Happy Birthday to My Dad

Today was my dad's 96th birthday. Or as my husband said 'It is the sixth anniversary of his sixteen birthday.' Regardless, Happy Birthday Dad. (I just couldn't resist getting him this crazy party hat!)

Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord you God gives you. Exodus 20:12

Happy Thankgivukah!

Amazing isn't it that two celebrations of thankful takes place on the same day! Thanksgiving for those of us in America and the first day of Hanukkah worldwide.

The things I'm blessed with and thankful for are:
   * The love of my Heavenly Father and King
   * The Torah and Brit Chadeshah
   * The breath of life
   * My very dear husband and friend
   * My children, grandchildren and great grandchildren
   * Precious friends
   * The gift of creativity
   * The roof over my head
   * Hot water (sounds strange but we finally have a hot water heater that works!)
   * The future

Blessings dear ones. Have a wonderful day.

Lots of Quilt Blocks

One of the projects the quilt guild I belong to is doing this year is a friendship or signature block quilt. Or should I say we're just doing the blocks and each member individually will decide how she wants to finish the quilt.

We are a small guild of maybe 17 ladies. Not all of our members are able to join in but, for those that are, it's a wonderful idea. For each meeting one of the members is featured and picks a block pattern that she feels represents her.

These are the blocks presented that I have finished so far.

Elaine's School House Block.

Mary's Indian Trails Block

Ceil's Sunflower Block

Sharon's Pieced Tulips Block

Shirley's Cross Within A Cross Block

Roxanne's Rolling Stone Block

The Friendship Block with a photo of our guild members for the center of the block.

Carolyn B's May Basket Block

Karen's Covered Bridge Block

I'm not sure how many more block patterns will be given to us but certainly this is a good start to a quilt full of memories.

New Class Offering

Dion Dior has new online classes starting in January 2014. You can choose her Sparkle-arkle class, or Wisdom Circles or both. She is also giving away chances to win these classes for free. Click on over to her blog and take a look. You won't regret it. I've been following her blog for a while and just love her art.
 http://www.diondior.com/2013/11/new-class-offering-for-2014-giveaway.html

Yes, I'm Still Here.

If I still had a FaceBook account I would rant a little about life but I don't so I won't. Instead I'll share my latest nature journal page.

I was a little(?) slow getting this page finished. The goldfinches are gone from the area, the flowers have disappeared and everything is brown. However, the bluejays, woodpeckers and nuthatches have found the bird feeder and this season's 'birdy show' has begun. A pleasure to watch.

Another Try

Having renew my efforts on this blog I was hoping to post more often. However, events in the last two or three weeks have been distracting but now I'm back to try again. My 95 year old dad fell and broke his arm a week ago and is in the hospital. Meanwhile my car had to go in the shop for repairs and I had no transportation. When I finally went to visit my dad I managed to catch a virus at the hospital and haven't been able to go to visit him since. Don't want to add to his recovery time, a might frustrating. Oh well, it rains on the just and the unjust. You just have to roll with the punches. (A word of advise for the season: be sure to carry and use hand sanitizer to stave off the nasties!)

Autumn is almost come and gone. I love the colors of fall but they never last long enough. Many of the trees are displaying their skeleton forms and I can see the barns on the next road through the treeline in the back of our property again. The shagbark hickory tree in the front yard is still hanging on to this years crop of nuts. There will be plenty for the squirrels this year. The bluebirds were at the bird boxes this morning fending off a couple of sparrows. The bluebirds may stay in the area this winter if the weather stays mild.

 This view down our driveway to our home was taken 2 weeks ago. My trees are naked now.

The wild asters put on quite a nice show this year.

I forgot to post that I won a prize on a blog hop recently from Desiree Habicht at http://myclothesline.blogspot.com/ I was awarded a sketchbook (my absolutely favorite one to work in) a brush, marker, a mechanical pencil and a wonderful original sketch that I hung in my studio for inspiration.

Gardening season is just about done in our location. This week I will be harvesting my parsnips and planting my garlic.

It's getting cold enough here lately that I'm already thinking of nesting, my favorite thing to do. With nesting comes cleaning and redecorating for the season. And of course cooking our favorites and baking, my favorite way of heating up the house. I'm planning to get back into more quilting,knitting and weaving. More art too! I'm also working on restoring an antique loom. Can you tell I'm ready to hunker down for the cold months? I'm sure I'll have plenty to keep me occupied and will have lots of things to post to my blog about. Toodles!

Back In The Saddle Again!

Finally I'm back ! I remember this song from when I was a little girl and I kept humming it all week while contemplating returning to my first blog. I was big on cowboy TV shows when I was in my 'little girl' stage of life. You know...Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Sky King, etc. I even had a cowgirl outfit I dressed up in.

I admit I've been very neglectful here since my last post in July. So what have I been doing with my time since then?
   1. Somewhat tending a dismal garden... awful weather this year, not much of a harvest. However, I was successful with growing garlic and I managed to can 14 pints of carrots again this year.

  2. I took some free online art classes and made a new friend from those classes who lives about 5 miles from me. We meet for coffee every week and share our new artwork with each other. I'm working on a piece I will show you in my next posting.
  3, I'm still quilting and managing our quilt guild's blog, twilightstitchers92.blogspot.com 
Here are three of the blocks I made for this years guild project. Each member has chosen a block pattern to share with the others and when the quilt is completed members will have a treasure to remember our quilting sisters by.

