Tuesday, March 27, 2012

New Piglets

We have new babies at our house. Naturally! This is Berky with her nine piglet litter. The dad is a Hamp cross. Berky is such a quiet girl. These babies are a little over 24 hours old in this picture.

Then there is Big Mama. That's what we named one of the big Yorkshire girls. Her sister we named Little Mama (even though she isn't little-LOL). Big Mama lets me rub her now. She likes for me to rub her behind her ears. Would you believe hogs are very soft in the crease right behind their ears? The rest of their bodies--not so much. Very coarse hair.
We have had a serious talk with Big Mama. Only 5 or 6 babies? Really?! Come on step it up, girl. She was bred to a Hamp so her babies are Blue Butts. A couple have smaller black freckles on their behinds while the others have bigger and darker freckles. They also have some markings on their faces. These babies are a little over a week old.

Blessings,

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Karen Combs Quilts Stolen

Bonnie Hunter has posted again about stolen quilts. This time it happened in New Braunfels, Tx. Karen was parked at her motel when her car was broken into and her bag where her quilts were packed was stolen. Can you imagine being a quilt teacher/lecturer and getting your class samples stolen? All that work gone! Fellow Texans be on the look out for her quilts. Here's Bonnie's post with Karen's own words.

Blessings,

Monday, March 19, 2012

Love this time of year



I love this time of year when everything is new. New blooms, new leaves, new bugs, etc. LOL Mowing and weedeating have become a regular activity. We ordered another battery and double charger for our battery operated weedeater. I will be so happy to get more done at a time. We are forecast for storms today. It's that time of year.  It's so nice to see everything green. And we do have St. Augustine grass that made it through the drought. Yay.

Last week was spring break for the grandkids so they came to NaNaw and PaPaw's house.

There was craft time.


There was snacking and meal times. I had forgotten how much milk kids drink. We went through almost two gallons of milk in three days.

There was lots of this and running and digging and playing ball.

I forgot to mention. My washer died last Monday afternoon with a wet quilt in it. It wouldn't spin. Waaa! I am so glad I got everything else washed BEFORE it decided to die. I squeezed as much water out of the quilt as I could then draped it over the clothesline to drip for awhile until I could clothes pin it. The grands came that night. DGD Aimee and I went to the laundromat to wash their clothes before they went home. We went looking at washers yesterday. I don't have room where my washer and dryer are located for the new washer and dryer with the front doors. So it will have to be the top loader. But it will not be another GE brand. Sorry but I can't recommend them. We will stop by one more place and then decide what we will purchase.

Hog Man got a good report at the doctor last week. The doc recommended setting up knee replacement soon. Hog Man will finish therapy this week then calls to get that process started. His hip is doing excellent. The doc told him he could work part time until then. I love my husband but do you know how wonderful it is for him to be out of the house again? It is great. He probably feels the same way. LOL

These are some of the little triangle squares from the "Follow the Leader" guild project. We had some dark ones come in so I made some more darks from my scraps. I draped a piece of batting over the shelves and made a "design wall". These are now sewn together and will get a small inner red border and an outer border then get quilted. It will be a baby quilt for our local pregnancy center. Oh, I forgot to mention that DGD Aimee kept asking to sew while she was here. I was so busy just cooking, cleaning up, keeping up with the little ones, etc. that it was hard to find time but we did. She wanted to make a purse. She had already thought it out. My little designer! She told me the dimensions and how she wanted a pocket on the outside and how she wanted the strap. We tweaked her dimensions just a bit and set to cutting. I had some Fusible Pellon Fleece that we used to give it sturdiness. It turned out really cute. She was pleased. I got really tickled at her. She found out why I kept telling her, "We will sew later when the younger ones are sleeping." In order to finish it up we had to sew the last evening before the younger ones went to bed. Needless to say they were INTRIGUED with the sewing machine. It about drove her crazy.  Sorry, I forgot to take a picture. I was busy I tell you. I will see if she can email me one. Did I tell you she is a budding photographer? No. Well she is.

We had a wonderful guild meeting on Saturday. It was National Quilting Day on March 17. How neat was it to meet on the same day. Karen had us not one but two programs. We split up into two groups into different corners of the large room. I learned about 12 inch graph paper and how to resize quilt blocks. I learned about color selection. Really good program. Kudos to Karen. We also were instructed last month to bring to this meeting a 10 inch piece of fabric with our name and put it inside a brown paper lunch bag. Do you know how hard it is to pick one piece of fabric? Anyway, I finally decided. At this month's meeting at the end of the meeting we went over and picked a sack that was not our own. We are to make a mini quilt or anything we wish for that person using that piece of fabric and can add other fabrics as well then bring back to the April meeting. I opened the sack I picked. Oh dear. Wouldn't you know I would get one of the ladies who is so talented and accomplished? I've got to make this really good. We've also started a block of the month program at guild. We make a block from the pattern given and bring to the next meeting and and one name is picked to win all the blocks. We used to do this years ago and that's how I won the blocks for DS#1 Time Travel quilt. Sounds like I have a lot to do before April's meeting. Better get started.

