He's 10 YEARS old!

Our oldest grandson turns 10 today.

He is spending the day with us.

These pictures were taken Sunday at his bowling party.

His mom made the cake. She is so talented.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY "B"

Some days you just have to play!

No quilting today. No canning today. No cleaning the house today.

The grands needed playmates so the blacksmith and I headed to the Osage river. After all it was 94 degrees out!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

There were three sisters whose Mother embroidered 6 quilt blocks for them. All 18 blocks were done in the same blue threads. None of the sisters sew or quilt. The oldest sister asked if I would make hers into a quilt. I said yes, but I won't quilt it. I will set it together for you. You get it quilted and then I will bind it.

This is what sister R's looked like. She had it machine quilted and it turned out beautiful. The quilter took the time to enhance the pattern, going around small pieces. The blocks and the pattern really stood out.

Sister M found out that I made R's into a quilt and asked me if I would piece one for her. Again I gave the same spiel. She too took it to the same quilter and it turned out beautiful. There was nice detailing going around all the points.

Sister M then saw the other two and asked me to set hers together too. What a challenge it was in our small town, with only 3 fabric stores to choose from, to find different blues all in the same shade. But I persevered and it all worked out good. I spent a little more time on this one, piecing the borders, which meant a lot more cutting of the fabrics. These blues had a little metallic threads in them and the fabric was just beautiful. The same quilter did this one.

Now I have nothing against machine quilting. I even used the same quilter several times and I know machine quilting can be just as beautiful as hand, maybe even more so.

And then it came back to me for binding and this is what I saw.

Glad I am not the beholder.

I'm seeing RED . . .

and WHITE.

You see Karen at Sew many Ways had a red and white fabric swap. I sent in 125 - 5 inch squares and in exchange I got 125 different 5 inch squares!

I opened this package last night after our marathon canning fest and I was so tickled.

I played with every pieces. I grouped them, I regrouped them and then I started allover regrouping them again.

My mind is a whirl on how to set them together. For some reason blue and white vintage fabric keeps popping into my head. Then I think solid red.  I sometimes see solid white. How about all polka dots?  Maybe strips. I then fall back to the vintage blue and white.

As for as a pattern to use, I'm open to any suggestions.

In this group I love the leaf fabric, it has a white square just big enough to embroidery something on it. Something like thanks to Karen I got these awesome fabrics.

I spy puppy dog prints.

I spy birds.

Something here reminds me of candy canes.

Elephants and lady bugs in the same group!

Peppermint twist and horseshoes?

Strawberries!

I love the simplicity of some of these.

Paisley!!

Karen even included a gift. You do the math, there were 125 who participated. She made a lot of flowered Tee's.

And the bonus was a bag of selvages. I'm not sure how many of us won a bag, but I know I was sure glad to get one. Now I need to check out one of the selvage quilt books. Here's a neat selvage blog that always has a great show and tell.

Thank you Karen for all your hard work!

Okay so this day didn't go as planned EITHER

I was up by 8 o'clock, peaches had to be canned. I fed the dog, and made the coffee.

The blacksmith made us breakfast of sausage and scrambled egg burritos while I peeled peaches.

As I finished up the first kettle of peaches in medium syrup, I ladled them into 12 pint jars. About this time the blacksmith got an important business call. He is usally my carrier.

I thought I can carry these jars to the garage. Yes we can in our garage to keep the heat out of the house. He already had the two pots heating up.

I opened the door ahead of time, knowing the tray would be heavy.

I made it fine walking through the kitchen, and the mud room, I stepped down into the garage . . .

and then this HAPPENED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I screamed!

The blacksmith hung up the phone and came to see what was wrong, with my hands over my face he grabbed me. I wasn't hurt, only my feelings. He salvaged 3 pints.

There was no use crying over spilled milk peaches. I went for the scoop shovel and a bucket.

And so our day continued.

Back to peeling more peaches. I canned 10 more pints.
I made 3 half pint jars of peach syrup and canned 7 pints of peach salsa.


After that we canned 8 pints of pinto beans. Thank you Judy for the recipe.

We stopped about 3 for brunch, or lupper as it turned out to be. I made BLT's and the blacksmith cleaned some corn on the cob.

After fueling up, the blacksmith worked up all the tomatoes to make salsa, as I chopped the onions, peppers and garlic. We ended up with 10 jars of yummy salsa.

By 7:15 the dishes were done. We were exhausted. But darn we make a good team.

 

And now we are enjoying some warm banana bread and a POT of coffee.

Lesson learned, don't cry over spilled milk. . . .  life goes on.


102 degree was the high today.

This is what I had planned for my day

I was up at 7:30 (Okay so I'm a late sleeper). The 3 grands were arriving about 8:10. At 7:45 the phone rings, it's my favorite BIL (the one that's like my little brother). He says "What time does the retiree blacksmith get up to pick corn?" I  said "soon". So as soon as I hung up I woke hubby up and told him "time to pick the corn" (If only it was time to make the donuts I would have been happier.)

Grand kids came and I start frying bacon and making corn cakes for them. Just as it was time to eat, the blacksmith came home, they had picked 3 rows of corn. After his 2 bigger than bushel baskets were overflowing, they threw more in the back of his jeep.

After breakfast, this is what I really wanted to work on, 3/4 of a bushel of peaches to can, freeze and make peach salsa.

Or I wanted to show you the finished mattress pad, that I tied using my SIL quilt frame.

Or I wanted to talk about this quilt top

Instead this is what we did. We hired child labor.

Even the smallest of them was a big help. We shucked corn, lots of corn.

We ended up with 27 QUARTS of cut off corn.

We did take a break and went for a dip to cool off. After all it hit triple digits here today!

Here are half of the empty cobs.

After cooking the corn, you cool it down in ice water.

We took breaks for lunch, swimming, ice cream and blackberries, and lots of gatorade. The 3 grands went home about 5. The blacksmith and I continued to work up the corn until after 7:30.

And so once again tomorrow I hope to work up the peaches. Maybe even get my make up on and my hair washed!

Baby it's gonna be HOT outside

It's Mizzourery, hot, hot, hot.

They are predicting heat index of 108, and temperatures in the triple digits.

So just how do you stay cool? 

Are we geeks or what? 

 Funny thing, the lady behind the camera also has her own computer.

KEEP COOL!!

9:15 am
84 degrees
58% humidity

St Stanislaus Quilts

Here are the quilts that were sold at St Stanislaus church on Sunday.  I didn't stay for the auction. It was just too blasted hot in Missouri, with temperatures about 98, with 35% humidity!

99 bottles of beer on the wall, 98 bottles of beer on the wall,

97 bottles of beer on the wall, 97 bottles of beer.
Take one down and pass it around, 96 bottles of beer on the wall.


96 bottles of beer on the wall, 96 bottles of beer.
Take one down and pass it around, 95 bottles of beer on the wall.


95 bottles of beer on the wall, 95 bottles of beer.
Take one down and pass it around, 94 bottles of beer on the wall.


94 bottles of beer on the wall, 94 bottles of beer.
Take one down and pass it around, 93 bottles of beer on the wall.


93 bottles of beer on the wall, 93 bottles of beer.
Take one down and pass it around, 92 bottles of beer on the wall.

 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .




Okay so it's not beer . . .

It's BLACKBERRY JELLY! 

Good luck getting that song out of your head now! And you can stop at 38, cause that's all we've made so far!