Baby pigs

They were born April 21. In this picture they are not 24 hours old. Patty(mama pig) had ten and now there are eight. This is her first litter. And in the next picture look closely at the little pig by itself. Can you see it's ears? Baby pigs are born with their ears all stuck up and then in a few days they unfurl and come down. They weigh 1 1/2 to 2 pounds each.

There are hundreds of yellow irises. I found some purple ones that weren't too damaged by the wind. And here is my Don Quiote red rose. They are very fragrant but have a problem with black spot. AND I turned on the a/c today. I couldn't stand it any longer. It got to 86 degrees today and high humidity.

Blessings,

Another busy weekend

I attended guild meeting Saturday morning and stayed for the work day to finish up on the donation/raffle quilt. Then Sunday morning DH and I went in to metroplex to visit oldest DS to help him out with a leak he has in his yard. I cooked burgers while they worked and shopped for supplies. But alas, what they repaired did not fix the leak. (We think the boys made a leak when digging up the line.) So poor DS must call a plumber and hopefully it is not under his foundation or in the outside wall. I took my yo-yo maker along and while the "Boys" played in the mud and on the way home I made yo-yos. Beware of the bumps in the road. LOL Ouch!

Then we came home and bought a riding lawn mower. Woo-hoo! Double woo-hoo! It is going to take some getting used to. Like operating the thing. Chewing gum and walking, etc.

Oh! Oh! I gotta tell you this. I placed some orders to replenish inventory and also decided to order some fixtures that are portable to make displays more attractive and organized. Well, one piece is a freestanding pegboard. I forgot to order the hooks to go along with it. My good fortune!
Huh? You might be thinking. Well, when I realized I forgot I started calling to find some in my area. Lowe's has them. Then I thought about a gal who had a quilt shop a few years ago and closed it. She would ask DH to look for them and then second call while I'm at guild meeting--Come and get them. She gave these to me. You might be thinking, "Okay, this gal gets excited over peg hooks?" I get excited over anyone's generosity. There's probably a couple hundred or more peg hooks in this tote. Not that I need that many (I think?) at this time. But, and more importantly, I have made another connection with another human being and hopefully a new friend.

Okay, now for the pretty stuff. I took pictures of my irises this weekend. We have dark purple ones, yellow ones, orchid-colored ones (see the header above) and just a few white ones. There are blooms on top of blooms this year. I didn't take a picture of the purple ones (the wind did a number on them.) And the wind blew last week! Blessings to all.

Busy, Busy

Saturday went fantastic at the Lone Star Quilt Guild. Wow, they were SOOOO nice. And helpful. They helped me unload my car AND load it up again. And they lightened my load considerably! Thanks, ladies. I demonstrated the large yo-yo maker and the large flower yo-yo maker. They were good students and I hope I was a good instructor. And many thanks to Kathleen! I could not have done it without her.

Then, I came home and unloaded everything, pant, pant. And then we went to get DGS, Mason, and kept him overnight. He is just too precious. He is about to cut some teeth so he was sucking on his bottom gum. We had a blast with him til his mommy and daddy came to pick him up.


Yesterday, I reorganized my wares after Saturday. I spent two days reorganizing LAST week getting ready to take it Saturday. But it was well worth it. I liked how it was organized better. And now I've got to replenish, so I've been looking at another supplier who handles some things that some customers have asked about and getting an order worked up. And I have to get my sales tax stuff sent in this week. And I have to mow the yard again. And I've been making quilt labels. Did I tell you I make quilt labels? Shame on me. I sold some Saturday. So I've got to replenish them as well. Here are some I have on hand. I do custom labels as well.

Happy quilting to all and blessings,

Stormy weather

A little stormy weather last night, but we are okay. Hope the same for you Patsy. We missed the bad weather last week. But there were some in Decatur and Chico that had large hail. We had hail last night but it never got bigger than marble size. I am waiting for reports from Paradise. They may have had a tornado. The DFW area has had widespread damage from last night.

