Wishing, Hoping and Dreaming of Sewing.....

No sewing for me for such a long time and it may be a while yet before my time is my own. My time has been spent going to reunions, keeping up with the yard work, having company, company and more company. We have attended birthday parties for the granddaughters, kept them for a week and now this week I am keeping my grandsons.

One of the things that fascinated the little girls (ages nearly 8 and 9) were the tree frogs that have decided to come live on and around our house. Up until a few years ago we never saw such frogs anywhere around here. Last year I think we saw only 3 or 4 but this year their must have been a population explosion!

Here is a photo I took of one sitting on the brick of our house. To give you an idea of how big they are the light gray is the mortar between the bricks that is about 1/2" wide. This frog is kind of striped but we have seen green ones and tan ones and some that have been really light. We believe they can change color somewhat as we know one that looked tan/brown was green later when we were looking at it.

This one is sitting on the top of the porch light and is rather green in appearance. We counted up to 18 on one side of the house at a time about a month ago. There don't seem to be quite so many right now though.

The photo above shows 4 of them sitting on the downspout as it angles towards the house . Most of the time we only see them in the evening or at night. During the daytime they just disappear. We looked and looked for them and couldn't figure out where they went but one night just as it was getting dark I looked at the very top of the brick where the sofit joins it on the underside of the roof overhang and there I saw a whole row of the tiny frogs peeking out. There is just a small crack of space between the two and they must just back in. We have also found them squeezed between the downspout and the wall of the house and behind my welcome sign I have hung beside the back door.

They are really cute, fascinating and fun to watch. Most evenings there are one or two on any window where the room lights are on. The lights attract the bugs so it is a good place for the little frogs to have lunch.

They move very quickly too. They can run along the bricks or hop sideways and cover a lot of ground fast. You can see from the photos below that one is sitting on the edge of the window (photo taken from outside) and the other photo is of one of the little frogs taken from the inside of my sewing room as it sits on the window waiting for a bug to arrive for dinner.

John and I have been just as fascinated with them as the little kids. Last week as I was heading out of the house about 9 I had just entered our back hall way and one of the little frogs jumped (plopped) on the floor right in front of me. It scared the "pajeebas" out of me! You know "pajeebas" is really not a word but one I made up, but you get the idea.

After I let out a scream I realized what it was and tried to shoo it towards the door. It moved along pretty good until I got close to the door then it jumped on the wall, then the floor, then the hall tree and back and forth. I couldn't get it out as it moved so fast.

After I ran my errand to pick up John from the field and we got home the little frog was sitting right in front of the storm door waiting to get out. So glad as I wasn't sure how I was going to get it out of the house.

Happy Summertime,
Lynn

Flags and Fireworks

I want to wish Americans a Happy 4th of July where ever they are. We will be attending a picnic at relatives this evening then watching the fireworks that the town puts on. Will be enjoyable I am sure.

I made the quilt in the photo above in 1993 and I named it Flags and Fireworks. It is a small wall hanging, approximately 20" square. It was machine pieced using templates those many years ago and it is hand quilted.

The idea for the quilt came from this book - Quilts Galore by Diana McClun and Laura Nownes called "Triple Star / Sawtooth Star."

They used 12" blocks for the triple star and 6" blocks for the sawtooth star but I drafted the blocks in my Electric Quilt program to be 8" and 4". The setting is similar but different too. I liked the idea of the zig zag on the border so added one to mine too. I used fabric with small flags on it and fussy cut them so the would all be standing upright and centered in the areas where they were pieced.

I do want you to notice that the one small plaid fabric has faded pretty badly. I hung this for years in my house, not in direct light but indirect light but it still faded. The darker paisley fabric in the stars in the corners has faded a little but nothing like the plaid, but the good quality fabric I used in the outside border has not appeared to have faded at all.

Have been thinking of using a pigment marker and touching up the navy in the fabric since there is not a whole lot of it. Has anyone done that and how did it work?

I did get my house de-cluttered yesterday and got all the laundry done with the exception of one load of towels that are going now. It is a good feeling to be able to look around and not see a mess everywhere. I do want you to know I didn't work on dusting and vacuuming though, the rest of it took me the entire day. I got distracted a few times with other things too - sure don't want you to think I was that deep in clutter!

