The Mad Hatter's Tea Party

Saturday I attended a delightful tea party with a group of friends. I wore a red hat to which I had sewn bluebonnets. I also made a hat band from some of my white background bluebonnet fabric. I didn't win a prize but my hat got honorable mention so I was quite happy.
I thought I'd share some of the pictures with you.

I liked the hat pictured above -- my friend collects vintage pins and they were pinned around the brim of the hat on top of poufs of sheer fabric. Excuse the slight blur -- I had a better shot but I liked her eyes in this one. She also got honorable mention for her hat.

For favors each of us got a cup and saucer with a flower arrangment inside. Below is my cup.

My Chinese friend thought it was Chinese but it is Japanese. There is a raised outline of a woman's head/face in the bottom of the cup. I know the woman has a name but I can't remember what she is called. I have her image on a fan given to me by a Japanese friend.

Each table was decorated with tea pots -- this was the table where I sat. Three at our table were recognized for our hats -- including the grand prize winner. My picture of her didn't come out very well but she had a large (15") butterfly on her lavender hat.

Friends along for the fun!

I loved the teapot on this table.

This is a birthday cake I made for my Granddaughter several years ago -- she was really into the Hello Kitty at that time. It is also when I made the Hello Kitty Kats quilts (one is shown in the right margin of my blog) I thought this turned out cute.
(This year she wants a Justin Bieber cake -- guess we'll have to buy one!)

Yesterday I tried to post a picture of the new dishes but found out that my modem wasn't working. Turned out to be a faulty cord, praise God, and only cost $11.00. Much cheaper than a new modem.

It is working again so I'm sending the picture of the new dishes. I'm really enjoying using them!

Tried to post some pictures today but modem was out -- got it fixed now so I'll try again tomorrow.

Finished the B/W quilt top -- next I need to work out the embellishment/applique scheme! Now it is off to workout and then a pot luck luncheon -- can smell my "pot" cooking -- yum!
Will try to post some pictures later today.
Love to all!

Photo -- memories of October, 2009. I'm ready for Oct. 2010! It is HOT here!!

Hello bloggers and quilters,

Today I made two four-patch blocks for a quilt that Jane is making for Lissa, a young mother who is extremely ill. (see http://www.janesfabric.blogspot.com/) I had them in the envelope and sealed before I realized that I didn't take a picture! Alas, I'm not ripping the envelope open so you will just have to take my word for it that they are very pretty -- purples and purple and green, as requested.

Sweetie and I are having a relaxing day -- he went off to a prayer breakfast before I got up and was back before I got dressed. Gracie and I were watching TV when he arrived -- a show about children with progeria. Well....perhaps I was watching more than Gracie -- she might have been sleeping!! lol

The early part of our week, Mon - Tues - Wed, are always very busy so I have enjoyed having some quieter days. Wednesday afternoon we picked up our granddaughter (after our workout) and I cut her hair. I thought it turned out very nice. School starts on Monday so I wanted her to have a fresh haircut. She has dark brown hair that is very thick and heavy. It has a good bit of natural wave in it and it had been growing in all directions! After the haircut we all went to McDonald's for a Bacon Ranch Salad with grilled chicken dinner. It was good and I enjoyed not having to cook! On Thursday I mowed and then we went to a movie. We saw Charlie St. Cloud. It was a nice movie -- not great, but pleasant and "clean" so we enjoyed it.

Back to today, while Sweetie changed the oil on the Harley Horse I went to Hancock's and then to the grocery store. Because of my iodine sensitivity, I cannot eat anything that lives in salt water. I can, however, eat freshwater fish so I buy farm-raised catfish whenever it is on sale. Today it was so I bought 2 pounds and also some veggies and some ground beef. I'll make catfish Vera Cruz with the fish for tonight and then I'll make meatloaf with the ground beef Monday morning. Nifty After Fifty, our workout place, is having a nostalgia luncheon with comfort foods. I love meatloaf and it is an old timey recipe so that is what I'm taking. We'll go and work out and then we will eat and then we may have to work out again!!

I am keeping the faith that it will get cooler here -- eventually. Just doesn't seem to be happening very soon. Sept isn't very cool here so I still have at least 5 or 6 weeks of hot weather to manage through. Hurry fall! I'm waiting!!

By the way Quilt Buddies -- I am quilting a bit. Have all but one row of the b/w blocks sewn together -- had to stop since I had an idea for a group effort in our quilting group and... if you have an idea you have a job! We are making a quilt that is featured on the cover of one of the Fons and Porter magazines -- square within a square with flowers appliqued in the center. We are using the "pineapple" square which ends up with the desired block and now I am cutting out the leaves and flowers -- the plan is for each woman to embroider her own applique even though some of them don't know how to do the blanket stitch. I have to practice doing it myself before I attempt to teach it. I told everyone that the fabric choice was what ever they wanted it to be and boy, did I ever get some really different blocks. I'm hoping it all fits together in the end!

