New View

What a difference a day makes!  Actually, Beryl blew on out of here by early afternoon, and the sun came shining through.  This morning, the woods behind our house were beautiful in the sunlight.

I spent the morning with three hunky young men...not a bad thing! 

They were not able to get my windows installed yesterday due to the rain, but they were finished by lunchtime today.  I am so happy with the shiny new windows in our dining area of the kitchen!

After they left, I took Kasey for a walk on the greenway.  She had been very good through the whole installation, but kind of freaked out with the sounds of the nail gun.  She did not understand why I was letting these strangers knock out our windows.  We saw another deer from about ten feet away.  It's been a good day!

Memorial Day Mountain Trip

We took a very nice 5-day break from cleaning and packing up our house to go to the mountains with our son Bryson and his family.  My sister's family was up there, too, as well as her brother-in-law Ricky's family.  Lots of kids and dogs and fun.

When we left and for most of the trip up, there was a bad thunderstorm.  But when we started up the mountain, we were rewarded with beautiful sunset skies.

And that was it for rain for the rest of the weekend.  Beautiful sunny days!

Lots of time spent by the creek, in the creek, and riding through the creek!  That's my brother-in-law Kenny taking my Dad and some grandkids right through it on his Gator.

The big mud puddle at the flat part on top of the mountain was bigger than ever.  Our dog Kasey decided to stick her whole head under and get cool!

All the little boys got covered in mud when they played at the creek.  They found lots of salamanders and tadpoles.

We took lots of rides through the Christmas tree farms and caught a couple of nice sunsets from the top of the mountain.

I would love to try to paint those some day.

On the way home Monday, we saw a rainbow over I-85.  Very nice!

While we were up there, we had another meeting with our builders, and our plans for the mountain home are progressing.   We are getting excited to think of having such a nice place up there.

Today we are having a horribly gloomy day thanks to Tropical Depression  Beryl bringing us lots of rain.  I don't mind, since we were so lucky with the weather last weekend.  I just hope they will still be able to install my new kitchen windows as scheduled this afternoon.

How to Get Brown Spots Out of Textiles

Hello everyone, checking in today with not much quilty news.  I have been decluttering the house, making trips to the Goodwill to donate tons of stuff, and throwing out an amazing amount of things that I decided we could do without.  The Youngsville Public Library had a book sale last Saturday, and I donated twelve cartons of books!

I have weeded, and put out landscape fabric, and 35 huge bags of mulch.  You don't need to go to the gym on days when you work like that in the garden!

Charlie was working on the vast space under the house where we store things like extra folding tables and Christmas yard decorations.  I was horrified when he came up with a box containing his grandparents' linen and lace tablecloth.  It must have gotten stashed when the tables were put back after our last Christmas party.

It was really dirty, so first I soaked it and washed it in fine detergent.  It still had lots of brown water spots on it, which actually could have been there for sixty years or more, I guess. 

I remembered a tip I had used to get brown spots out of some antique quilts. 

In the US, there is a product called Efferdent for soaking dentures overnight.

Add four or five of the Efferdent tablets to a jar with about a pint of water.  Work the mixture into the brown spots with a washcloth and let soak.  Rub the spots and continue to work in more Efferdent.  I eventually made a less concentrated mixture and let the spots soak in the wet liquid.  Voila, no spots!  Soak and wash the tablecloth again to make sure the product is out of the fabric.

No pictures, so here is one of a young lady I spotted on the greenway this morning when I was walking the dog.  Do you see her standing frozen in the meadow, watching me watching her?

And here is the lovely cascade that tumbles over the large rocks on the creek.

 
Tomorrow we head to the mountains for a very long Memorial Day weekend.  I am really looking forward to it!

Artful Fibers

Recently I posted about one of my painted silk journals that was featured in a C&T Publishing Company ad on the inside cover of Cloth, Paper, Scissors Magazine.  I made that journal with some of the fibers in the new Artful Fibers package, now available from C&T.

I forgot that I would be receiving a package of the Artful Fibers from C&T as a thank-you for making the sample journal.  It arrived the other day.  Lots of white and off-white yummy fibers, ready to be dyed, painted, and used for something creative!

Silk rods, cocoons, roving, and fabric;  Includes Lutradur®, mul•tex™, fast2fuse®, Timtex®, Shape-Flex®,  bamboo batting; Spunbond fiber;  even a blank canvas book!

There is a pamphlet included in the package with project ideas.  I was happy to see another of my silk journals on one of the pages!

Sideways again...what is up with Blogger?

Everything was bundled in a canvas messenger bag that looks ready for embellishing.

Looking forward to more fun with fiber!

Mountain Update

When I signed off on my last post, we were in the mountains looking forward to the arrival of Dave, Emily, and grand-dog Roo.   Friday night Emily and I were in the kitchen cooking tacos when our other son Bryson, his fiance Melissa, and their three kids walked in!  You could have knocked me over!  It was a wonderful surprise for Mother's Day weekend to have my whole family!

The kids love to be in the mountains and run around in the meadows.  My nephew Jason and his family also came up, so we got to play with their daughters Lacy

and baby Holly.  Here she was sporting my baseball cap from Hawaii.

