Time Flies

Tick, tock says the little old clock on the wall.  I wonder if time has flown by for this clock or if it drags a little sometimes?  

The Loose Threads – including myself - saw this great clock in Ruby’s Cafe in Ashby last week.  The clock hasn’t moved from the wall for years & years.  The bottom part has an ad for the local bank from years ago that rolled to a new message every few seconds.  Awesome!  And check out the retro sign below:

We Threads decided to start our day at Ruby’s for a bit of a bite of breakfast.  As a quilt group we are strangely all about the food.  :)  We were all terribly upset to learn that the homemade caramel rolls weren’t ready.  You sophisticated folk won’t understand this, you gotta be country – but the gal who was making the rolls used to be the person making those very same rolls at the Rothsay Truck Stop.  “Truck stop” doesn’t sound exactly like haute cuisine but I’m here to say that those rolls were famous for miles around.  People would get up dag-blame early on Sunday mornings just to get their hands on some rolls to take home.  Sometimes a person would be too late and was scared to go home empty handed.  I’ve heard.  I’m sorry if you never got a chance to enjoy one but I’m telling you it’s not too late – go to Ruby’s.  (unpaid advertisement- altho maybe if I show this to Ruby, I could get a free roll?)

OK, I’M SORRY!  I know I haven’t written.  I’m just like a kid at camp – I’ve been too busy enjoying summer to write.   Picture me laying on the grass under the old oak tree – just like Huck Finn - with knees bent and one leg crossed over the other while one foot swings up & down with the steady beat of an invisible metronome.   There’s a gentle breeze blowing while I’m reading “To Kill a Mockingbird” on my Kindle and sipping a cold lemonade with a handful of raspberries resting in it and condensation just dripping down the side.  It’s obviously 90 degrees and very humid (Minnesota), making it too hot for the flies to be serious about flying around annoying us – much.  Now & then I doze off until one of those flies works up the energy to fly over & tickle my nose.  My faithful dog is relaxing at my side, too hot to chase a stick and being almost perfect as always. 

I almost never stretch the truth so you can be sure that’s how it is. 

Now picture me in the garden, bent over at the waist until I say “Oh, my aching back” causing me to kneel on the ground until I say “Oh, my aching knees” - all the while sweat is dripping off my brow, down between “the girls”, gathering around the waistband of my too-tight pants and swatting mosquitoes.   (again, it’s Minnesota).  My faithful dog is running around chasing birds – STOP THAT – and taking a dip in the standing water in the ditch – STOP THAT - and tramping through my flowers – STOP THAT!!!  He’s being less than perfect as usual……….Go with whatever version of my story you prefer.

How much can I share today without you dozing off?  We’ll see.

L.T. (Loose Threads) met last week at CD’s house on the lake to sew & eat.  Yes, even after breakfast at Ruby’s.  We were to make miniature quilts for ourselves – assembly line fashion.  I told everyone the size of fabric to cut and how many to bring.  Time flew as we talked, laughed, talked, laughed, ate & sewed.  At the end of the day we had a “few” 4” blocks:

There were four 2” half-square triangles in each block.  Stay tuned as somebody should find time to put their blocks together.  Since I knew the plan, I made my quilt earlier with 2” blocks (four 1” half-squares):

 

You know I sew but am I good at it?  Not so much.  I may have gotten a little excited at finishing it up and forgot to notice if everything was going in the right direction.  Humility block. 

Altho, now that I think about it, I was also pretty excited while watching the Twin’s baseball game in which “my Joe”  got his 1,000th hit.  Now, if I had a prize I’d send it winging on it’s way to Donna in Texas who also happens to know about hit #1,000.    How did you know that & write to congratulate me?  I’ll be sure to pass that on to Joe.  Mr. Picket Fence & I were talking the other day – I’ll pause while you think about that --- but we’re just wondering if our  youngest son who is good at baseball, but not THAT good, could have been switched with Joe, thereby making him really “my Joe”.  The hospitals would have been about 200 miles apart  but still….it coulda happened I think.  And then the woman Joe calls “Mom” would be just a nobody and I’d hit the jackpot on Mother’s Day.  I love it!  Plus, think of the good seats we’d have at the ball games.  I suppose one might say I inhabit some sort of dream world, but it feels real to me.  I’m just sayin’.

