Mask Making

 Recently a mask making tutorial displayed in my YouTube feed. I watched the video and really liked the pattern, it appeared easy to make and looked like a comfortable mask to wear.  Here is the link to the tutorial. 

A brown paper bag provided good sturdy paper to make the pattern. And I picked up a few fat quarters of fabric so  I could have a variety of cotton fabrics to use.

I made a whole bunch of masks for our daughter Emily. She is training to become a paramedic and is spending hours and hours doing clinical training and has to wear a mask the whole time. Now she will always have a few extra clean ones available.

In the video tutorial the lady uses little clips to hold the binding in place. I asked my mom if she has ever used them, she said she has a box of the clips and uses them occasionally. Yesterday a package arrived in our mailbox from Amazon, Mom had ordered me a box of 100 clips. Thank you Mom!

Here is my husband humoring me by modeling one of the newly made masks.

 I was amused the other day when grandson Patrick drew a picture of a Lego character wearing a mask. A sign of the times we are living through.

Quick Quilt Update

I finished piecing the quilt top together and am now working on the outer border. I think this weekend I will be ready to buy batting and the fabric for the backing and binding. 

QUILTING, QUILTING, QUILTING

 WOW! I love putting a quilt together! My mom and I were talking yesterday about how a quilt changes with each step of assembly. I am really enjoying my latest quilt project, although I am a little daunted by the amount of hand quilting I have in my future. On the plus side, think how warm and cozy I will be this winter as I sit in my arm chair quilting away. 

I added an additional row to each side of this quilt to make the finished size 102" x 92", making it a coverlet size for a king size bed.

I had to satisfy my curiosity about assembly of the quilt as soon as I finished a few blocks. I always do this when I make a quilt.

More and more blocks, I made all of the house blocks first.

Next I made all of the rectangle tree blocks.

Then I laid the blocks out to get an idea of the size and look of the quilt. (Procrastinating the start of the pointy trees).

Finally the pointy tree blocks are done and I could again mess around with block placement.

Bottom three rows assembled and pressed. I am feeling really good about the way this quilt is coming together.

A Little Bit Of Quilting

I recently returned from a ten day visit with my parents. My mom loves to quilt, she will be eighty-one next month, and she discovered the joys of quilting about six years ago and is so creative and such a perfectionist everything she makes is beautifully done. Mom's sewing room is a quilters paradise, and she has a STASH of fabric that is amazing. 

Me with my precious, precious Mom (Mumpy)

Whenever I visit I always come home with something from the sewing room as I share my mom's love of quilting and knitting. This visit I came home with seven 6.5" crazy quilt blocks each with a lion, panther, or tiger as a centerpiece. 

I laid the blocks out on the table in my sewing room and played around with the placement. I then went through my rather pathetic stash of fabric to see what would work with the blocks, I had a few colors that I thought would work well. Throughout the week I looked at the blocks and played around with ideas. Yesterday I felt inspired and took a trip to Joann Fabrics, I selected fabrics for a quilt I have always wanted to make, and found some fat quarters in complimentary colors for the big cat crazy quilt blocks.

I still only had a vague idea of what I was going to do with the blocks, first I had to make two more crazy blocks. Once the two additional blocks were made I played around with colors to decide how to border them, I really liked the dark turquoise blue but only had a little of it left, it was just enough to sash the blocks together, but not enough to do the outer border. I put the dark turquoise on the blocks and joined them together. I then could not decide what color to border them with, and then in a moment of inspiration decided to use all of the left over colors to make a "postage stamp" border. I am so pleased with how bright and cheerful this little quilt project turned out.

And no post would be complete without a grandchild update: Grandson Masen was five years old on July 11, here he is waiting patiently for his mom to light the candles on his cake so the singing of Happy Birthday can commence. 

