt design wall. I've been researching exactly how I'll put it up, and this is one of the last things I have to do to complete my room.

Inside the double closet is a dresser that used to belong to my sister, and it's now being put to good use holding books on top and more quilting supplies inside the drawers: There's plenty of room for more storage bins of fabric under the cutting/sewing tables: I think this will be one of my first new projects to work on: Stack of books for inspiration: Speaking of inspiration...everyone needs a little chocolate, so this antique blue bowl holds my favorite chocolate kisses for snitching on my desk: Well, now that I have my very own sewing space, maybe I can actually get some quilting projects done!

But...I have to admit that my sewing room came at a very high price. All the cabinets that need painting were moved to the living room! What do guests see when they come to visit you ask?: buckets of paint, cabinet drawers on the sofa, and cabinets in various stages of being primed and painted: I think its MY job to get a move-on with the painting so these cabinets can be moved out of here, but I've been having so much fun getting the sewing room ready for action, that I've put painting at the bottom of the priority list! Must change!

Another painting delay...we've just returned this week from visiting Atlanta and new grandson Matthew for several days. The rest of the family were delighted to see him for the first time. Here's a picture of Granny and Grandpa holding Matthew:

That's the update from here. Have a happy holiday weekend and a red, white, and blue 4th of July! 

~Deb

 

All The Way From Argentina!

Look what came in the mail this week!Faithful blog reader and commenter, ANA from Argentina, embroidered and crocheted this lovely gift for me. She must know I love colorful flowers!

This special gift definitely brightened my day when I opened her package. I will treasure it and ANA for wanting to bless me in this way.

Here's a close-up of her work: Because of emails we've been exchanging, I've become acquainted with ANA and some bits of her life in Argentina, and we've been praying for each others' families. Even sweet baby Andrew has been the beneficiary of some South American prayers! What a privilege brought about by the internet and blogging!

Thank you again so very much, ANA!

~Deb

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