We all did some fishing in the pond.  Here is Avery, pretty happy that he caught a trout!

Love, love, love the flame azalea in the mountains.

On the way home, we stopped at my sister's house near Greensboro and picked up my dad.  He is staying with us for a few days.  I feel so lucky to be near my loving family.

Mountain Beauty

We are in the North Carolina mountains, soaking up as much natural beauty as we can!  The native "flame" azalea is in full bloom, lighting up as the rays of the sun find it in the hidden mountain glades.

We actually arrived here Wednesday night, driving up through a thunderstorm.  No more rain is expected until Sunday.  The mornings have been chilly, and the afternoons warm and sunny.  We had a wonderful ride across the mountain on our Gator yesterday.

Of course, our little dog Kasey is full of joy as she runs freely on the mountain trails and through the Christmas tree farms. 

Charlie got her a North Carolina State bandanna.  I'm not so sure she likes wearing it, but isn't this a happy looking dog?

In addition to the flame azalea, the wild native orchids known as lady's slippers are in bloom. 

 I was elated to discover one growing on the mountain trail about five years ago.  I had not seen one since my childhood in New York and New Jersey.  Later I discovered several growing on "the point" of land where our driveway forms a switchback.  I about went crazy yesterday when we were coming up the driveway on the Gator, and I spotted this large "colony" of lady slippers!

Yesterday we met with Riverside Log Homes in Sparta, North Carolina.  They are the company that built our little garage apartment.  We are ready to add on and build an adjoining house.  I got so excited as we went over the plans.  Now all we have to do is sell our house in Wake Forest.  We have been working hard to get it ready to list on the market.  Any one want to buy a five-bedroom home with mature landscaping on a very private lot?

Later today, our son Dave, daughter-in-law Emily, and grand-dog Roo are coming up to join us.  We are greatly looking forward to spending the rest of the weekend with them.

Pretty Contemporary Quilt

Just finished a very simple but lovely quilt for my new customer, Sara.  She had accumulated many modern fabrics in shades of yellow, green, and blue.  She took inspiration from some quilts from The Pottery Barn that were simple squares sewn randomly together.  I would call her colors analogous, as they are next to each other on the color wheel.  Aren't they refreshing!

I quilted in lots of leaves, flowers, and swirls.  The pale yellow thread blended so well that the quiting does not show very much.

I really love some of the fabrics in this quilt.

Charlie and I stayed home this weekend to tackle some more of the projects that must get done before we put our Wake Forest house on the market.  The hubs has gotten the worst of it, as he has been under the house cleaning out all the storage areas, as well as the garage. 

I have mostly been yanking weeds and putting down mulch around the garden beds.  Very exhausting, but it is starting to look very nice.  I have ordered all new windows to replace those in my kitchen dining nook.  I could never pop those windows out to clean them.  The new ones will be a big improvement, and I wish I could replace all the ones in the house!  They are not as expensive as I feared.

Need to go buy more mulch and yank a few more weeds.  I hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Some Quilts from the Whacky Ladies

Last night was the monthly meeting of my local quilt bee, The Whacky Ladies.

Show and Tell is always fun, and that was the case last night.

Carolyn made a tote bag from a Bali Pop bundle and used it on a trip to Texas last week for a high school reunion.

Carolyn also showed a Work in Progress, a Basket Lattice project.

Sharon is working on an interesting Mystery Quilt.  The setting is quite unusual, and Sharon is altering it a bit from the instructions.

Here is a detail from an art quilt by Janice Badger.  The flower is formed from a silk hanky.

Janice spotted a product of mine in a C&T Publishing advertisement on the inside cover of the latest Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine.  It is a painted silk journal that I made using products included in the Artful Fibers package from C&T.  How fun to be named in a magazine!  Sorry about the sideways image.  My journal is the magenta one with the pansy closure.

Here is a better picture of it.

Here is a baby quilt that Kathy Miller put together from some of my fabric squares at our January Sew-in meeting.  I quilted it, and it is now bound and ready to turn in to the Capital Quilters Guild.

Marilyn is also working on a quilt top to be given to a baby upon his Baptism at her church.

It has been a very hot week.  I have been going for early morning walks with Kasey on the greenway.  The aromas of honeysuckle and wild roses along the pathways are just intoxicating!

wild roses



honeysuckle

Merlefest Fun

We got back yesterday from a fun-filled mountain weekend.  We went to Merlefest all four days and listened to lots of great music.  We got to see and hear blind guitarist and singer Doc Watson perform twice, and at age 89 he still sounds great.  In this picture he is performing with Sam Bush.

One of our favorite groups, The Kruger Brothers, performed on both the large stage and the auditorium.  They are fine musicians and singers.

The  crowds were large and diverse.  By Saturday and Sunday, there were long lines for food and bathrooms.  Everyone still had a good time.

On Sunday, we took my sister, my father, and my sister's two little granddaughters to Merlefest.  The little girls were crowd favorites as they danced to the lively music.

We had a good time on Sunday evening and stayed over until Monday.  We got to go up on the mountain for a sunset ride.

The flame azalea is just starting to bloom in the clearings on the mountain top.

Our little great-niece, Holly, is starting to laugh and coo, and was so fun to play with.

Back to normal life today.  Got some quilting to do!