Sunny Drive

Our sunny drive included picking up Em from a 4H camp overnight.

We left her looking a tad nervous,

picked her up and she was hanging off the upper bunk exchanging emails with her bunkmates.

Passed a horse farm with young colts prancing. 

Visited a Hopewell Indian Mound.

(alongside a more modern cemetery)

It was a glorious sunny day!! :-)

Sample Squares

Last summer, I visited a quilt shop in Michigan. As we checked out the sisters who ran the shop gave me a wee pile of sample quilt squares from the Bar Harbor fabric line by Moda.

I have made a decorative quilted square after adding a few little squares from my own stash.

I plan to use the square at the center of my dining table and/or on the wall.

Eggs & Cake

I've got just the right amount of icing on this cake for my liking. It isn't so pretty but it is just so yummy.

The cake is a sponge cake and the butter icing is made with lemon zest and juice.

Strawberries on the side are a perfect compliment. :-) 

OK, the sponge cake with 4 egg whites. 

I have made this old family recipe quite a few times and this is the highest I have ever gotten this cake to rise.

Now, I know why.....

I've just found out that I beat the eggs for far too long.

I recently found a description of egg white preparation in a cookbook called

flour: Spectacular Recipes from Boston's Flour Bakery and Cafe by Joanne Chang.

(Very fun reading, so far, haven't baked from it yet) 

In the front chapter or so, it describes some basic baking techniques and this is where Ms. Chang gets into the nitty-gritty of egg whites.

Simply put, if they are beat too much, ahem, they lose the ability to expand any further while baking.

I had never paid much attention to the preparation of egg whites before. 

Now I will. :-) 

These are individual baking dishes with meatloaf for our supper.

I've been given four of them.

Polka Dots!!!!

Yeah!

Doll's Afghan

These granny squares have been an orphan project for soooo long. I couldn't decide how to join them up. I looked online and found about four different ways-at least-of joining granny squares and I tried each and was not happy. Especially about ripping each method back out!

I liked the idea of joining them with a crochet stitch but it ethier left a bumpy ridge or it skewed the squares and ended up looking crooked.

So, I mattress-stitched them together. :-)

The final size is 15 1/2" X 18 1/2", made of Palette Yarn from KnitPicks, C-hook. 

Meg helped me with the border. The red is just two times around, but the blue border is one normal row and one edging row. The pattern is on Meg's blog, right HERE. The result looks like ric-rac to me! :-)

Buds Forming

There are roses on the way.

I love how our plentiful rain hangs in little droplets along the rosy leaf edges.

Pretty Tape

Beautiful Cath Kidston paper tapes.

The floral one is my favorite.

Found HERE!!

I've used these already to mark a favorite page in my journal.

Folded over on one end then taped down on page creates a soft tab on the page's edge.

Granny Pennant

My brand-new granny pennant banner that Meg made me for Mother's Day. Isn't it BEAUTIFUL?

Meg's blog is but a click away HERE to see more of what she works on.

(hint--she loves to knit lovely socks!)

Amish Spring

We took a short trip today and visited an Amish community.

We visited a farm and got to ride in a buggy.

A short ride. :-) 

This is a beautiful farm, not a homestead anymore, but a working farm where we could visit. 

Older "Grandpa House" with Lye soap. 

I loved the stacked foundation stones on the barn. 

And inside the barn a new white-faced goat.

There were so many baby animals to see, kitties, piggies, bunnies, colts, kids, & calfs.

Little children running around the barn in bare feet, having fun.

With the threat of rain all day, we enjoyed a very sunny afternoon.

Ahhhhhh......

Keeping It Real

Look what is coming up near my garden gnomes....Jack in the Pulpit. The gnomes are from Germany, our neighbors there threw them out in the trash. There was a rule when you packed up to return to the states that required a very thorough cleaning of outdoor items. Every trace of dirt from every crevice had to be removed. Cars engines even had to be power-washed to remove dirt. This was to safeguard the US from possible contamination from organic material that might proliferate and harm our native flora/fauna. Needless to say it was a pain in the extreme to clean things so well. Our neighbors, upon inspection, didn't have time to clean these well enough, so they had to leave them behind--for lucky me. 

Now, to keep things real around here. Yesterday I posted a picture of a BEAUTIFUL foxglove that is blooming in our front bed. Well.....it came from Walmt. already in bloom, so it is a cheat on the season. Foxglove are not in bloom here yet. This is what most of the front bed looks like---plain dirt. :-) 

And yet, there is a very pretty rhody in bloom nearby. Pretty in pink!!