I sat down at the sewing machine for about a half an hour yesterday afternoon to do a little buttonhole stitching on my flower basket. Think a load of laundry got finished so that was the end of that for the day but it was a start and it felt good to sew.

Sitting here thinking about our 4th of July celebrations and wondered if any readers of my blog from other countries have country wide celebrations similar to our 4th of July and how you celebrate. Let me know as I am always interested in finding out about about the lifestyles of others who don't live where I do.

Lynn

Sitting Listening to the Quiet!

I met our daughter today in Grand Island and the granddaughters left for home with their mother after spending a week with us. We had a wonderful time and kept busy, which with a 9 yr. old and almost 8 yr. old it is just normal for them. While here we sewed, swam, bicycled, played with the farm cats, played in the tree house,watched Anne of Green Gables and the Sound of Music on Videos, put 2 jigsaw puzzles together....and on and on. Tonight I am just sitting with my feet up, watching a little TV and there are no little girls talking, giggling, or asking questions. The quiet is wonderful!

While they were here the farmer that owns the property just west of our yard harvested his wheat. The first photo shows the combine as it is coming toward the end of the field near our house. The second one shows the combine from the side as it passed by. The third photo shows the view I had of the whole process from the back porch of the house - get the same view from my sewing room too.

It is always nice to sit in my sewing room watching the crops grow and mature as the summer progresses. The problem with the wheat field being so close to the house is that the insects, mainly grasshoppers, moved from the wheat to my yard and garden once the wheat started ripening as they prefer green plants over dry ripe wheat. There were/are thousands and thousands of them in the small trees, lawn and garden. I did get some of them sprayed this week but need to do more or I will not have anything left to harvest by the end of the week. They are voracious eaters!

Tomorrow I plan to get the house back in shape and catch up on laundry. I want to get a chance to sew so hope I can fit that in as well.

Lynn

Where Has The Time Gone?

First it was computer problems (twice) then the family reunion, overnight guests and now the visit from the granddaughters. I met them in Grand Island last Thursday and of course we had to shop for birthday gifts before we could come home. S. had to get fabric for a pillow she is making for 4-H too. Was fun to see her walking around the store considering different fabrics before she made her selection. I had to drive the pickup that day as they wanted to bring their bicycles for the week too.

The girls have not woke up yet this morning so have a little quiet for a while anyway. S. has most of her 4-H pillow sewn now and both girls made little bags to hold their MP3 players and head phones. It has been fun to watch them choose the fabric they wanted to use on their bags. They had to look through all my fabrics before deciding on 2. As soon as they got done making the bag they got the player and head phones and stuffed them in and had to carry them around the rest of the day.

We have been busy - S has been working on her pillow, playing with some clay they bought, putting puzzles together (one was easy and we are still working on the other one), played computer, garage sales on Sat., helped clean parsonage for a new minister that arrives today (we took bicycles into to town and they and rode around town with a couple other kids from our church), had a party at daughter S. on Sat. night....as you see we have not had any spare time.

Today's agenda is to have S finish her pillow as much as we can - didn't buy a pillow form so she will have to do the hand stitching at home. The girls want to go swimming so will probably do that this afternoon. I let them stay up last night to finish watching the second Anne of Green Gables movie so it was 10:30 when they went to bed so don't expect them to wake up for at least an hour or more yet. They sure liked those movies and the story and so did I. I downloaded the Anne of Green Gables audio book from Libra Vox yesterday and will burn it to a CD for them to take home to listen to. I want to download one or two of the follow up books too if I have time.

You know, I didn't realize how much I enjoy quiet until it is quiet. The girls are always chatting, giggling, etc. so it has been pretty lively around here lately. They are so much fun to visit with and their views of a situation can be very different than ours. They keep us entertained for sure. They will be here until tomorrow or Thursday so only have a day or two left.

We have been invited to a distant cousin's for July 4th for a pot luck picnic and to watch the fireworks. Should be fun. We usually just stay home so this will be a nice change. We did see some of the fireworks our town had on Saturday night as we were driving home from S. We were probably over 20 miles away from town when we started seeing them. They always have a big display. We watched them all the way home and they just finished about the time we got here. Made the trip home a little faster as we were all looking for the next one to go off.

Quiet over for now - girls just got up. I hope this all makes sense as I have not had a good chance to read it over very well....oh well.

Lynn