Back in The Saddle

Yep, I'm home.
I don't know why I can't get the photos to show from my last post? Maybe it's this dinosaur of a lap-top? It's three years old after all. hmmm.
I went right to work on Thursday morning. Right back to the 'To-Do Rack'. It was good to see lots of work to do, good to have it to come home to. I didn't miss too many phone calls; Chuggy monitored the answering machine and the messages. Business tends to slow down in August so it's a good time to be away.
I had a beautiful time in Canada. I saw lots of old/good friends, spent time with #1 Friend, saw a little of St. Thomas, shopped for souveniers and found lots of 'Oh, Canada' memorabilia. It was after Canada Day after all. Most of it was on the clearance racks. Hooray! The hats were a hit!
Surprisingly, I had a little jet-lag. This old frame is feeling every bit like it's nearing the half century(!) mark. Used to be we could zip around forever, like leaving the Bay Area after school on a Friday, driving to Burbank, and then turning around and driving home after Gospel, go to school that very Monday morning. I think that had been an eight hour drive back then? Anyway, it has taken a while for me to feel re-adjusted. Besides, I neglected my two mile morning walk while away. I sure could tell!
Teaching Clementine (we sang about the forty-niner) was a wonderful experience. She was an eager learner, bright and enthusiastic like Josephine was at that age. I'll do it again in a flash. The objectives were perfect, the end result quite satifactory. I owe a lot to Chuggy who helped me organize, prioritize, and plan. She's a planner, that one!

Tuesday

Scrap-book pages;



French Seams
Gathering



Back-tacking
Hems



Standard Seam Allowance
Basting Stitching


WorkBook Cover with Pocket


Moccassins!


Sewing Machine Dust Cover



Me and my Best Pal. I stayed at Walker's Saturday night and was back here after Gospel. She will be over tomorrow, Tuesday, for lunch and then again after supper to take me back to her house for the night. We'll leave at 7:00am on Wednesday morning on Air Canada'a shuttle- JAZZ to Toronto with her on her 'Buddy Pass', have breakfast together at the airport and then she'll fly home to London when I board for San Francisco.

Monday

Project # 15. We skipped a few to get to little, visual projects. Tuesday we'll go back to the order.
This is a zippered purse with a flap that has braid on it. She braided the shoulder strap from the yellow cord, it made a more substantial strap.
We also did the glitzy blue one with the dangly, beaded trim, but it frayed alot because we wanted to do a drawstring.


The hidden zipper.
Tomorrow we will do projects
# 9: the Calico Cat and Gingham Dog,
Project # 10: the Book-Cover


She was so excited when she saw this book this morning!
Many thanks to Chuggy.
Sue is very impressed and wants you to be thanked especially. She says I'll need to sign it from you when we're done. We opened it Monday morning and I gave C. a little purse size sewing kit to keep for a reward when we finished every page

One page. I will try to make other photos bigger but I think you can enlarge them by clicking on it.

Regrouping with a game of Foos-Ball.
It's hard to fool a girl with three older brothers!
She's won four out of five games, and that is only because of beginner's luck on my part.

Lordsday

I know, it's Monday...I just haven't had a minute to catch up until tonight. I'll start with yesterday and then do today.
We were all invited to Walker's after meeting for Ham lunch. A pot-luck affaire. Shannon made a new style ham dressing; mixing whipped cream with Dijon mustard. I'll need to get used to it. I hear it plays well in Aberdeen.
Dave and Gwen expect number three this Fall. Madeline is three and Evan just turned two. He has quite the nonsense vocabulary. Unless you are with him in his 'moment' he'll rattle on for a while, entirely expecting you to respond! He is very much a Host. He will pull out little chairs (when he is supposed to) for the girls and ask them to sit. Comment on their plate-fulls, remarking on the difference.
Jim and Lorraine left today for a bus-tour of New York. Ithaca and vicinity. It was nice to see them. He sent fresh corn on the cob to Hayhoe's for me. Apparently he is quite the farmer; he'll plant his sweet corn up wind of his feed corn to limit cross-pollination.
Can't forget Dorrie! How sweet she is. Thanked me for your greeting. I was able to mention you all to Jim and Mary-Jane as well. Jim left this morning for the cottage, taking the two younger boys. They'll work on the buildings and such, doing repairs, fishing and having more lake fun.

