Within the span of last Saturday to this Saturday, emotions have run the gamete. The family gathering last Saturday at cousin Dan’s was just the best for giggles, laughter, sharing of good stories and good times. Today, I have just finished contacting all family members I can think of as my sister Elvera passed away this morning. Elvera was the oldest of us cousins on both the Riebe side (my Mother’s) and the Wendlandt (my Father’s). At age 78 her death was totally unexpected. My sister could love as fierce as she could fight. She will be missed. Eventually the hole that she has left with so many of us will be filled with wonderful memories. She is home and at peace.
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Noreen
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Noreen
It is very hard to stay in God’s Waiting Room. I do believe with all that is within, it puts us in a place where reflections of times gone by make sense. I am keeping myself occupied with an item in my sewing studio, so I don’t think too much. What I do know is that His will, will be done.
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Noreen
Rainy Day Business
When I did take a peek this morning, I saw and then I heard the rain. I did decide to sleep in a bit longer. Here we are at four in the afternoon and it is thundering and . . . still raining.
Any and every color or print that can be imagined.
Not all projects out of my sewing studio are fussy. Just plain old comfort blankets can come in very handy. The plan was for straight stitching two and a half inch square over the top of this scrappy pieced quilt. Trying out a fairly simple attachment allowed for very tidy looking squares and it went quite quickly. My next plan is to use the embroidery hoop and put some fall leaves on the borders. I can tell you that this evening after supper, I will be hecking out some YouTube videos to find the best method. I have free lessons at Bird Island Bernina any time I want. It is so much easier to pull up a video; watch it, back it up, watch it again until I feel comfortable. It is very assuring that both Al and Karen are just a phone call away if something comes up on the display that looks like a bit more than I can understand; “Error 1010, machine is out of sync. Please restart your machine.” After several tries, Al can talk you through most items.
Right now I have an aunt that has made all the “high utility” quilts that her family may need. Lorraine is now making quilts that I can only classify as heirloom. The piecing is intricate and when I say I don’t do fussy, her pieces make one sixteenth of an inch look sloppy. I admire them and know that the time involved in them is extreme. I also know human nature. Perhaps those beauties will be used in a bedroom that is aired out once a year, or the recipient has no comprehension of quilt care and will see the laundry often. The third option . . . being stored because they were “too good” to use.
Dennis gave the stitching on the back of this fall looking scrappy quilt the “O.K.”.
To date, I have made no finished quilt that cannot take day in and day out use and be laundered. The secret to laundering them is to use a commercial size for the adequate whish, whish with a reasonable amount, and opting for less than more, of laundry soap. Using enough drier time to leave the quilt a bit damp and then hung over furniture or a clothesline. Leaving them very wet over a clothesline puts too much stress on the seams. As my Mom taught me; hang them over an expanse of two or three clotheslines or tenting them over the kitchen chairs. It never hurt us kids to have our lunch on the house steps if the chairs were otherwise occupied.
When I think of the poor quality of the feed sacks that were used in so many quilts that are still out there and being used today, I know the quilt store fabric used in quilts will be around long enough to get them to the Antique Road Shows in the future.
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Noreen
Not all habits that cause a few eye rolls are picked up by grandchildren from the grandparents. Once granddaughter Megan learned to talk there were very few breaks other than to catch a breath when she was about two or three. During that break, her mom and dad would allow her to know that “It’s okay, we got it.” Megan would point her finger and “Just one more thing.”
I did pick that up from Megan and, as Dennis is hearing me out and about to begin the eye roll, my finger comes out and yes . . . “Just one more thing.”
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Noreen
Check! My six month eye checkup has been taken care of. Both lenses need to be adjusted. It has been two years since the last change. No signs of cataracts. Yippee! It was hard to take that each lens was $210. Seriously, I would be hard pressed to really make it about the cost other than mentioning it. In the recent past, I have been visiting the library on a regular basis. It took several years after I had retired that reading interested me. There were way too many governmental bulletins to keep abreast of. Surprisingly, working with the embroidery aspect of my sewing is easier on the eyes than piecing fabrics for those just perfect seams to match. No matter what . . . my eyes are very precious to me.
The skies are dark today at 5:30 and the cats and kittens must feel the cooler temps as they are staying close to the porch keeping an eye on their baskets. Changing seasons is respected by all of God’s creatures.
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Noreen
Today was a day for a good old fashioned headache. I am working on a new embroidery project. Not all images that you anticipate would work can be found on one website. My all time favorite site pulls my images right into the Bernina ARTlink 7 site and then onto the USB stick. The ARTlink 7 program allows me to make the images larger or smaller and automatically adjusts the number of stitches up or down for the image to embroider to its best capacity. The alternative site downloaded as zip files that were then moved onto the USB. I also discovered the second site does not allow their images to be altered. Bummer.
I now have a sufficient number of images that I need. I did print out the colors of thread that each image needs and I will pull from what closely matches the threads I have on hand; check that off the list. This was also a bummer. Those images via ARTlink automatically allow me to know the color number of the thread I need as the machine goes through the various steps of thread changes. Yippee!
I went into my fabric store in my sewing studio and pulled the fabrics I will be embroidering on. Nothing will need to be purchased. After spending the majority of the day getting this project laid out in my mind, on the USB stick that is now loaded for the project and having the fabric laid out, my gray matter is kaput. Actually, that is a good thing. If I had a lot of “white matter” in my brain, I wouldn’t be up for this type of challenge.