Speaking of baseball, hubs and I ran into Dave Goltz the other day.  (He was honored a week or so ago as one of the 50 greatest Twins.  Way to go, Dave!!!  We so loved to watch him pitch back in the day.)  We had a nice visit and as we were walking away, I just had to slap myself upside my head.  WHY didn’t I tell him to say Hi to “my Joe”?????  AAAARRRGH!!!!!!!!  

Back to business.  A couple show & tells:

And this one has absolutely nothing to do with sewing – Jean does woodturning and this bowl is what she made with an ash burl:

Absolutely, positively beautiful!

Into every life a little rain must fall and if we’re lucky, after the rain we see the rainbow.  2 months shy of 2 years ago, my upper leg (femur) broke.  Now, after 3 surgeries and almost a month total of rehab, my wonderful surgeon in Minneapolis – who fixed the first surgical mess and who I believe is a surgical genius and really nice guy to boot– has told me that my bone has made a “solid” heal.    He was also the one who figured out why this bone broke and why my hip broke 5 years earlier.  I was taking Fosamax to PREVENT osteoporosis!  Yep.  An unnecessary drug which caused 2 broken bones.  Bones that just snapped without any trauma involved.  OK, that’s all I’m gonna say about that except that if you’re taking Fosamax, please speak to your Dr. about it.  Oh, and before you ask, I have normal bone density and I’m not yet 60.  Altho I won’t tell you how close I am……

A little of this and a little of that -

By my front door :

“The Sisterhood” gathered at Mrs. Farmhouse’s this summer.  I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag, but Karen doesn’t really live in a farm house.  She lives on the lake in a beautiful house with a “farmhouse feel”?  It has absolutely nothing whatsoever in common with the farmhouse I grew up in…….I’m just sayin’.

 

Karen has wonderful taste and there’s always things at her house that we wish were at our own homes.  In fact, GB told us to distract Karen so she could sneak off with this:

Just because it didn’t work out, doesn’t mean that we don’t admire your initiative Gail!

Karen asked us to bring along “a golden oldie” that we still like.  Here are some:

 

Karen’s Bulls-eye

 

 

 

  

Kari Carr’s (New Leaf Stitches) fairly new design

 

 

 

 

  Penny’s cross stitch.  Many hours in the awesome little piece of art.

 

 

 

 

If I recall correctly, I think this one belonged to Gail (the cabinet thief).  Hand embroidered blocks, each one different.  It was so pretty.

 

 

This is a new one made from flannel that looks like wool.  A hand embroidered design between all the blocks.  Very, very nice.  A real he-man quilt.

This star quilt (Buggy Barn I think) is one that LL is making for a wedding gift. 

This is an oldie from Neecie.  I recall her making it to use on the table for a daughter's graduation.  I’ve always loved that one too!

 

I’m pretty sure that this one belongs to Ms. Neecie too.  This one goes way back…..

 

My SIL and I spent a week driving to Colorado.  Her son (all 6’5” of him) is going to college there. 

It’s long way from home Mike BUT, you’re only 1 1/2 hrs. from my daughter’s family.  Of course we stopped to visit them for a few days.  Here’s my granddaughter Miss O, dressed as The Black Widow! Boo.o.o.

 

Sorry, Ms. O, you’re too cute to be scary!

 

 

 

 

Auntie Jean knit

this cap for

Miss O while we were on the road:

 

 

 

 

Am I right?  She’s the cutest, smartest, kindest to animals girl in the world.  Unless you have grandkids then they can be the best in the world!  OK?

Are you a member of the Prairie Women’s Sewing Circle?  Farmhouse Woolens and Dry Goods is hosting this monthly club.  We had our 1st “circle” 2 weeks ago – and what fun we had!  I’m trying to lead the group, but honestly, the ladies are being unreasonable about wanting to “follow”!  I’ve tried bribes – threats – pouting – nothing works with this group.  It doesn’t help that I know most of these gals pretty well and they know what a ditz I am in real life.  What’s a girl gonna do?  I am what I am.

This is the 1st project in the club – the little red quilt - and they will ALL come back next month with their finished project!  Right, girls?  This is how Karen displayed it in the store.

So Mrs. Farmhouse says, why don’t we throw in a couple of our own designs as extra projects for them?  Good idea Karen.  But she felt I should come up with the ideas.  Sheesh.

Idea #1 was in keeping with Prairie Women who had to be really, really careful not to lose their thimble.  We made thimble keepers that have a coneflower stitched on the front with a button for the flower center.  I told you that in case you couldn’t figure out what it is.