P.S. check out www.hayhoehomes.com to see what keeps Will busy all day.

Project # 7.
Our biggest project yet!
This is a back-pack. Not having a finished item to see before we started was hard for her. She will develop 'Vision' soon enough. We talked about watching Mom bake things, and how they don't look like the finished product in the beginning. Looking at the fabric rectangles and ribbon, and knowing what we were trying to do was hard for her to fathom. She kept after me to reassure her that this was what we were really doing.
We took a little break after this.

Project # 8
We finished the day making "Schrunchies" for Mom. She didn't think she would wear them until Mom pointed out she could wrap both braids into one! Still, she liked the idea of a gift for Mom.
It is good that we can break for the weekend now. She is tiring of the concentration. It's entirely understandable, after all.
The Looby Cousins (Will's sister's children ) came over just before we finished. End of session, in other words...too much distraction. Now they are all in the pool, in the rain!
Shannon is coming shortly to take me home with her for the weekend. I'll stay with her and Ernie until Lord'sday evening when Sue will come to Walker's for a Hot Tub soak with Shannon and me.

Until Monday...

Friday, Day Two

Project # 4
She did such a fine job! We used our 'invisible ink' pen to mark the spacing for the 'blanket' stitches on the envelope flap and she only needed help with tension (so we didn't cut the paper with the golden thread). Threading ribbon through the grommets was easy then. We need practice with knots, but she is getting it now, with the shoes!

Project # 5
How fun is a Wind Sock! We had to set up a room fan because there is no wind today. Hard work, those French Seams. Whew! We were definitely flagging by quitting time today.

Project # 6
She LOVES these shoes! She gets to go back to them when she is done with her daily work. Good idea, Chuggy. It's refreshing to see her reach for them willingly on her own. She does a thread's length worth and then we move on.
Last night's effort. We had too many beads on the strap and we couldn't get the strap through the buckle. It was hard to convince her to do them both at the same time, alternating between, so she isn't overwhelmed with the second time around.

While I'm waiting for C. to finish breakfast I'll try to catch up a bit.
She flinched when I took this shot yesterday. We are trying to keep focused. Her attention span depends on the project right now. The short ones were a good thing to start with.. She can be done with her work, feel accomplished, and have something to show Mom and Dad. Even though we zoomed through Projects 1, 2, 3, and 4 yesterday, we left some of the duplicate work for later...for her to do on her own. A bit of Gladys Smith, eh? I'll have Sue copy a few of the stitching sheets for her to practice on , too. We need work on straight line, corners, and curves. I think going back to those will be good as she'll have the concept down and it will be just reinforcement.

The Petunias are all in full bloom! Deb is a quiet observer. She's completed all of the yarn/sewing cards twice now. She sits opposite the sewing machine and watches everything.

The greeting cards went over big! She plans to send them to Gramma R. We did two apples and the grommet one. Her hand work is excellent. She conquered the blanket stitch immediately. You'll see it this afternoon.


This is an East Coast phenomenon that I know Grampa Rube will not find as interesting as I did. Apparently he fights this tree pest often. It's called a Tent Caterpillar and the trees are full of them. At first I couldn't figure out what they were, I'd never seen them before.

I asked #3 Son Aaron what they were. He knew all about them and was bewildered by my curiosity.
They find a juction and weave their cocoon, gobbling up the foliage while they mature into a moth.




They're quite a pest, can even destroy entire forests. So much for my fascination. The locals either smoke them to death with smoky rags on long poles or chop the entire branch off and burn them up in bonfires. I found this Federal Website: http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/fidls/ftc/tentcat.htm

I hear a rambunctious "PIT" game upstairs. Martha Roberts is here overnight with her two youngest. She is on her way to Hamer Bay to see her folks.

Day One

Hey everybody, I'm in Canada! The flight was good, in fact, the last landing was so smooth we could hardly tell when the plane's wheels touched the ground.