Vegan Eats - YUMMY - and Current Projects

Lately I have been eating this for breakfast: spouted lentils, mixed with a handful of spinach leaves, a cup mixed berries, a tablespoon of hemp seed, and a sprinkle of raw oats. It is very satisfying, and delicious. With it I enjoy a cup of black coffee with a tablespoon of raw cacao stirred in, just lovely. This breakfast starts my day with 14 grams of protein, 9 grams of fiber, 916 mg of potassium, 33% of my daily iron needs, a bit of calcium, almost all of vitamin C needs, and a nice hit of vitamin A.  All good! Some days I have overnight oats with berries and flax seed and spinach, again a very satisfying breakfast.

lentils and mung beans in various stages of sprouting

Later in the morning I have a kale, berry, banana smoothie with 2 tablespoons of Dr. Shultze Super Food, this gives me a great dose of daily vitamins and minerals.




Lunch is a salad of kale, red cabbage, bok choy, a tomato, some summer zucchini or cucumber, a bit of yellow or red bell pepper, sprouted mung beans, a pinch of raw sunflower and pumpkin seeds, kimchee, and a bit of date/dijon mustard dressing. It is so yummy, nutritious, and filling. I make the dressing, it is a cup of water, 12 dates, 6 tablespoons of dijon mustard and a sweet onion, blitz in the blender then store in the fridge, this lasts me all week.

Date/Dijon Mustard dressing

Delicious mega-salad!

In the afternoon I have an apple for a snack.

Dinner is a salad of collard greens, spinach, tomato, cucumber or summer zucchini, 2 teaspoons of spirulina, 2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast, kimchee and some date/dijon dressing, and with it a piece of toasted sprouted rye bread made by a German bakery, Delba. For dessert I usually have a couple of dried figs, they are wonderful.

So good and so nutritious.

A curiously strong, very dense rye bread, lovely toasted with a slice of tomato.

Sometimes I don't have a salad, but instead have a large bowl of fresh fruit, melon, strawberries, kiwi, pineapple and top it with flax seed or hemp seed, a very refreshing meal on a hot summer day.

Fresh fruit topped with hemp seed.

Throughout the day I drink water, and occasionally herbal tea, green tea, and hibiscus tea are my favorites.

Spirulina is essentially algae, it is dried and comes in a very fine powder, it is a very dark bluish green, it makes my salad look super dark green, and while I eat it my lips and teeth turn green, so I usually only eat it at home, it doesn't stain though. Spirulina adds a really nice flavor to a salad, some people add it to smoothies, personally I find it dominates the smoothie but not in a pleasant way. Spirulina is tagged as a super food, it is extremely nutritious, high in iron, and protein, it is considered the most nutritious of all foods.

One of our favorite places to go out to eat, which we do very infrequently, is Pizza Hut, they have a wonderful salad bar that we both enjoy and it meets my needs as a vegan and Dave's needs a non-vegan. Another place that I find affordable and vegan friendly is Subway, I get the veggie delite sub as a chopped salad, and if I wish I can have avocado added. I usually eat one avocado a week, eaten over two days, it is a good source of fiber and healthy fat, but a little goes a long way.

Our salad creations on a recent trip to Pizza Hut

We have gone out to eat at restaurants specializing in vegan food, but I am always disappointed, the food tends to be very expensive, even though it is a sparse serving of veggies and a bit of legume or grain, and always coated in oil and heavy (salty) seasoning. I don't add salt to anything I eat, so I am rather sensitive to it when it is added to foods I eat, it really stands out.


I am working on three projects at this time, foxy baby quilt and a crochet blanket for our soon to born 10th grandchild, and a London Double Decker bus print nap quilt to replace the very well worn one currently in use.

Keeping Busy

For the past six weeks or so I have been occupied with a knitting project, four sweaters for our youngest four grandsons. Yesterday I finished the final sweater for Peter, he was very pleased with it. What a great smile Sweet Pete has! The other sweaters are pictured in an earlier post.

