Summer at the Levee

Saturday found me going to Barnes and Noble - more about that later - , which just happens to be at Newport on the Levee. I'd been to the Levee every few weeks during the winter, but I'd forgotten how it seems like a small community during the summer.

Notice the concentration of the two little ones as they watch the balloon guy on stilts,

and the crowd,

and the drums and belly dancer,

and the musicians under the tent,

and, of course, the river.

How fun that people like to visit my town during the summer.

Now for a couple of projects. I made this spa bag from Bags, Pillows, and Pincushions. It has four outside pockets and a lining that's primarily yellow.

And I just made this huge pile of ruffles with my new ruffler. Very easy.

When I was a young teen, my mother ordered a ruffler for her Singer from the sewing machine shop. The idea was that when it was delivered, with delivery person would show my mom how to use it. As it happened, when the ruffler came, my mother was back in the woods picking berries and it would have taken me at least half an hour to get her. The guy who brought it said he couldn't wait for half an hour.

My mother was really upset at me for not telling me he had to wait, and I felt I had to rescue the situation (yeah, I'm the oldest child, did you guess?) I told her I'd figure it out and teach her. Which I did, but I remember it being really complicated.

So the voice in my head said, "learning to use this ruffler is going to be really hard, it's going to take you a long time," etc. The voice was wrong, though. And now I have a big pile of ruffles for my quilt.