This is my student Caroline. We got through the paperwork (Project#1) in warp speed. She is a quick study, excited and eager to learn. She had so much adrenaline going through her last night it was hard for her to wait until this morning to start. We are working on the greeting cards now. She finished an apple one before lunch,(Project #3!!) and just reminded me that she is ready to go again. In other words-get off the computer!

Here is Project #2 finished!

Trying to take my own picture. It took three tries...
This is the driveway up to the Hayhoe's home. They live on a wooded lot with lots of room. Behind is a fiberglass swimming pool sunk into the ground.

This is my student Caroline cutting the fringe for her Beanie.

Shannon and kids will be over shortly to swim for a little while.
I had a good night's sleep; I went to bed at 10:30pm Eastern Time and slept until 8:00am! (which would be 5:00am to you) More tomorrow! Love, Kedg

Corolla

My new Toyota. I like this shot with Sook and Keliweli the best. Yes, she is standing up straight and I am that short. It was all-day-meeting yesterday. A really nice time. John Ruga had the address, he spoke on Shimei...a good word... if it weren't for Jailgy, who had to behave; she rolls her eyes or squeezes them shut (and I don't help either, sliding my eyes her way ) at his rampant mis-pronunciations. I told her he was an engineer and to him each letter has the same value. This made it worse, especially at Zer-ru-eye-ee-uh. Sorry John, it's the curse of a mother with an English Degree. We spoke proper english from the cradle, except in Hawaii and I think mom couldn't wait to escape that English curdle-ing culture! (serves me right. My spell check won't work tonight.)

Seriousy now folks, he really doesn't have professional model training. You might think so, but he doesn't! I just dragged him out of the meeting room to stand by my car. He bought mine for college which started today.

Quilt

This is a shot of the quilt that Mom made and we hung in the living room. The walls aren't really THAT green, a bit softer. In the way is a branch of the Benjamina Ficus that I bought at Jeremiah Scully's nursery 25 years ago! It has moved from East to West and also visited the meeting room for a wedding! (That time it predictably lost half of it's leaves...temper, temper.)
I'm getting better at this...I just need to take more photos so I have more to choose from! I'll take some tomorrow at Cupcake's birthday party. It will be so fun to have breakfast together in LadyBug's park-like front yard. TomTheTrucker is home and he will fire up the BBQ first thing. Chuggy is bringing a few pans of Tmmy Klssn's cinnamon rolls & two dozen of her chicken's eggs, we're bringing a huge fruit bowl with fresh pineapple, papaya, bananas, apples, oranges, cantalope, dressed with a sour cream/brown sugar sauce. Jailgy's bringing two lbs bacon, Ladybug is supposed to make fried potatoes (if you're surprised at reading this, mom forgot to ask you, sorry.)

Thinking

I've always liked this shot. It could be in Lancaster County. I am practicing uploading photos.

I have a lot on my plate these days...first, I am car-shopping. Decided against the Honda Civic. Bucket seats are too deep, hard to climb out of, and the speedometer is digital; flashes right in your face at (my) eye level. (No 'shorty' comments, please) Am leaning toward a Toyota Corolla, the same as I have now. The new ones are fine!! Dealer wants me to get an 'S' which is their top-of-the-line, of course...it has alloy(?) wheels, sun-roof, leather trim, Lo-Jack, two 12volt outlets, A/C, CD player, cruise. I could go on. My job now is to get the three local dealers to duke it out about their terrible interest rates. 7%I'm sure!! That's not happening! I've got two down to 6.5% and 6.39%. I'm in no hurry, it's the fed/interest-rate that concerns me. And the fact that Toyota doesn't have to budge; the cars are selling like hotcakes because of the gas crunch.
Next, I am planning to go on a teaching expedition. Will and Sue Hayhoe have asked me to come to St.Thomas next week to teach their older daughter Caroline how to sew! How fun is that? I will be blogging every day so Mom can keep up with me while I'm gone.
She'll stay with B&B. Their anniversary is that weekend. They plan to be gone overnight so it is a good thing to have Gramma there, supervising the restless natives, (0r ringing the half-time bell)

geraniums

Mom's favorite flower. Besides roses. And iris. Oh, and petunias.

Try, try again.

Jailgy is standing here over my shoulder, watching me to be sure I do this right. Good thing, too. It comes out sideways!