I enjoy knitting, it is handiwork that is portable, somewhat mindless unless at a tricky bit in a pattern, and satisfying as a project is completed. I think knitting teaches me patience, it is a calming activity.

I am now ready for a new project, one that does not involve knitting. Last April I popped down to Florida for a couple of days to visit my parents. While there my mother, who discovered the joys of quilting several years ago, gave me the quilt top pictured below for me to finish.  I will purchase a light green print fabric for the backing, a yellow fabric, solid or patterned for the binding, and batting for the middle. Once I have put the quilt together I will hand quilt.

Quilt top on the bed in our spare room, my childhood teddy bear Andrew, and Puppy Love keep a loving eye on it.

I find hand quilting to be very relaxing. I can work on the quilt most days, quilt for ten minutes or a few hours. I enjoy seeing my progress. I like to work out the quilting pattern, will I do straight lines, curves, shapes, what will I do in the borders, what color thread will I use, it is a creative process, one I enjoy, and one that I find meditative. Often when I am making a quilt for a specific person, they are in my mind as I hand quilt their quilt and I find myself offering up prayer for them, I like this aspect of quilting.

It is good to have things to do in the winter, and this month our weather has been atrocious, limiting outdoor activities. First we had snow, then extreme sub-zero temperatures, followed by a week of fairly nice weather. Then snow, then an overnight ice-storm, thankfully the ice melted the following day as there was a heavy coating on everything. The ice-storm caused a tree to fall on the power lines leaving our area without power for six or so hours, the house stayed warm enough but was getting quite chilly by the time the power did come on. Then in the evening the wind started, we were under a wind advisory all night, strong winds buffeted our house with gusts to forty-five miles per hour. Thank heavens the ice coating had melted or a lot of trees would have been damaged. It was a noisy night, and this morning it is still very blustery with snow. Oh, how we all are looking forward to spring.

How is it in your corner of the world?

Namaste,

Bean

Just my thoughts on a Thursday evening!

