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

Family Reunion - Hanging By A Rope

Family Reunions equal fun times! My mother's family just had such a weekend. We met at Camp Comeca near Cozad, Nebraska from Friday evening until just after noon today. This camp has a hotel like facility so we were all very comfortable and got to enjoy some of the camp activities as well.

Quite a few of us tried out the Zip Line on Saturday morning. The zip line at the camp was a cable that was was attached to one side of the hill and stretched down and across then attached at the bottom. We got all harnessed up and helmeted then hooked up to the cable where we jumped off the platform. This zip line wasn't too high but still it was a little scary to jump off into space.

The photo below was taken from above the zip line of family members waiting for their turn and others watching the fun.

Saturday afternoon part of the group enjoyed canoeing and paddle boating. I stayed on shore as I didn't think I was up to paddling or peddling one of the boats. John, our daughter S and grandsons ventured out in a canoe. They had a great time but the 3 yr. old thought the canoe would tip over. He was right to be concerned as it did happen to one canoe.

Everyone had to wear life jackets which was good as one of my brothers, a sister and brother in law did tip their canoe over not too far out from the dock. They bobbed there for a while until the camp staff made it out to collect them. They just over compensated when they were trying to learn to steer and propel the canoe forward. They were all OK but very wet.

We also swam in the pool, played a baseball game with not too many rules and had meals together in the camp dining room. There was something for everyone to do and we had lots of catching up as well.

There were 4 sisters and 2 brothers in my mother's family. Of the 6 siblings and their spouses there are only 7 living now. They are scattered across the United States, two in Nebraska, one in North Carolina, two in Wisconsin, and two in Iowa. After my grandparents passed away the brothers and sisters decided to continue having family gatherings and we now have them every two years for all of them, their kids, grand kids, and now great grand kids too. We could have have had almost 115 and had a little less than half that number attend this year. The family has spread all across the country and everyone's schedule and circumstances dictate whether they can attend but all that did attend had a wonderful time. This year they came from Nebraska, Missouri, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Maryland, California, Wyoming and Colorado.

This year one of my uncles and his wife couldn't attend because of health issues but the siblings did get a chance to visit with him via the Internet. One of his daughters set up her computer and her sister had one set up at their home so they could visit - follow the blue arrow. They could see and hear each other on the computer screen and we all took our turn to say hi. (My mother is the one on the right.)

As you can see, no sewing the last few days and probably not much this week either. Our granddaughters are coming for a visit and I will help them sew. They enjoyed it last year and I am sure will enjoy it this year too.

Until Later,
Lynn

Computer Woes

I am so glad we don't have computer problems all the time as the last 3 weeks have not been fun. As I told you in my last post I had to take the computer to the "fix it guys" and it had to be totally erased and everything re-installed. I did think it was working OK for a while but by the end of the week I could tell it still wasn't right so took it back a week from when I brought it home.

Of course I had almost everything installed and back to how I wanted it. The "fix it guys" determined that they didn't do something right so erased it all again and re-installed it a second time. There went all my hard work!

We got it back Saturday evening and I have started over putting programs, doc. etc. back on. It is going a little faster this time since I remember what I did just last week though. I have yet to find the blocks I saved in EQ6 and the projects for EQ6 don't seem to be in that folder either. Have several back up discs and I need to go through them all again so see if I can find those files.

Wanted to tell you all about the Pony Express Re-Ride that John and our daughter S participated in. Each June the Pony Express riders take the mail from St. Joe, Missouri to Sacramento, California or the opposite direction. They alternate going from east to west each year. John is the trail captain for a 42 mile stretch and the group he has are all very reliable and show up each year.

Each rider will put the mochila on their saddle, ride a mile then exchange it, then the next rider goes a mile. They carry the mail 24 hours a day for the 10 day ride between St. Joe and Sacramento so sometimes or I should say most of the times John's group gets it in the middle of the night. This year however they got it at 3:00 pm so it was nice for them all to ride in the daylight. They had to have it at the end of their 42 mile stretch by 8 pm so had to keep moving.

This photo below I took as we passed this rider from our group. Thought it was cool to see him in motion. Some horses will gallop but others just do a trot or lope.

The next two photos are of John, on his horse Jesse. The first is where he is ready to ride and the second one is of him just starting off on his mile. Jesse has gotten way too fat lately, not sure why but think she got into some of the cow's mineral and it has molasses in it. She is no longer in that pen now as she needs to loose some weight - like humans a horse that is too heavy has more problems with it's legs, stamina, etc.

Most of his riders will ride two legs (1 mile each time) so the horses will get quite a workout. The riders buddy up so several will ride together and have their horses in one trailer. They all are good about knowing when it is that pickup and trailer of riders to take their turns at riding.

