reminds me of Grandpa

As I mentioned earlier, my tv now only gets the local channels. Its gone really well, probably better than I expected.  Tonight however, I felt a bit of frustration that the local channels weren't airing the American League Wildcard game between the Texas Rangers and the Baltimore Orioles.  I happened to think about the radio, and found that it is indeed playing on the KESN 103.3 FM station.

I had to download an app so I could listen on my IPod, which didn't take but a few minutes. With it parked in the speaker, it's coming across loud and clear.  I find I like the play-by-play commentary, and also that I can move around the house and not be tied to a visual game.  I also find that Grandpa Johnson has been right here in the room with me this evening.  No, Grandpa and the Rangers weren't in the same era, but he was indeed a big baseball fan.  I remember many visits to Granny and Grandpa.  He had on his bib overalls, and was sitting in his recliner with the radio at his side.  At the time, I had a hard time seeing the appeal of listening to a game on the radio, but you know, I'm enjoying it tonite.  Since I went to The Ballpark last year, I have a nice mental image of the team on the field.

Hey Grandpa, want some popcorn?

mad monkey changes

Elise has several sock monkeys now, and enjoys playing with them.  She even got a new one for her birthday.  In the last week she decided one of them was mad, and it bothered her, so she asked GaGa Grams to fix him.

The eyebrows were her main concern.  They were pointy, along with his nose.

It didn't take long to make things right in her little world again.  Snip away the old stitches, and with her help on design, stitch on the new.   "I lub him so much!"

tying up loose ends

I've been trying to go through a few things in the sewing room, and it's an uphill battle.

I've had a plastic tub that held purchased patterns (in their little plastic sleeves), those printed off the internet, and odds and ends of little notes.  Its a nice little catch-all, but got so that I couldn't find what I wanted without pulling everything out and making another mess.  So I pulled everything out one more time.  Using a three ring binder, I've been able to corral the printouts and notes, and its nice to be able to thumb through the book for what I want to see.  For now the patterns in sleeves are back in the tub in a neater fashion, but that's subject to change as I progress.   And yes, I do have a lot of project instructions saved on the computer, but sometimes I just want to access them easier.

And you may remember I mentioned my printer not working like it should.  Well, I realized for the bit of printing that I do, Staples office supply store is my new friend at 10 cents a page.  Each page is on good quality paper, and I don't even have to think about ink running out.  I take in my little thumbdrive, along with a list of what I want printed, and its done.

In going through things in another part of the room, I came across the blocks from a swap that ithinksew (we all have our board names) hosted on the HGTV quilitng and sewing forum. This swap had to have been at least 5 years ago, so I thought it was time to do something with them.  I made a quick trip to a fabric store and got a yard for the sashing, and got started.

ithinksew made 2 blocks, and I also have blocks from solidgolddancer, quiltnanny, needprozac, byabasket, LisaP8, myjack, nr4crafts, and ball63. One block was the squares and triangles to make it, for us to assemble ourselves. At first as I was laying out the swapped blocks, I thought I was one short.  Then as I read the little note included, I saw her comment about finishing the one ourselves.  Its possible someone dropped out, but this worked out fine.

ithinksew gave us specific colors she wanted used in the quilt, such as apple green and purple, along with kind of a royal blue and deep red, all on a cream tone background.   Her last sentence in the little note mentioned that she would really love to see our finished quilts.  Sadly, ithinksew died almost a year ago.  I think she would have liked it.

While this ufo is not completed yet, I do feel better that it has progressed to this point from being a bunch of squares in a bag.  :)

Will I ever get my sewing room completely squared away?  Who knows.  I've already got another project going though.  Can't stifle my creativity when it decides to come visit!

Have a good week.

embroidery again

We know I like my redwork embroidery.  I came across The Wish Quilt by Red Brolly, and this is one of their free stitching designs.  I stitched it up, not knowing exactly what I'd do with it, but decided to make it into a wall hanging and donate it for a raffle for my TOPS group.

We can see I'm not perfect in my stitching, but it is cute if I do say so myself.  :)

I hope to see if my printer will cooperate enough to print off the other designs, if not I may have to make a shopping trip for a new one. 

A fellow blogger, Dave, posted some pictures on how he converted a scanner into a light box.  I knew he had done one awhile back, and asked about it, and he was kind enough to post about the process.  Sorry to say, the old printer I was scrapping wouldn't come apart easily enough to do this.  I bought a small light box the other day using a Hobby Lobby coupon, and it sure has made it easy to get pattern designs onto fabric for embroidery.  So far I've prepared another of the Santa shown above, and I'm sure the light box will see more use.

The Birds and other news

You might remember that last month I went to a Fathom event to see Singin' in the Rain.  This month they presented Alfred Hitchcock's thriller, The Birds.  Well, it was a thriller in the 60's.  I admit I was a bit hesitant about seeing the show because I had heard it was so scary back in the day, but I'd say there were quite a few laughs and just 2 or 3 "gasp" moments.