Idea #2 was to offer a pattern for a journal cover to fit a 3-ring binder.  It’s made of wool with a little prairie cloth for stitchin’.

And on the inside are pockets on both front and back covers.

I have a very good recipe I want to share.  But I think I’ll save it for next time.  That’ll motivate me to write – maybe.  So, that’s all for today.  What do you mean, “that’s ALL? -  either the woman disappears from the face of the earth or else she won’t SHUT UP!”    Sorry on both counts.  I vow to try to be more like my dog – almost perfect……….

Hugs to all from

Ms. Faye

Do YOU have a plan???

I plan to discuss the Wooly Girls “meeting”.  As I’ve told you before, I use the term “meeting” very, very loosely.  When people get together and talk, it’s a meeting, isn’t it?  Let’s go with that. 

We had a productive Wooly meeting yesterday.  We’re not always productive but we have made a resolution to become more so.  We sewed bindings yesterday for QOV.  Let me give you some background. 

QOV is Quilts of Valor.  It is a national organization committed to presenting our wounded soldiers with a quilt upon their return from war.   One of the 3 organizers of our local chapter is one of the Wooly Girls!  Miss Penny is our hero (as are non-Wooly Girls Ms. Gail and Ms. Paulette).  They meet once a month at the local mall where they have been given space to set up shop and leave their equipment all the time.    Ladies just drop in as they wish and can cut or sew or press or sew bindings – whatever.  But those 3 gals keep everything organized. 

Grab a Kleenex ‘cuz this will touch  you – one of our friends has a son who returned from the war and was given a quilt.  A short time later, our friend asked him where his quilt was.  Well, a soldier buddy of his had also returned and not yet received a quilt so he gave him his quilt “because, Mom, he needed it more than I do.”  This is the part where we all grabbed the Kleenex – we were all bawling like babies.  (He will be receiving another quilt!!!)

Continuing with the story – our local chapter of QOV as well as a neighboring town have been invited to take a bus  in May along with 400 of their finished quilts to Ft. Knox where they will have the opportunity to present some of those quilts to wounded soldiers on an individual basis.  Do you think there will be any dry eyes?  

So now you know the QOV story (condensed version) and now it should make sense to  you why we were sewing bindings yesterday at Wooly Girls.   We were able to finish up 3 quilt bindings.  In order to help the gals reach their goal of 400, we’ll be sewing at my house in 2 weeks for an all-day session.  I can’t wait.

A little show & tell to report – darn little really.  We (some of us anyway) are in a slump.  But Mrs. Farmhouse was working on a couple stitcheries that are just too dang cute!!

And our ever versatile Ms. Jean showed us a really darling sweater vest with a hood that she knit for a niece.  How cute is that?

Ms. Penny put us to shame with a quilt she made just because she wanted to.  Didn’t know we could make & keep!  Or, wait, maybe she’ll be giving it to me for some reason.  No??? 

This morning the trees in our yard looked like this: 

 

Once the sun came out, it was a great day.  We went over 20 degrees F. and you could just feel spring in the air.  I’m not kidding you southern people – it felt balmy.  It’ll be quite a while before spring actually arrives but at least we now have HOPE. 

Just had to throw in a shot of Mr. Baxter helping Mr. Picket Fence blow snow from the driveway.  He’s awfully good help – & I’m awfully glad to get them both  out of the house.

 

Now I’m going to tell you my “plan”.  The Mr. & I will pop over to Florida next Month to watch some spring training baseball games featuring “our” team, the Minnesota Twins.  In a previous blog, I told you about the (non)relationship I have with my favorite player on the Twins roster – Joe Mauer.  Here’s a picture of Joe’s reaction last summer when I waved my hanky and hello’d him.

What do you mean, you can’t see his reaction?  Well, you weren’t there and I saw what I saw.  Maybe it was, I saw what I wanted to see.  In any case, the stadium in Florida only seats 7,500.  Very intimate.  So I’m  hoping to resume my relationship with Joe.  I did mention to Mr. Picket Fence that maybe I have a couple too many years and a couple too many pounds on me to do a good job of attracting Joe’s attention or any of the other ball players.  How am I going to make this work, I asked him?  He solemnly replied, “get him drunk”.  Well, dang.  Why didn’t I   think of that?  Now I have a plan. 

Wish me luck.

Ms. Faye

Poetic License

Long, long ago in a land far, far away, lived a number of beautiful, intelligent and talented women.

