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. 

Singin'

Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of the 50's musical Singin' In The Rain, and it was being shown in select theaters across the country so you  could experience it on the big screen.  Over the years I've seen snippets of the famous Gene Kelly dance that goes with the title, and probably somewhere along the way saw the whole dance, but I can't say I'd ever seen the movie.  So I went.

What did I think of it?  I liked it.  Times were different back then, and its reflected in the movie.   There's an innocence about it that's nice to see.   The female dancers danced suggestively using mainly their shoulders as the primary body part other than their legs...meaning no gyrating torso movement.  There was laugh-out-loud comedy, thank you Donald O'Connor, and lots of singing and dancing.  I do have to say though the movie also reflects the era in that there were no ethnic performers.  Well, unless you count one scene depicting the white actors in blackface makeup.  I'm used to seeing the diversity of today's movies, and when one or two scenes scanned the audience, it was a sea of white faces.  Again, a sign of the times.

This one-day presentation was put on by Fathom Events.  Go to their website and check out what's on the schedule.  I'm looking forward to the 50th anniversary showing of The Birds in September.   Will it be as suspenseful and scary as it was back in the 60's?  I hope so!

I learned a bit this week

Since I disconnected my U-Verse because I thought it was messing up, only to discover my television still doing the same thing afterwards, I knew it was time for a new television.  Things have changed quite a bit since the last time I bought one, and I'm so impressed with the flat screens being light weight enough that I can handle it.   David came by this morning and got the old tv out of the house for me, and I took it from there.

When I started on this journey, I only knew of the term "plasma" tv.  As I talked to a few knowledgeable people, I learned that for my needs (i.e. very few bells and whistles, I just want to get local channels and watch some dvds and Netflix) the choices were plasma, LCD, and LED LCD.  Plasma would be good for fast moving action, like a lot of sports activities.  The LED LCD is the newest technology, and of course with that distinction comes a higher price tag.  I didn't want to spend an arm and leg on this, so LCD worked out fine for me.

I thought of the 40" or 42", but quickly learned that compared to a 32" I would be spending 75-100% more.  Since I had a 32" previously and it worked fine, I decided to stay with that size.  Granted, the screen is now rectangular rather than square, so the picture is a bit wider and not quite as tall as what I was used to.  Overall though, I think it will work just fine for me.

Here's what I got:

See that little black rectangle on the side?  That's the antenna.  Things have changed from the old rabbit ears.

After I assembled this (all by myself!), I've watched a bit of local tv and one movie this afternoon.  I think it will work out just fine.

I mentioned previously that I got some shredding done earlier this week.  This morning I shredded another couple of bags, and tossed some miscellaneous papers

Next week I'll start keeping Elise again for the school year.  She stayed here Wednesday while David played golf with his dad, and we both liked the feel of being back in our routine.  While she was here I was able to finish a little top that was already cut out.  I've got a bit of adjusting to do on the straps, but it came out cute.



So that's it for now.  Have a good weekend everyone.  :) 

I did it

I took the plunge, and called AT&T to disconnect my U-Verse.  I had a quiet weekend, and got quite a bit done....mainly I cleaned out part of a closet and shred several years of bank statements that were beyond the retention schedule.

After a couple of days I was in conversation with Nolene, and she reminded me that I could always get a converter box and be able to watch my local stations.  Dancing With The Stars!  And Elizabeth mentioned that if I had the Blue  Ray/DVD player, I'd be able to get Netflix streamed in as well, which would give me a lot of TV series and Elise's beloved cartoons.  So, after about two seconds of thought, I went to Walmart and got a converter and the Blue Ray/DVD player.

I figured I'd have to call David to come over and help me get it all together, but lo and behold, I managed to hook them up myself.   I won't say how long it took me, but I got it done.  So proud of myself.  This morning came along, and while watching a move I started experiencing the same problem that I had with U-Verse.  Sigh.  Turns out its my TV after all.  While I thought it would go completely out all at once, I guess its on it's way out and shows it by playing sporadically. 

So now my mission is to do a bit of research, and get another television.  I stopped at Best Buy tonite to get some basic information.  I should be able to just plug in a new tv, and with an antenna be able to get my local stations.  I told the guy I want to keep it simple.   There was one plasma that looks pretty decent, so I'll check it out on the computer and read a bit more about it.  It's about 43", and I need to decide if that's too big.  I just don't want an itty bitty one.  After all, I "need" something big enough to see those dance moves, right? 

Wish me luck.  In the meantime, the quiet house isn't bad at all.