Inner Space

The state of Texas has 400+ caves under it. Anytime a new road is to be built holes have to be bored into the ground so the formations under the site can be evaluated. In 1963, before I-35 was built, holes were bored into the proposed site to study the substrata. Interestingly, the bores indicated that there was a cave present. A large hole was then bored and a 65 year old man was lowered into that hole, attached to a rope. Can you imagine descending into the unknown like that? I think it might be very scary!
What he found is now known as Inner Space, a cavern located near Georgetown, TX. Last week Sweetie and I took our granddaughter for her first cave experience. She loved it!


The first two pictures show the "train" that one rides as they descend into the deep! A lot less scary that being lowered by rope.

The hole...

Of course, the cave now has electric lights inside, and pathways, but the formations are the same. Also, the bats! Yes, this cave has a bat colony inside. These are small bats -- not the Mexican Free tail Bats that live under the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin. We saw quite a number of them during our visit.

Below, Flow stone

The roof of the cave used to be the bottom of a sea. In places you can see petrified shrimp tubes and sea sponges. I think it is interesting how things get turned topsy turvey.

Eons ago there were animals inside the cave -- bones of a woolly mammoth are visible at one place. They were left en situ, as they were found, so visitors were able to see what a dig looked like.

This was a fun outing.

Hello Zoe

This is my Mom's new dog -- isn't she a cutie! I think she was blessed to find her at a shelter.

She and Gracie really enjoyed playing.

Gift Bag

Saw this at my Mom's house -- it is a homemade gift bag that she received at a party. I thought it was interesting the way the plain brown paper bag was decorated with cloth, buttons, and some drawing, to make a gift bag and a gift card.

Game time

Played Skip-Bo -- I lost! The youngest won one hand and the oldest won the other. I think I must have been asleep. The youngest has been chortling about it all morning!

Visited Inner Space today -- am at a Mcdonald's on wifi so will probably have to wait before posting the pictures.

New Dishes!

This picture doesn't have anything to do with what I'm writing about but I thought I'd post it anyway. This is me about age 4 -- taken in California. I was still a real blondie then!

Sweetie and I went shopping a bit, this past week, and we bought a new set of dishes! Now understand that dishes and kitchen gadgets are my weakness and I could have untold numbers of sets of dishes IF there were cabinets enough to store them. However, the cabinets are full so we have decided to do away with the "Strawberry Sundae" dishes we bought 30+ years ago and we bought a new set of Corelle -- square dishes! We will pass the Strawberry Sundae on to YD and she is excited -- her odds and ends of dishes will go into a garage sale planned for cooler days.

We are going to spend some time with Granddaughter the rest of this week, because school will be starting before we know it, so we won't re-do the dishes/cabinets until we are back to normal routine. I'll send pictures then.

More thoughts about the black/white quilt -- I have decided that I'm not going to put red stars on it. I'm going to put flowers on it -- flowers and leaves and stuff like that -- I'm going to make the flowers three dimensional and will probably put some beads on them -- since this is for me and not a baby, I can do that. If Fons and Porter can do these things, surely I can, too.

Update

Just a note to say that my Sweetie is much better. His latest blood work was greatly improved and he is slowly regaining his strength. We are so blessed!

Baby it's hot out there!

This weekend we had it all planned -- Sweetie was going to leave Friday morning for a 3-day motorcycle event. I was going to sew.

Friday I did some errands but started sewing Sat morning. Around 3 pm got a call -- Sweetie was on his way to hospital. Sick. News trickled in -- it was the heat. He was brought home, after 5 hours in the ER an hour's drive west of here, by some friends who went above and beyond. I could not focus on sewing, of course, so my weekend of sewing ended up being just a couple of hours -- after that I was walking the floor!

Heat exhaustion can kill you -- fortunately, he realized the extent of his problem early on and asked to be taken to the hospital. Once he started throwing up (a symptom) he had no chance of re-hydrating himself. His body temp stayed high even when he was standing in a cold shower.

Praise God, he is home and doing much better!! The quilt can be made another day.

These are the blocks I'm working with at this time. I asked for donations of black/white scraps and one woman gave me a ton of strips. They didn't suit my original plan but I didn't want to waste them so I sewed them together in a split rail design. I'm using a black batik -- very subtle -- as sashing and borders. I only have the bottom row sewn. Life got very hectic over the weekend.