Out and About!

My grandson, Jacob and I have been very busy since he arrived Sunday afternoon. We are, of course, working on "projects", playing games, spending time on the computer, walking Kaiser (you can see here in the photo that his eyes are not so red and he is not itching.....in fact, he is very comfy on the couch and is not supposed to be sleeping on those sofa pillows!!) and just enjoying ourselves! We spent most of Monday working on a felt pillow for Jacob, but took a break in the afternoon to go to the library.

As we walked up the sidewalk to the library, we noticed how pretty these sunflowers were. That's the bell tower in the background that holds the original bell from when the library building was the Episcopal Church (built in 1856).

Here's a full view of the Library. The windows inside the building are original and so beautiful. It's a very inviting space to spend an hour or so looking at books.......which is just what we did! (In three weeks, I'll be helping with a quilt show there in celebration of Henderson's Heritage Days and the era of celebration is the 1920's!)

We capped off our trip to the library with an ice cream cone at Toody's Sweets and Treats. :-) Lamona was working at the counter and recommended the Birthday cake and ice cream flavor. It was soooooo good with real chunks of cake and colored sprinkles, too. Jacob thought it was very good. That's Toody just stepping into the picture and her Sweet Treats are listed on the chalkboard. If you are near Henderson, you should stop in for a sweet treat!!!

When we got home, we got back to working on the felt pillow and if you would like to see our project, please go here. Jacob would like to know what you think of the pillow, so if you are so inclined please leave a comment for him.

I did a little bit of sewing on a penny rug project last night but nothing to show right now. I did want to share pics of a project that I posted about last week that involved that extra long ruler. (The table runner is a Thimbleberries design but the pattern is no longer available. )

I am sure that many of you quilters know the value of quarter inch tape to mark lines for quilting, but just in case you don't..................

I used the ruler along with a square Quilter's template to mark off the lines that I will hand-quilt along on my table runner. You can see that I started with an open square in the middle then created a pattern as I moved out from there.

It's all marked and ready to be quilted. As I stitch along, I remove the tape at cross-sections as needed. This works really well as I get very straight quilting lines and I have no pencil or marker to worry about removing when the quilting is done. I learned this technique from my quilting friend, Arlis, and have taught it in all the volunteer beginning quilt classes that I shared at the library, plus in Community Ed classes. The tape does not leave any residue on your fabric as long as you quilt the piece in a reasonable amount of time. Since this is just a tablerunner, it should not take long to do this project. You may also notice that the corners have now been rounded as the pattern suggested. I thought I could finish this piece while sitting on my front porch but I think the hand-quilting will be done inside the house while I watch "Dancing with the Stars" when it debuts in a couple of weeks. I only wish I could dance like they all do!!

Whew! That's all for tonight. I didn't even get to our adventures for today and tomorrow is going to be another busy one. We are going to head outside and paint and dye fabric!! Plus, I will get the Block of the Month projects posted by the end of the day, this Wednesday.

Later then.....

Sleep tight!

Sandi