You may want to take a moment for a reality check here.  This is after all my blog and I can say pretty much whatever I want and call it “Poetic License”.  I don’t think there are blog police out there evaluating the accuracy of my statements.  My own sainted Mother was not always accurate in assessing my truthfulness.  I leave it to you to decide where I’m invoking “Poetic License”.

Now, where was I?  Oh ya, blah, blah, beautiful women, blah, blah.  Also known as the Woolies.  This is not a quilt group altho all of us quilt.  This is not a garden group altho all of us have gardens (I’m sure you’ll soon have one Karen) nor is it even a woodworking group even tho we all have wood in our homes.  It did take us a while to determine a plausible excuse er, reason to be together.  Well, we all like wool so that was to be our common denominator.  Obviously then, we would be The Woolies.  We did draw up a lengthy list of rules & goals for the group.  The final rule was that we would have no rules.  This works very well for us as we are morally opposed to rules and goals & deadlines.  We did briefly consider naming our group the Dull Needles but we felt it might have a negative connotation and tend to lead us into depression thereby causing us to have no fun when we got together to do nothing.  I know you’re with me on this.

We met this month at the  home of yours truly.  Since it had been about a year since I’d cleaned my house, it did take many weeks of effort to be ready.  Thankfully, I have now done that little cleaning chore for this year.  Whew! 

September means back to school here in MN/ND land so that was my theme.  Do y’all remember the Fischer Price School Bus?  I found our old one and it was the centerpiece and that kinda got the ball rolling on this party.  First of all I wanted to make sure everyone knew they were at the right party so I made it easy for ‘em:

I realized of course that the set up of the scene was terribly wrong.  I quickly moved the Weebles from the FRONT of the bus to BEHIND the bus.  We don’t want anyone to think I’d intentionally run over the wee ones.  Goodness gracious.  Now, you might notice the little chalkboard – I made one for each of my guests that day.  JM actually USED hers to take a couple notes!  Way to go JM!

Whoa, back up the truck – that was NOT what JM was writing.  I wrote that.  She wrote other important stuff.

Keeping with the school theme, I served an apple cake with hot caramel sauce.  It is super easy to make and let me warn you that you’ll want seconds of this one…….

Fresh Apple Cake

4 C. chopped apples

2 eggs

2 C. sugar

2 tsp. cinnomon

2/3 C. oil

1/2 C. chopped nuts

2 C. flour

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking soda

Put apples in bowl & break eggs over them.  Stir.  Add sugar, oil, cinnamon & nuts.  Combine flour, salt & baking soda and add to mixture.  Stir well.  Bake in 9X13 pan at 350 for about 45 min.

There now, wasn’t that easy??

Caramel Sauce

1/2 C. sugar

1/2 C. brown sugar

1/2 C. butter

1/2 C. cream (half & half)

1 heaping Tbsp. flour

1 tsp. vanilla

Combine all ingredients, except vanilla.  Bring to a boil & cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until thickened, stirring as necessary.  Add vanilla.  Serve over cake.  Top with whipped cream.  If you want this to be a diet recipe, leave off the whipped cream.  Ya, like that’s going to help……….

Now hang with me here ‘cuz I’ve got some serious show & tell for you today:

A couple embroidery on linen projects by Jean plus a small stitchery she made and then made a frame for:

This cutie is Jean’s too:

Ms. JM has finished her wool garden.  It is so awesome!

And this adorable mini – those little blocks are 2 1/2”.  Too cute for words.

And this little stitchery she’s working on:

Now here’s our favorite machine quilter girl with all kinds of wonderful goodies:

 

Penny, did I ever tell you how much I  LOVE RED QUILTS?  It would look so great in my home.  Hint.

Criminy, I almost forgot Ms. D’s show & tell:

I know, it looks like I’m hurting the little darling, but I assure you she was very happy.  There was a set of 2, but I didn’t get a picture of her other granddaughter.

One more thing.  On my last post, something happened to son #2 and his body was removed.  You can’t really tell from just seeing his arm how handsome he really is so I’m giving you all one more chance to be amazed & astounded at the perfectness of son #2.

You’ll have to refer back to my last post to get a gander at son #1.  He doesn’t usually wear a beard but has just returned from a fishing & camping  trip in the boundary waters.

You’ll be happy to know that I’ll talk about our daughter & granddaughter – the Divine Miss O – another time.

OK, that’s it.  I’m done.  This post got really, really long so I don’t expect anyone to read the whole thing.  But the pictures are good.  Probably.

Ms. Faye