Blessings,

Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Spring is Sprung

We spent a lot of time outside yesterday. We moved hogs around. I got some cardio in. LOL If I did it everyday I would lose the pounds I am needing to lose. LOL I got the mowing done. I used the weedeater until the batteries ran out. I've got to remember to pick up some more batteries. It was so gorgeous. Short sleeve weather. Late in the afternoon we saw wave after wave of geese flying north. Love it.

Blessings,

Monday, March 05, 2012

March is . . .


March is marching on. And it's such a new month but already is 5 days old. My my how time flies. Before we know it we will be changing the clocks for daylight saving time. I guess that's the solution to "burning daylight". LOL  Enough. Let's quilt. Speaking of quilting -- I don't have anything to show. : (  I have so many things going right now. I had this pile - I mean project- and others all scattered from the design bed : ) to the cutting table I put up in the quilting room. It made me crazy. It made me crazy to try and organize it. But one day I was feeling really organizational and I did it. I boxed those babies up in their very own box. Now you know what that means. UFOs! Yup. Out of sight out of mind means UFOs. Oh well. I will tackle them another day when I run across them. LOL

Beware: This is a long post today and very wordy.

The Hog Man continues to improve after hip replacement surgery. He started out patient therapy last week. They put him through it. He has been sore but he can tell he is stronger. He is wearing out the rubber stopper on his cane bottom walking so much. I'm so glad the weather is nice so he can get out and walk. He missed going to Belton to the Southwest Conference this past weekend.  But they had live streaming video so he got to see the whole thing. Love the internet. He really did want to be there in person. He kept saying "We could load up and drive down there." Me-"Not going to happen while you are on blood thinner." A little while later--"Are you sure?" Me-"Very sure."

Talking about the weather . . . we have had such a mild winter and now the fruit trees are all in bloom. I sure hope we don't have a late frost. Our pear tree has died. Could've been the drought. We also lost a large pine tree. I have mowed twice and will mow again today. I don't remember mowing this early  before. Not sure how our St. Augustine grass has survived yet. We may be replacing it with Bermuda. I washed and hung out clothes last Friday. Love the smell. As soon as the big container of laundry detergent from Sam's is gone I am going to make homemade detergent. It really upset me when they pretty much went to all plastic containers for detergents. We don't have recycling in our area. That means those go in the trash. Not good.

Back to quilting - I got this idea for our guild and so far-- like in this will be the second month for them to return their blocks-- it is going great.  I was program chair last year and was always looking for ideas. I found online the idea to cut a square in half and pin it on each member as they arrived with the instructions to find the other person wearing their matching triangle and sit with them during the meeting along with a paper with questions to ask their fellow quilter. It is a great way for guild members to get know one another. Back to the idea. I thought -- kill two birds with one stone.  I pinned the triangles on them and then asked them to sew a contrasting triangle to theirs and make any additional ones they would like to make and bring back to the next meeting.  They did good! We had enough for one baby quilt so far with extras. These will be turned into baby quilts for one of our charitable organizations. Last month instead of pinning I laid out rectangles and asked for volunteers to add a rectangle and bring back. This month I have another idea.  They elected me president back in January and this is my project I'm calling "Follow the Leader".  Our guild has grown! We have almost doubled in size. The bus trip brought a lot of new members. We had a reunion of past and present members at our Christmas party in 2010 and that brought back some old members.

Other quilting stuff-- still pulling fabrics and washing and ironing for sashing for Dresden Plates. Redrew the way I wanted to do the setting. Those did not go into a box. They will only go into a box to protect them from getting unorganized and from little fingers that come to visit.

Speaking of little fingers--we celebrated DGD Paisley's birthday in February. Angie found a little gym that caters to very young want to be gymnasts. The kids loved it. The gym's personnel kept them moving and had activities for them.

We drove up to near the Oklahoma border yesterday to visit some friends which isn't that far. They also have hogs and Hog Man wanted to see their hogs before they go to Houston to show this next week.  We had a good visit and they sent us home with three dozen fresh eggs and homemade chicken soup. Yum. Yum. Everywhere we turn we are being blessed. A fellow Hog Man knows brought two beef roasts and Girl Scout cookies --yum. I brought home a dozen eggs last week from quilt club. We have been given gift cards to Brookshires. Our daughter and son-in-law installed a shower head that had dual head and hose. NICE. We needed new door knobs and locks and they got them and installed them. Hog Man had friends that fed the animals not only while he was in the hospital but long afterward. He was backed up to the barn with a load of feed one day and a man and his son stopped and unloaded it for him. We know they live down the road but that is all. We are praying blessings on all these wonderful people. God is good.

And speaking of blessings-- may you and your be blessed,