 4. I blog once a week on my other blog asweetsavor.blogspot.com
 5. I did get a chance to do a little hiking on a local trail, Great Bear Springs.

 In the coming days I will be back to posting on a regular basis, hopefully every week. It's all a matter of getting my priorities in proper order. I'll be back soon!

Too Much Humidity

The weather has been humid and rainy for the past two weeks. Yesterday morning half of my vegetable garden was under water and I told a friend I was considering launching a canoe to get to the squash. It wasn't quite that bad but it's hard to weed the garden in the mud.

However I was able to get near the perennials and here are some daylilies blooming in my garden today. (Please excuse the weeds.)

This is my all time favorite, a double lily.  A plant gift from my artist friend Eileen.

I've Been Treated!

I just had to share this with you. Last week at the Twilight Stitchers Quilt Guild, of which I'm a member, the outgoing president presented lovely purses she had made to her officers. For the other members of the guild she made little shoulder totes. We each got to pick which one we wanted out of the pile. This was the one I picked. It has a long strap to sling over your shoulder. Whooohooo! Love it!

This is the front that had a zippered pocket

This is the back that has an open pocket.

A Bit Of Wildlife

I just had to show you this. We live on 5+ acres in the country and quite often have visitors from the wild. I happened to look out the back window at the right time and saw this. Mom and her new baby!

 Such a little one. And full of energy!

Psuedo Stained Glass

I'm re-posting this from my other blog. Enjoy!

This week's project came about because I was pawing through my art supplies and came across a watercolor sampler set that I had been given many years ago and never used. The brand of the paint is Rotring. As I was reading the printed material that came with the set I discovered that they could be used on glass, ceramic, plastic or what-have-you.  Hmmm....the mind started up and began to whirl. I was thinking that I could purchase a piece of plexiglass...the kind that is already cut to size for a picture frame. However, since I'd rather use what I have since I'm on a kick to deplete my supplies, I found a small frame with glass in it to use. I removed the backing, broke the holding tabs off of the frame and cleaned the glass. I also attached screw eyes at the top and bottom of the frame.

 I then decided on a design to use as a template and drew it up on scrap paper. I placed the glass over the design and proceeded to paint the glass.

While the paint dried I strung up some glass beads and pearls to hang from the frame. Next I glued the glass into the frame and hung it in the window (using an old chain necklace to hang it with).

...Elohim will provide Himself a lamb... Genesis 22:8

Because the watercolor paint in this set is transparent it makes it perfect for the stained glass effect. There are other paints in the craft stores that would give the same effect. Check out alcohol inks. These work nicely on glass too.

A Change Of Pace

Sometimes you have to change what is emphasized in your creative endeavors and that is what I have been doing recently. Mind you, I still love quilting along with other crafts but it was time to re-prioritize what I put my creative efforts into...at least for the summer. And so I decided to take an online art journal workshop with Roxanne Evans Stout at http://rivergardenstudio.typepad.com/

This is the first page I completed from the workshop. Our teacher Roxanne suggested we work on our journals outside. That was precisely the nudge I needed to be motivated to act instead of just think about it. It feels so good to stretch my arty wings again.

And here is the inside of the back cover of my journal. All decorated with a rejected watercolor painting for the back ground and a decorated envelope to keep treasures in.

And lastly, here are a couple of pictures of the garden where I worked on my journal.

Red and white columbine portrayed on the first page of my nature journal.

Wild columbine

Whew! The Veggie Seeds Are In The Ground!

After dodging rain off and on for the last two weeks, I've finally finished the planting the veggie garden. Two varieties of peas, green, yellow was and kidney beans are in along with zucchini, summer squash, butternut squash, carrots (2 varieties) and beets. Also bell peppers, Amish paste tomatoes and Brandywine tomatoes.

You can see the garlic that was planted last Fall in the back row. The tomatoes are up front. I grew these tomatoes from seed and they sulked when I put them out every day to harden off. I bet you didn't know that tomatoes sulked. Well, these were like little children. No matter what the weather was like, warm, cold or rainy, these plants kept bending over pouting. But persistence is the key. The day after I planted them, it rained heavily and I thought 'Oh no, not good'. However, they took to the abuse and are looking better now. Perhaps I will even get some tomatoes this year.

The garlic is going to be awesome this year. Look how big and lush it is.

Next I turn to my 'fruit and herb' garden. I have strawberry plants, a raspberry bush, a gooseberry bush and two varieties of rhubarb. In the raised bed I have chives, oregano, sage, tarragon, silver thyme and lavender.

In the right bottom corner barely shows where the asparagus will be planted. You can tell how much rain we've had in the last 2 days because of the puddle in the corner.

This raised bed is 4 by 4 feet. Can you believe how big my chive plant with the purple blossoms is this year. Hope this means a bumper crop for my garden this summer.

What you don't see is most of the corner of this little garden that is yet unprepared for a raised bed of asparagus. That will go in next week if the rain stops long enough.

Sage ready to be hung and dried.

Too Nice Not To Share

My oldest daughter brought me a flower arraignment she made on Mother's Day. Isn't she a dear? I just have to share it with you.

A Garden Flag

I've been getting out in this wonderful sunshine to garden. It's been too long coming this year. To add to my garden I've made a new garden flag. I loved the old one but the dye on it was faded from last year. this is only the start of my flag making adventures. Who knows where it will take me. May be I'll become the flag queen. LOL