Pillow Finished

Finished my DGD's pillow. Must get it mailed now.

I enjoyed spending time with my three young grandchildren so much. I also have three that are collage and grad school age.

Guess what the DGD who made this pillow top got for Christmas? Along with all the tech things like computer games, DVD's and hand held devices, she found Jacks in her stocking. She sat on the floor and tried to figure out how to use them. "Want Grandma to help you?" She quickly replied, "Sure." The jacks were large and plastic. Humm. But they worked fine and I could still do it. Now getting up from the floor afterwords - well I won't discuss that.

Apparently people have always been tossing things into the air and catching them just for fun. Ancient Greeks played a game of chance called Knucklebones, which involved tossing and catching small pieces of sheep's bone. In England, they've played a similar game called Fivestones for centuries, testing player's agility ad skill. Here in America, Fivestones became known as Jackstones and eventually just plain Jacks. Over the years, one of the Stones was replaced by a ball, and in the 1920s, small, metal game pieces became the jackstones - probably because children of the time often played with left-over pieces of metal castings, rather than stones. I remember playing Jacks as a child. In the summer it was on the sidewalk and in winter on the linoleum kitchen floor. Being an only child of working parents, this was a great game to play by myself. Good memory.

Rummage Sale Bag

I only found one zip lock bag of sewing related goodies at the rummage sale. It had several iron-on patterns that were meant to be used for fabric painting. Has anyone ever done this? I did a couple pieces a few years ago. I think they could be used for embroidery too. Does anyone out there need bowling balls? Don't know if or when I'll ever use the stencils but can always use another pair of shears and a few buttons.
I helped set up all the donations on last Friday and this let me have a preview of what I might want to buy. On Saturday I saw someone buying a new bag of pillow stuffing. How did I miss that? And I need it too.

In My Kitchen
On the left of the first pic are some of my 'buys" from the rummage sale - the stainless steel tea pot for the stove and two large mugs. I love mugs with large handles which I can slide four fingers in to hold. The front cup with the bag in is the one I was using. On the right is a tea pot to pour the hot water into loose leaf tea. I bought it at a flea market while Shirley was here. The red box you see is some tea I bought at Christmas time. It is Grannie's Garden Fruit Melange and is very good.

In the bottom pic are Honey Bell oranges and Kumquats. These are the best oranges and are in peak season. So are the strawberries. umm good. We had homemade shortcake several times while Shirley was here. I like it with biscuits and fresh whipped cream. Sorry, no pic of the strawberries or shortcake. I figure the description is enough to make you buy a plane ticket to Florida.

Kumquats have a thin sweet peel with a tart center. You roll them in
your hand to release the oils and eat them like grapes. Chewing the peel and inside together makes a taste I really enjoy. I see they had a Kumquat Festival in Dade City. There are lots of recipes for them.

More Sewing

The top pic is what my soon-to-be nine-year old DGD made during my visit. I make plastic templates of the Sunbonnet Sue and she traced and cut out the patterns. I ironed them on using Wonder Under. She choose all the fabrics and embellishments. I took butterfly fabric as I knew she loved them. When it was finished, she wanted some flowers so I embroidered some and she said it was perfect. I planned to take it home and stitched around the edges with my sewing machine but I had enough time to I did it by hand. I gave her the choice of how to complete it. Would she like a picture, or a bag or a scarf or a pillow? After much thought, she decided on a pillow.

Today I worked on helping set up for a rummage sale at my mobile home recreation building. The sale is tomorrow and it will keep me busy. Tonight I am making soup to sell. They also grill hamburgers and hot dogs and sell homemade pie. Really good. They also have a bake sale. We do this every year. After working on this, my first sewing project will be to make my DGD's pillow.

The second picture is red work I did while doing the airport waits. It is the first red work I have ever done. I used one stand of floss. The pattern was a WalMart iron on. It is really too bad that they no longer sell either the patterns or the floss.

I'm Back

I was gone to visit grandkids for two weeks plus and than a friend of mine came from MI to visit and we were off to see all the sites in FL for another two weeks. We packed in a lot of things into visit. She returned to the freezing north today and after driving back to my FL home and taking a nap, I'm trying to get back in the groove.

I don't post pics of my grandkids but as you have seen in the past, I share pics of my granddogs. The top one will be 15 years old this coming Arpil and is showing her years. She is still such a sweet girl - or maybe I should say grand old lady. She is deaf and her arthritis is severe but she knew me right away. I haven't seen her in a year. It seems like yesterday when she was a pup. The second pic is dog #3 and she is almost 5 years old. The dog in the last pic is soon to be 10 years old.

The last pic is the "sewing" pic. I gave my about to turn 7 year old DGS a sewing project which we did together. He did all the lacing and was so proud. He even said he'd love to have another one to make. I'll share what my DGD and I made tomorrow.

I'm way behind is reading and posting at your sites. Please forgive.