You see this lady's hair?  It pretty well stayed just like that all through the show, which covered about a 3-day period.  She drove a convertible along the coast, not a hair out of place.  She maneuvered a small boat across the open waters, and again, not a hair out of place.  Well, except for the one-bird attack on her hairline.  It did get a bit mussed up while the blood was being wiped away, but within minutes it was back to its original smoothness.  She wore it down overnight, but it was immediately back up for the rest of the show.

Since she was an unexpected overnight guest, she didn't have a change of clothes.  Poor thing.  But her suit didn't show a smudge until the end of the show...as well as her nylons had no runs and were not bagging around her ankles.  Completely unrealistic.

There were some stupid moments too. I suppose it was intended to add to the suspense, and put the characters in harm's way of the birds, but sheesh.  Still, those moments did add to the enjoyment, because everybody was laughing at them.

And as a sign of times changing, I found myself surprised to see so many people smoking throughout the movie.  In a restaurant.  Sitting on a bench killing time.  Sitting in the living room chatting. You sure won't see that happening now, and that's a good thing.

I enjoyed Jessica Tandy and Suzanne Pleshette.  But then, you can't go wrong with either one.

I see in their upcoming events are Lawrence of Arabia, To Kill a Mockingbird, and ET, as well as several operas.  I'm sure I'll be going again.

Moving on, I'll be doing the hand-sewing on the challenge quilt's binding tomorrow, and it will be finished.  There's a possibility the deadline may be extended two weeks.  At first I thought, aargh, but as I thought about it, I'd rather be in competition with as many people as possible.  If two weeks will allow some of those with more pressures and distractions than I have to complete their projects, so be it. 

I've also sewn a few potholders.  The brown one was made with scraps, and the other two were started last winter and just needed the binding.  Feels good to get a couple more little ufo's out of the way.  I also sent a quilt top to be quilted, one that I started a good 5 or 6 years ago.

 
And to close off, here's Elise with her birthday cake.  3 years old!  Her party will be Sunday, but I'm glad to see she got to have celebration on her actual birthday too.  

just bein' Grams

Lately my days have been filled with my favorite things...grandkids.  I think this is the best thing about retirement, that I can spend time with these wonderful little people.  (and here's an apology at the very beginning for the quality of the pictures...Elizabeth will be helping me see if I have my settings right to see if I can do better next time)

Recently I went to lunch with Robert and his family.  He wanted to try out a bbq place his co-workers had recommended because they have good queso.  Rhett loves his cheese sauce, so we found Bone Daddy's and went on in.  Now, their food was fine, but we didn't realize it was one of those places where the waitresses are in their little short shorts and form fitting tops.  Oh well, we laughed about it and had a good time.  They were certainly generous with their serving sizes.  When I saw the size of Robert and Angela's platters, I was really pleased I ordered off the kids menu.  My sandwich and fries were plenty.

After lunch, we headed over to Dave and Busters.  I'd not been there, but they have video games for the kids.  The kids were playing Ninja Fruit, where they swipe their fingers across the screen and slice watermelons, lemons, limes, and any other fruit that comes up.  I liked it myself, and ended up visiting the app store to get it on my phone and IPad.

I'm enjoying keeping Elise again since school has started up.  She's getting a little older now, so I've realized I need to step up and have more activities for her.  I got some Play Doh, and gathered together several things to use for shaping and molding.  We've played that a couple of times this week, and have gone to the library for story time.  I also got some dry erase markers and a book designed to be used with them, and a plain dry erase board.  We may expand to finger paints as well.  If I get brave enough.  :)  These pictures were actually on my camera, so they came out better...more in focus.

Yesterday was Grandparents Day at Rhett and Ashlynn's school, and I was able to join them for lunch, then we went to the library for a book fair.

I did good to get Ashlynn's picture.  Normally she's all for getting her picture taken, but this time she kept covering her face.  I got it though.  :)

And here we are together.

In other news, I'm still working on my Stash to Treasure quilt challenge.  The top is finished, and I'm working on the quilting now.  I know everyone is excited to see what it will look like.  Hold on, it won't be long till mid-October and I can show pictures.

That's it for now.  Have a good weekend.

sorry, can't talk about it

I finally get off my duff and get started on a project, only to say I can't talk about it.  Sigh.  Remember last year I participated in the Stash to Treasure challenge, and I might add I was fortunate enough to win the write-in vote award.  I signed up to be in it again, and have had the fabric at least 3 months.  Ideas have rolled around in my head, but they wouldn't gel.  I finally decided, what the heck, and I'm going with my original idea.  That's all I can say, but I think it will work out okay.  That is, if I keep busy and get it completely finished by my deadline at the end of September.

I got out the other night, or rather about 3:00 a.m., and got a picture of the blue moon.  Don't know about the blue, but it was really bright.  Part of that could be because I was coming out of a dark house, half asleep, and looking straight up at it.  Pretty sight though.   One of these days it will roll around again.

And since school's back in session, I'm back in my routine of keeping Elise 4 days a week.  She's growing up!  Three years old in just a few weeks.

That's it for now. Have a good week.