Trick Or Treat

Sweet little Trick-Or-Treat Bag from Anita Goodesign In the Hoop Halloween.  4" x 5" x 2".  Next week I'm planning to make the Halloween Wall Hanging from the same design collection.

Tomorrow is the last Reds home game and I have my ticket printed and ready.  They may set a club record tonight for the most losses in a row, but I'm still looking forward to the game tomorrow.

Number Ten

Thanks to Connie H. for the flannel and pattern from Villa Rose Designs to make this tenth NICU baby quilt for the year.  I adapted the pattern - it shows more piecing on the left side.  I needed a smaller quilt.  There is another block of light patterned fabric at the top but it was hanging over the couch.  

And, a pieced back.  I wasn't sure how my usual tight quilting would look with the flannel, but there is more texture than with smooth cotton.  I did prewash the flannel to get some of the shrinkage out.  I thought about washing it after quilting to see how much difference that would make, but I know they will wash it again at the hospital so I didn't.

I used Best Press on the flannel before I cut it out to give it a little stability for cutting nicely.  I love that stuff.

More Hendersonville Snippets

Snippets part two.  Above is a rose from the garden Sarah was watering.  The fragrance was amazing, and I can't smell that well.  I'm guessing that it was an heirloom rose.

It was fun to try out the kayaks and the paddle boat that Winnie and Sarah have purchased.  I had never done either before and they were a treat.

Above are a couple of flights from The Wedge brewery in Asheville.  

And here is Winnie checking out the chickens at The Wedge.  I guess they live there, at least during warm weather when there are peanuts to be had.

Snippets from Hendersonville

Steph, Bridget, Helen, and I went to Hendersonville, North Carolina, to visit Winnie, Sarah, and Walt.  Here are today's snippets. 

Since this has been a camping weekend in other years, I made this campfire cake above inspired by a picture in Country Living.  If you try it, use hard candies (like the magazine suggests) instead of gummy ones for the flames.  These were the right colors but soon wilted.

There might have been some deck partying with lovely candles and lights.

I went with Sarah to Asheville one morning when she watered some plants for a friend.  I checked out the HGTV Urban Oasis house in West Asheville.  I hope I win it.  Oh, and Sarah and I had breakfast at Biscuit Head.  Their butters and jams are wonderfully yummy.

Before coming home on Sunday we stopped at Discount Shoes in Asheville.  There are SO many pairs of shoes there, but only Winnie's dad found a pair.

On the Design Wall

From my design wall.  I have this dream that during Thanksgiving week I can give some folks their holiday-themed Christmas gifts.  It's a nice dream.

My go-to machine is in for service and I'm sewing with the machine I usually use for embroidery.  It's a wonderful sewing machine, it's usually just set up for embroidery so I use the other machine.  I have heard that if you have a sewing-embroidery combination, it's important to use it for sewing as well as embroidery.  I don't know whether that is true.

There is a new Viking machine coming out soon.  It's embroidery computer screen is much like a tablet, you can pinch and expand with your fingers to make designs larger or smaller.  Pretty darn nice.  And, you can synch the machine with your iPhone to keep track of how long until the next thread change.  Of course, there are other new goodies too, but those are the ones that strikes my fancy today.  I don't think they've yet incorporated my wish, which is for a digital clock in the corner, like on a Windows screen.  Sometimes I just want to sew until the last possible minute.  

Games With Balls

It was so hot on Sunday, which is why Aaron's cheeks are bright pink.  Still, we wandered around Kings Island (so did Nora, but she was with someone else and we didn't see her), rode a few rides, decided to not ride a few other rides, ate some Aunt Annie's pretzel sticks, sat by the fountains and drank some Sprite.  

What Aaron really wanted was to clock his pitching, but no one seemed to know where that booth was this year or if it even was there this year.  Probably not  So, he pitched baseballs at cats, played a basketball game, and threw a wiffle ball into the right cup.  It was a good day.

I told him that next time he goes, there will be a sign saying "Aaron can't play any games, he is too good."  He thought that was pretty funny. 

Yesterday was his birthday.  I got him a dodge ball as a pre-party gift, the party is Saturday.  When I left, he and Nora and a friend were using it as a giant baseball for bunting practice.  In the house.  Any game with a ball makes them happy.

Dream Come True

Friday night it started to thunder, lightning, rain, and hail just as we were heading for the Reds ballpark.  We stayed in the parking garage for awhile, there was some throwing with a tennis ball, and eventually the game was postponed until Saturday night.

Saturday night was a great night for a ball game, then around the third inning there was a repeat of the night before without the hail.  We spent some time in the councourse and the kids practiced their throwing in the bathroom, which was deserted since most folks had either not come or had opted to not wait during the long rain delay.

The people who were left moved down to the field seats under the awning when the game resumed despite a few sprinkles.  The kids made a couple of trips to bat in the fan zone, where Nora impressed the boys with her home run.  

And then, the dream come true, we moved down to the front row, behind first base.  The last innings were memory-making for those sporty kids, and their parents and Gran B too.  On the way out, Aaron stopped and studied the dugout, just took it all in, probably thinking about what it must be like to be part of all that.

The bottom picture is in front of the stadium on the way out.

Beginning of the Weekend

It's Friday night, the beginning of the holiday weekend.  In a perfect world, I'd be sitting at the ball park, drinking a draft beer, enjoying the game and looking forward to fireworks at the end with a Grateful Dead soundtrack.

In my imperfect but still quite good world I'm sitting at home, listening to the thunder and thinking that I need to push the leaves off my driveway drain.  Game postponed until tomorrow night.  This isn't a bad thing because I would hate starting the game then having various rain delays.  And now I don't have to water tomorrow, because I've pushed not watering as far as I can.

My beer is a Christian Moerlein Strawberry Pig Cream Ale.  A straggler in my refrigerator.  On the back of the can it says that this beer "pairs particularly well with people, parties, and the thaw of spring."  It needed to be drunk, it's been there for awhile.  Tough job, but someone has to do it.  

Those Little Things

Sometimes it's those little things that make me the happiest.  Like putting blacktop sealer on my driveway yesterday.  I needed help at Lowe's putting the can in my cart and help again loading it into my car.  But, I was so happy to be able to do the job once I got home.  I felt competent.

I got a different kind of sealer than I'd used before, kind of a gel.  It says on the can that it should last ten years but I'll be ever so happy if it lasts five years.  It looks terrific.  So black.

So, why now?  This is a hot week and we won't be having too many more of those.  It was time.  The leaves in the picture above are turning red.  That's a sign.