I work two and a half days a week, it is a nice schedule and allows me to be available to babysit my grandchildren. I wouldn't trade my time with my grandchildren for anything, we have fun together, they amuse me, and I enjoy them very much.
I like having time to myself, I like to crochet, knit, sew, read books, quilt, all rather sedentary occupations but they keep me occupied during the winter months, I feel at a bit of a loss if I don't have a project going.
I am looking forward to spring, it has been a long, snowy, very cold winter, it is cheering to think that next month we can begin planting a few things in the vegetable garden. St. Patrick's day, March 17 is a traditional day to plant peas, and that is only four weeks away, that makes me very happy to think about. Peas, potatoes, onions, can be started early, I doubt I will plant on March 17, but just the thought that I could if I wanted to is very cheering.
I am so glad we keep a big garden and preserve so much of what we grow and I am glad we raised a couple of steers and have a full freezer of beef.  We have had a tight six months, and the vegetables and fruit that we canned, the meat in the freezer, and the fresh eggs from our hens have been such a blessing and we have really been able to minimize our grocery expenses. Milk, butter, cheese, dog food, potatoes and onions seem to be the main items that appear again and again on our grocery lists. I think we save a lot cooking from scratch, as long as we have basic staples in the house we can make just about anything we want.
I feel very blessed, I see my grandchildren most days, most Sunday's all the kids, grandkids are here to eat and hang out, and at least once through the week, sometimes more we have a crowd for dinner, it is wonderful.Last night everyone was here, including my neighbor, for a big pot of chili, just the thing on a cold winters day, for desert we had yellow cake with chocolate frosting. It was a fun, noisy meal.
Tonight I got home from work, I don't work again until Monday, it always takes me a bit to unwind from the hectic pace at the office. I had a nice cup of tea, putzed around on the internet, then decided to work on the bag I am knitting. I finished the second piece to the knitted bag last night, so tonight I had to block the pieces then sew them together and then make a lining and sew it into the bag.  The house is very quite, I sat in silence at the kitchen table drinking my tea and sewing together the bag, then I went upstairs to my sewing room and again worked in silence while I put together the lining and sewed it into place. Silence is good! I feel calm, I feel myself again, I feel satisfied with a busy productive day at work, and a satisfaction in my almost completed knitting project, I still need to knit a handle for my bag, that I will do tomorrow.
I am reading another Alexander McCall Smith book, the third in the Scotland Street series, I really do enjoy AMS writing. And, I love the Kindle my kids got me for Christmas. It is so nice to borrow a book from the library via the Kindle, it might be three o' clock in the morning, I can browse the available ebooks at our library and once I find one it takes just a few seconds to download and have available to read - truly amazing. In my last post I mentioned I was reading Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys, I thought I was going to enjoy it, initially I was drawn right into the story, but several chapters later I just lost interest in the main character and I didn't really like any of the other characters, so I skipped to the end to see what happened and then returned the book to the library.
I have really been enjoying The Waltons over the past month or so, I purchased season 7 a fair number of years ago, so took a few weeks to watch all of the episodes as I knitted or crocheted away. At our work Christmas party I won a $25 gift card to Barnes and Noble, so two weeks ago I used it to purchase season 4 of the Waltons, it has taken me two weeks to watch all of the episodes.  Now I want to get more seasons, but will have to wait. I do like season 7 except Grandpa is not in any of the episodes as the actor who played him, Will Geer, died between seasons 6 and 7, and Michael Learned who played the Mama left the show about two thirds of the way through the season.. John Boy is still in season 4, but I believe he left the show after season 5. I really like the episodes with Grandpa and John Boy still around. I don't care for season 8 or 9 so much, the show changed a lot, of course the children had grown up, but key characters were gone, Grandpa and Grandma were dead, John and Olivia were absent, John Boy returns but is played by a different actor. Cousin Rose comes to take care of the family, I like her character but always feel as it the Walton girls are kind of mean to her and put her down a lot. And poor Ronnie Clair, who played Cora Beth really had her work cut out as the character becomes more and more over the top. But even though Cora Beth is over the top she is still a very entertaining character, and as the seasons rolled on she became more of an eccentric rather than a somewhat mean spirited gossip she was portrayed as in the beginning of the show. A few episodes were silly, The Poltergeist being one, and another where suddenly it turns out Mary Ellen's husband, Kurt, didn't die in the war after all. But there are so many really good episodes, the Pearl Harbor attack episode is just one of them. I loved that  Ellen Corby, who played Grandma, returned to the show after her stroke and was wonderful in the show.
The Walton's was produced by Earl Hammer, he is the "real" John Boy and the show is loosely based on his books and his childhood.  I have read all of Earl Hammer's books, he is a very gifted writer, with a good sense of humor, and an eye for detail, I would highly recommend any one of his books and they are probably available at your local library.
Anyway, enough already, this post was not supposed to be all about The Waltons' but I love the show and I guess that is perhaps a bit too obvious :)

Well that is all that is going on in my mind this evening.

Good Night,

Bean

Okay, this is weird, and sad. I finished this post and went to Yahoo to check my email, and on the news page up pops a picture of Ralph Waite, the actor who played the father in The Walton's. Sadly he died today at the age of 85, RIP Mr. Waite, we sure enjoyed your work and will always remember you as the Dad in The Walton's.

