We're on the Move!

A lot has happened in the past few weeks- enough to make my head spin!  After months of showing our house and getting no offers, we finally sold it in July.  And they want to move in ASAP!  We agreed to close on August 23.

We were in the mountains when we accepted the offer.  This time our son Bryson, wife Melissa, and the three older grandchildren were with us.  Lots of fun and some good times at the creek.  They are still having lots of heavy rain up there, so the creek is still kind of muddy, but we had a sunny afternoon.

We also bought a new John Deere Gator while we were there.  This one has a canopy roof and a lot more power than the other one.  Ours is the one in the middle.

When we got home we had to endure the house inspection, appraisal, and radon inspection.  We have to make some minor repairs, but the major problem was that our wooden window frames were getting soft in spots.  We had already contracted to replace them.  

Next was to find a place to live!  We want to rent a house in Raleigh that will be closer to my husband's office, to our son's family in Cary, and to our mountain cabin.  We have looked at a few places, fell in love with one, and have submitted our application for the lease.  We should hear in the next couple of days.

Meanwhile, we babysat for our grandbaby Charlie the weekend of the twenty-sixth.  She was an angel baby, sleeping all night and just being so cute.

 Before she got there, I spent some time making repairs on her father's baby quilt, which was the first quilt I ever made.  I used raw edge applique finished with zigzag stitching for some of the squares.  They were getting pretty frayed, so I just applied new shapes over the frayed ones and quilted right through all three layers with a blanket stitch to attach them.  It worked pretty well.  I also added some painted highlights with Tsukineko inks to brighten up some of the faded fabrics.

                                      

Frayed strawberry

New strawberry hull and painted berry

Frayed turtle shell made from my old kitchen curtains

Turtle with new shell

Anyway, the baby seemed to enjoy sitting on her Daddy's quilt both inside



and outside, where she did a little "reading"




and experimented with the feel of playing in the grass, protected by her babysitting dogs Kasey and Roo.

The Whacky Ladies Quilt Bee met last Thursday.  As always, there was some great Show-and-Tell.  

Marilyn got her quilt for the new grandbaby back from Donna, who quilted it for her.

Mary finished her batik squares scrappy quilt.

Mary also had a scrappy quilt that was finished.

Lori had quilted both of her charity quilts to be raffled for Multiple Sclerosis.  She quilted both with a panto.

Carolyn stole the show with her finished blocks from a class at Thimble Pleasures in Carrboro, NC.

That about catches me up.  I have been packing boxes downstairs and will start on the upstairs soon.  I dread packing up all my quilting, sewing, and painting supplies!