Next year is the 150 year anniversary of the original Pony Express so there will be lots of celebrations I am sure. As an added note the official Pony Express uniform while riding is a red shirt, brown vest, jeans and a hat if you can keep it on while riding. The riders get patches for some rides and special events which they put on their vests.

John's dad was the trail captain for over 30 years and when he died a few years ago the family gave memorial money to the Pony Express to have a mochila made in his honor sometime. This was the year. The mochila is a piece of leather that fits over the saddle and has 4 mail pouches stitched onto the 4 corners. This mochila has John's dads name tooled into the leather of the two back pouches and has his birth year and death year on them. It is quite an honor and all the riders were pleased to see it. This mochila will come back here to our area to stay after it makes the trip to California. A tradition for all the riders across the country is to sign the mochila each year so you can see who rode this year. They make a new one each year.

Have a family reunion this weekend then at the middle of next week have our granddaughters ages 9 and almost 8. The oldest is in 4-H this year and she is going to sew a pillow while she is here. We will have them for about a week so this grandma will be tired when they go home I am sure.

I have not had a chance to touch my sewing machine for about 3 weeks and am really getting withdrawal symptoms! Maybe soon I can get back at it.

Internet

I'm just testing to see if I can post a message. I took the computer to the "fix it" guys where they discovered a virus or something nasty so had to completely wipe everything off my computer and start over. I saved all the stuff on my documents (I hope). Today I am trying to re-install all my programs and it is slow going.

Not sure I can send anything here until I talk to our Internet provider tomorrow and get all the codes, etc. to make it work. Don't seem to get email yet, plus several other things are not working quite right yet.

Hopefully I will get everything working soon.

Lynn

Corner Flowers Fused

I finally got the flowers cut out and fused on the corners, so next comes all the buttonhole stitching around all of the flowers and leaves. Still not sure about the Lite Steam-A-Seam 2 since the paper still wanted to come off as I was cutting - am thinking from all the comments here and on the lists I posted the same question that maybe what I was using was old and getting dried out.

I won't be posting for a while as I have been having some computer problems and will be taking my computer to the computer geeks tomorrow. Tonight I am trying to save all my photos, files, etc. on CDs. I hope they don't have to wipe it clean but you never know so need to be prepared.

Gone from here for now...will post when I get the computer back, hopefully it will not be gone too long.

Lynn

Lite Steam-A-Seam 2

Thought I would clear up a few comments made here and on the list where I posed the same question about my Lite Steam-A-Seam 2 problems.

The directions on this fusible says to; 1) Trace applique design in reverse on paper liner and then remove second liner, 2)Stick Lite Steam-A-Seam 2 to wrong side of applique material, 3) Cut Lite Steam-A-Seam 2 and material together along traced lines, 4) Peel of remaining paper liner leaving the web on the fabric and stick applique to second material, 5) Press for 10-15 seconds for cotton fabric.

As you can see you are not supposed to use an iron for the first part as it is supposed to be tacky and stick. The fusible does stick to the fabric but the top paper liner with the drawn applique shape wants to slip off right away just leaving my applique fabric with the sticky fusible on it but no lines to use for cutting after the paper has come off. I am still mystified as to what to do.

I did go to the Warm & Company website and they had the same instructions. I did notice they have some fusible called Lite Steam-A-Seam and wonder how it is different than the one with the #2 behind it. Reading the web page didn't help as it pretty much said the same thing about both.

Still stumped,
Lynn

Fusible Web Problems

Help....Does anyone know what is happening to the "Lite Steam-A-Seam2" I have been using? This is the first time I have used it and am wondering if it is me or if something is wrong with this fusible.

My problem is this - I traced my shapes on the side of the paper that seemed to be stuck to the fusible, took off the back paper, placed the sticky side on my fabric and pressed it down with my fingers to make it stick. The problem comes when I try to cut out the applique shapes. The paper tries to slip off and I can't get an entire shape cut out without holding the paper on with my fingers. As you can imagine the paper slips so my cutting is not good, to be honest the appliques don't even look like they should and have sharp corners on supposedly smooth curves.

I am about ready to pull my hair out with this cutting. Am I using this product correctly, does it always act this way? (paper slipping off before cutting)

I have to go shopping one day this week and will look for something else if I can get some suggestions. It needs to be light weight and sewable.

In case you are wondering, I have been using and have used up some old, no longer available fusible I had or I would go back to it. I had bought a bolt of Aileens fusible before it was discontinued and it has lasted a long time.

Here's hoping someone can help. Am going to post the same question on an applique list I belong to as well. Will let you know what I find out from them too.

Lynn