A Delightful Saturday Outing

This Saturday we went to the Maumee Valley Antique Gas and Steam Show, the cost was $5/person over the age of 12.  Emily came along to help with the boys, we had two strollers, and Henry was very, very excited to go see all of the tractors and he was not disappointed.
There were tractors everywhere and of all ages, there were steam tractors and gas powered tractors of all ages, shapes, and sizes.  There was a little something for everyone, a quilt show, clog dancing, junk food, chicken dinners, ice cream, a model airplane air show,  a flea market, and exhibitions of various machinery in use.  There were free activities for children, a clown making balloon animals, face painting, and a barrel train ride, Henry and Patrick participated in all of these activities.  We really enjoyed the quilt show, and I say we, because the little boys really, really liked the quilts, some were very colorful, others had interesting block designs, and Patrick was so very, very excited when he saw a YO GABBA GABBA child quilt, he just stared at it in awe saying in a soft voice "Yo Gabba Gabba".
When we first arrived we watched a tree trunk get sawed into planks, this was done using a huge saw blade,  at least a yard in diameter, powered by a steam engine that ran an extremely long belt to drive multiple pulleys to turn the saw fast enough to quickly saw through a tree trunk length wise, very impressive.  Later on they had a planing exhibition to show how the rough cut planks are made uniform in size and shape.
We then headed over to a pavilion to watch the AppleJack Cloggers, they were a fun and entertaining bunch of dancers ranging in age from teenagers to retirees, they danced to fun music like the Wabash Cannon Ball. The emcee told some rather lame jokes between dance numbers, very lame but silly enough to make you chuckle.
After enjoying the clogging we headed over to the model airplane runway to watch the airplanes fly and do tricks, this was put on by the Fort Wayne Flying Circuits Model Airplane Club.  The planes were quite impressive, they all appeared to have a wingspan of four to five feet, and they were very nimble, one red and white stripped plane did all kinds of loop de loops and dizzying dives it was very fun to watch.  Again the little boys were enamored with the planes, they did not want to leave, they enjoyed watching them take off and land, and of course fly.  Eventually we did leave to go find some lunch. Henry and Patrick enjoyed a hamburger, Emily found a gyro, I opted for a breaded tenderloin and some coleslaw.  After lunch and a short time to play on a jungle gym, Henry ran around up and down ladders telling everyone he was Fireman Sam, we headed over to get some homemade ice cream - YUMMY - it was very good.
After all of this Charlie needed a bottle, so I fed him while Emily took the boys off to ride the barrel train, this  they did by themselves and they were gone for a while, we would see them go by and think they were about to return, but no, they simply wound around and appeared again then disappeared and finally returned to the depot, for a FREE ride they really got a good deal.
Then off to wander the flea market, I found a funny sign for Dave to hang in the garage, it says, "What happens in the garage stays in the garage", then has a sketch of a guy kicked back in a chair drinking a beer while watching football on a little tv, the car in the background still appears in need of repair!!
By this point everyone was feeling a bit tired and we were ready to head home, all three boys were asleep within a few minutes of leaving and we headed home with a definite plan to attend the Maumee Valley Gas and Steam Engine Show again in 2013.
Here are some pictures to enjoy. (Please note, I forgot to take my camera so only had my cell phone to take pictures with, it does an okay job but has no zoom).

Rows of tractors to look at.

A tree trunk already partially sawed and getting ready to go through again.

The steam engine powering the long, long belt to run the saw blade.

A close up of the steam engine.

Face painting completed and balloon dogs in hand the boys are feeling quite pleased.

A not very good shot of the airfield, there are planes on the ground, a yellow one in  the center of the picture.

The speck in the sky is the red dare devil airplane

We had just finished eating our lunch in the tent we took a picture of the boys to send to their Mommy  while she was at work.

Patrick really enjoyed his chocolate ice cream.

Not sure what this is, but it looked kind of cool, I think it is some kind of hot rod tractor.

More farm machinery.

A "John Deere" bicycle, Emily liked it a lot, it had a tractor seat and a steering  wheel and could be all yours for a mere $50.

Henry and Patrick in the first two cars of the barrel train.  Called a barrel train because the cars are made out o f, you guessed it, barrels.

Ah, a pedal car, this brought back memories.

A steam roller I think, it emitted a lot of steam and had a large roller, so I put two and two together and hope that I have not come up with seven.