We had a blast at quilting yesterday. We are still quilting on Jan's king size butterfly quilt and will finish it up in the next two weeks. Kathleen and I are having a blast making yo-yo's. I think she has bought every size and kind Clover makes. I got the regular yo-yo maker mastered as much as one can master it, I think. I got out the flower shape and fell in love with these little flowers. Kathleen had attended a demo and the lady putting it on said not to waste your time with the flower yo-yo maker. It takes a little more manipulation but well worth it in my opinion. And the package gives ideas--making corsages plus decorating gifts and baskets, etc. So Kathleen after seeing it yesterday just had to have one. Heehee.These are my practice ones. The ones on the left are made according the directions that came with the maker. The ones in the middle I added a little poly-fil to the center as I closed it up. The ones on the right I used a piece of the cotton scrap left from trimming the square after inserting it into the disk. What do you think? Personally, I like the ones on the right.

Wish me luck for Saturday--I go to a guild here in town and demo the yo-yo maker and take my wares. I've asked Kathleen to go with me and help me. Hopefully she can make it. When I had a booth at a quilt show in Sept. I got overwhelmed being by myself. I don't think this guild is all that big but we are on a time constraint.
I ordered the book "Tradition with a Twist" which has the Blooming Nine Patch pattern in it. I so want to make that pattern. I have collected two fabrics so far that I want to use. OH, I HAVE TOO MANY PROJECTS I WANT TO DO! TOO MANY I HAVE TO COMPLETE BEFORE I START A NEW PROJECT! Argggh!

And here is some "cotton" candy or scrappy "jelly". My trimmings from the yo-yo makers.

Blessings,

Recipe

I made this for my Wednesday group, Kraz-z Quilters, yesterday. Sorry, I didn't get a picture and there's one serving left for me for lunch today. Yaay.

Mom's Chicken Potpie

3 cups bite-size pieces, cooked chicken
1 can (10 1/4 oz.) condensed cream of chicken soup
1 can (10 1/4 oz.) condensed chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon (optional)
1 can (16 oz) peas and carrots, drained or mixed vegetables
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 cups buttrmilk
1/2 cup (one stick) melted butter

Heat oven to 350. Place chicken in lightly greased 9 X 13 inch baking pan. Mix chicken soup, broth, and tarragon and pour over chicken. Arrange vegetables over chicken mixture. Mix flour and baking powder in a bowl. Add buttermilk and melted butter. Stir to form a thin dough. Pour evenly over chicken mixture. Bake uncovered for about 1 hour until crust browns lightly.

My personal adjustments: I use 26 oz. can of cream of chicken soup (I thought original was dry) and I cook my chicken in water and use that for the broth which is about 1 1/2 cups measured after cooking. I also use two cans veggies and I like the mixed vegetables. Margarine is okay but butter tastes soo much better and of course lite margarine should not be used. I found this recipe in a magazine years ago and when my kids were still living at home I would make this and with the two boys and my husband we were lucky to have enough. :-D

If you make this and like it please let me know. Thanks.

Blessings,

Quilty Stuff

Here are pictures of my purchases at the Dallas Quilt Show:
I bought some fat quarters, a thing-a-ma-jig to hold stuff, and redwork patterns and fabric for a redwork quilt
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And here are yo-yos I made with the Clover Yo-Yo maker.

At Paradise Piecemakers yesterday, Kathleen had her yo-yo maker and demonstrated how to use it SOOO I got one out of inventory and started making yo-yo's last night. It is really FAST and EASY. I have more yo-yo makers on order 'cause now I've decided that's what I will demo at a guild meeting in a couple weeks. Clover also makes heart shaped and flower shaped yo-yo makers and when they come in I will practice them, too. Now I'm addicted, Thanks, Kathleen!