God bless the ole cowboy. He has a pasta dish ready to pop into the oven for today’s supper and most likely leftovers for tomorrow evening.
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Noreen
Whew! What a day it has been. There was a family gathering from my Dad’s side of the family. Cousin Dan hosted it in the St. Matthews Lutheran Church in Penn Township of McLeod County. Dan happens to own the church; lock stock and barrel. More to the actual; pews, bell, vestments and a fully stocked kitchen just as if the Ladies Aid had just finished hosting their latest luncheon.
I am just filled with good feelings as to the amount of work my family helped me with. Kevin and Kersten were in the kitchen orchestrating the parade of crock pots, fruit bowls, and desserts as they came in for the potluck meal. Carrie, Jeremy, Megan and Nicholas were manning the vacuum cleaner after the event was closing down, making sure the entire church basement was as we had found it.
Having a safe trip home, Dennis is in his recliner and I have my slippers on heading for enjoying some of the breakfast coffee.
It was a great gathering. We already have volunteers to work with Dan in two years for a repeat. Dennis said “Whew.”
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Noreen
Sitting in my sewing studio by the light of my Dad’s lamp, it has been a day of “come what may.”
By the advice from Kevin, the first thing I did was call Dell Support and had them send me a shipping label so I could return the $129 replacement battery for my Dell laptop. Ya know . . . initially I had just taken the message that my laptop gave me and I didn’t think twice, I just ordered the battery. So bad, when I didn’t question the computer message or myself and then got smart and questioned Kevin. Dennis drove me to the UPS drop box and I can check that off of my senior decision gone bad.
This afternoon, a friend named Perry stopped by as he and his wife are visiting from their retirement home in Georgia. Great visit from my Watonwan County brother.
We have an event to travel to tomorrow. Dennis had all the items in the pickup by early afternoon today, so I could do the check, check thing. A few were heavy, such as loading a cooler with bottled water for ice to be put on in the a.m. I assured him there would be helpers when we arrived at our destination. Ya Sure!
Another inch and a half in rainfall. After enjoying how nice and manicured our front yard looked yesterday, I can almost hear it growing. I am groaning.
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Noreen
Now this type of day is what I have been waiting for. A bit of breeze, low humidity and low temps. The mosquitoes didn’t get the news flash that they could have the day off. My lawnmower didn’t let me down. We may have grunted a bit as the ground is just like a sponge. The front yard offered up three full bags of clippings. This surely must be the tail end of push, push, push. Here I am all cleaned up and Dennis is still out in the northeast part of the acre on the rider mower. This will be a good grill cheese and tomato soup supper night.
Something about this day brought back a memory from times gone by. It was this time of the year many years ago that the kid’s dad, Orlin, announced the television was on the blink. Oh my gosh, Downtown South Branch and all it didn’t have to offer and now . . . no television. Though all we could get for reception was Channel 12 – WCCO, it was still the glow of the tube and entertainment. With no fluid funds to take it to Truman for the repair shop, the television set became a rather large knick-nack.
School had just started with a fair amount of daylight in the early evenings. Kevin found things to do in his make-shift tool shed. It was a concrete block building that had once been a chicken house. Carrie spent more time on the piano. She tried out different recipes that made tasty suppers by the time Orlin and I got home from work. Quiet times in their bedrooms for schoolwork served them well. There was still a fair amount of yard work for all of us, as we were the grounds keepers for the next door church, the cemetery and the parochial school grounds. Fall turned into the early stages of winter. I am not sure how it was revealed to the kids when the television was re-instated after it had been taken to Truman for a new picture tube. The kids didn’t even complain when ole Chuck Pesket was the man of the hour for news or the host of the John Deere Band Wagon. The kids kept on with some of the things that had kept them occupied during that “black out.” It was a good thing.
If my memory serves me, Orlin had pulled the “television is broken” one time when we lived in Madelia. The television set was actually put into a closet. After a lengthy spell in the closet, Orlin and I came home from being out and about and the kids met us at the door. Oh my gosh! “We just tried plugging it in to see what would happen and it worked!” Poor ole Dad, it’s hard to pull something past kids that have inquiring minds. The wonderful thing is that Carrie and Kevin did have, and still do have, inquiring minds to continue broadening their horizons for themselves and their families. Now that’s a good thing.
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Noreen
Good bad or other, today is a quiet day for Dennis and me. Sometimes events of previous days can seem to wipe you out for the next day, or it could be that heavy wet air sucks the life out of one. I’m not sure which or both.
I am in my sewing studio and taking stock, scanning shelves to make sure I have kept things tidy in recent whirlwinds of crafting and sewing. There is nothing worse than ending up not being able to find what is needed for each task . . . because I didn’t put it back where IT belonged. I love my chair as I can swivel and take in a panoramic view.
I have had several gals in my sewing studio in the recent past and comments were made how much my area holds, but also how organized it was. There is more enjoyment out of coming down and beginning a project or picking one up where I left off than coming down to a mess. Tidy, tidy, my mantra of the day. I do pinch myself sometimes as to how well my studio has come together. Nothing fancy by any means. A dry basement with good ventilation, lots of lighting and designated areas of interest. Yes, I feel very fortunate. I am one to re-purpose, plan, and work with what I have to the max, so shopping is seldom needed before I can turn out a goodie. But . . . sometimes the trip to town just can’t be helped.