Gloves for a fox?

Spotted throats....

Another favorite flower.

The ever beautiful foxglove.

and lots of dirt. :-)

To Mom

Happy Mother's Day!

Royal Trip

Tomorrow's the big day!

This is the place--Westminster Abbey. We visited London back in 2004, a little too early for the Royal wedding, but a whirlwind, fun two days. We had been living in Germany for two years and we were so happy to hear English spoken--albeit in a funny accent. :-) 

These crowds at Buckingham Palace are here for a changing of the guards.

I'm thinking tea and cakes (apple juice and muffins) are in order for the early (4am) morning tomorrow. :-)

Redwork Project Bag

Another project bag. This time with a redworked girl with flowers. I found the pattern online, but I don't know where. Someone had uploaded an old neddlework book that had this image, a little boy as well as some other things. If you recognize this, please let me know. 

I started this back in January and got very sidetracked by the furniture painting which turned everything upside down and backwards. I didn't spot my sewing machine until just a week or so ago.

Royal Ring

You could say that some of us have the fever--the royal mania.

Em made this replica royal engagement ring last night.

She saw a TV commercial selling a replica ring and said "I can make one".

Ahhh, music to my ears!!  :-)

I found a velvet ring box for her and look how elegant it turned out.

Em wants to know if she can get up at 4am (here in the US) on Friday to see the wedding activities.

She will be joining me of course--I'm driving my family crazy watching all the coverage of the royals. :-)

Lovely Hutch and Stuff

I finally got my hutch painted and filled with many lovelies.

Dibs and dabs 

It was a lot of fun to get my fabric all out of storage boxes.

It seemed to take me a long time to get this room back together again.

A rainbow of colors.

Chocolate, It's Good For You!

Little chocolate felt bunny for Easter. 

These are mini-clothespins in the picture.

Click on the pattern and it should come up larger so you can print it out.

Have fun!!

Happy, Happy Easter!!

I Heart My Fence

Ta Da!

My new fence!!!

This is how it began two weeks ago.

Then we progressed to the pickets and the painting of each and every one.

And now, it needs seeds and plants. :-)

The Bleeding Heart plant is a gift from my sister.

She divided hers, so now I'll have one growing here next to the fence in the sun.

Tulips and Painting

I bought these tulips from a garden store when I just couldn't wait for spring, mumbling my mantra about Spring COMING. Well, spring has sprung, we have had a full bloom of crocus, forsythia, daffodils, and now tulips. I have been painting a ton in the last weeks. It started with painting of two big shelf/cupboard combos for my fabric and other stuff--not quite done. Then outside we have painted a few items. One was an old broken down garage shelf thing that was trash=picked. We scraped it down, added an upper shelf, painted it and voila, a garden bench.

Jeweled Steed

Isn't this old carousel cool!

It has been restored and is protected from the elements. This carousel was built in 1914 by the Mangels-Illions company and was once a part of the largest amusement park in the United States in the day. More pictures of this beautiful ride can be found HERE.

Pretty Posy

I potted up some pansies yesterday.

We had a lovely warm day and I enjoyed some knitting time on the front porch.

Has it Sprung??

A little color in our neck of the woods.

A Purse Fit for Royalty

Mousie is stepping out.

Little purse for mousie. The pattern came from the book "Knit Your Own Royal Wedding" by Fiona Goble. I am not prepared to knit an entire royal family as of yet, but I couldn't resist this book. Easily can be used to make simpler, less regal dolls.  With clothes!! :-)

Aren't you tempted???

Ribbons......

Organizing my ribbons......

I have tried different methods in the past. Most of the time they have been thrown into a clear plastic bin--quite messy and hard to sort through.

Once, I tried to mount the ribbon spools on metal rods attached to the wall. That won't work where I am now because I don't have the wall space.

This time around I am trying plastic bags organized by theme in a plastic bin. I took the time to remove all the cardboard spools and wrapped the ribbon with a clear rubberband or a strip of paper (taped closed).

I was unhappy to find that some ribbon had been slightly damaged by sticky tape holding it to the spool so I'm glad I got rid of the spools.

I thought about splitting the ribbon up in bags by color but I tried to think of how I look for ribbon for a project and decided that I usually look for a specific theme first.

Themes:

Floral,

 Geometric,

 Velvet,

 Lace,

 Grosgrain,

 Satin,

 Gingham,

 Dots,

 Stripes,

 Utility (such as bias tape),

 and Novelty

Ric Rac is in a jar all by itself

What ribbons do you hoard?? :-)