Blessings,

Happy Easter

Happy Easter/Resurrection Day! To bring you up to date -- I will post some pictures-- like I promised.
This is DGD with her quilt we hand pieced, sandwiched, and tied. She picked the border fabric and I already had the 2 1/2 " squares cut in my "scrap user system" from Bonnie at Quiltville. She also picked five buttons from my button can that we just had to sew in the center. Her touch! We had a lot of fun making this quilt and I hope a lot of memories that will last a lifetime. I'm looking forward to the next project.



And here she is with my tulips. Isn't she just beautiful? We baked banana muffins and homemade cinnamon rolls. We played. And we took her home on Friday morning. Phew!

And now some pictures from the Dallas Quilt Show 2008 and since my camera batteries played out and I missed taking a whole lot of pictures; I googled Dallas Quilt Show and found a whole lot of pics on blogs, etc but the following are what I took BEFORE my batteries went low:

This quilt was just absolutely gorgeous!
This one was absolutely amazing.
Priscilla in my Wednesday group is making this one just larger scale and we are quilting it next!

And this one --one of my favorite--pink!
This one was very interesting. I could see it done for a child's quilt or in other colors.


Blessings,

Dallas Quilt Show

I got to go to the Dallas Quilt Show on Friday! Woohoo! Double woohoo! It was absolutely wonderful. Two ladies from Wednesday group and I went and had a blast. I had never been to the Dallas show. I was like a little kid going to Disney World. I couldn't sleep the night before. I was up very early and was ready to go waay early. I will post a few pictures later. My camera batteries ran out and are charging. AND tonight and for a couple of days we have DGD spending some time with us. Triple woohoo! She called this afternoon and asked, "NawNaw, can I come spend the night?" What do you think I said? SURE! We worked on her little patchwork quilt that I am showing her how to hand piece. She is really doing very well for 5 1/2 years old. She can thread a needle all by herself. She is going to go with me to my Wednesday group(she's supposed to get to stay that long and we are hoping so). I told her she could thread the needles for the ladies and show them her patchwork quilt and she was thrilled. They will just think she is the absolute best thing around. AND for her bedtime story I read The Quiltmaker's Gift. She loves that book.

And I will post some pictures later.

Blessings,

Spring is Sprung?

Is it really here? We are closer anyway. There are fruit trees in bloom; the geese are flying north; and the temps are forecast into the eighties later this week. We enjoyed the snow but I'm glad we don't get it like up north. There were lots of snowmen made in yards. The DFW area only got a dusting of snow and mainly rain and sleet.

We have daylight saving time. Woohoo! Yeah, right. Who loves losing an hour of sleep? We had DGS Mason Saturday night so his mommy and daddy could go out with friends. We were to meet Sunday morning/lunchtime at my DS's house in Arlington. My in law's drove up and had rented a motel room in Arlington and my husband's sister was in town (DFW area) from Colorado. Well, we didn't set the alarm. Babies always wake up, right? And we have this inner clock that doesn't let us sleep late even on the weekends, right? Wrong! Baby didn't wake up and we slept. It was eight o'clock old time when I woke up. It's a little over an hour drive to son's house. Mason didn't want to eat and I had to have a shower. To make a long story short--we arrived there five minutes before twelve o'clock.

Speaking of Mason--he has really grown. He is eight months old now and sits alone pretty much.

Here is Mason and Larry. Isn't he darling? Don't look at my counter behind them. It is a catch all and catches it all all the time. We enjoyed him very much but the time flies too fast before he's gone. He has a bib that says "I'm going to Texas Tech". That's what his DD wants anyway. As parents we know things don't always happen the way we want. God has a way of changing our plans. In the picture on the right are l to r myself, my daughter-in-law, Angie; Larry's mom, Mary Ann; and Larry's sister, Debby. Here are the "guys". Oldest DS, Brian; DH, Larry; FIL, Fred holding Mason; and youngest DS, Marcus. DD and family couldn't make it.

Blessings,