Projecting!

 When your grand daughter asks for a bathing suit for her American Girl doll, this Grandma searches until she finds a pattern and then finds everything she needs in her stash to make it happen!  Done in plenty of time before her birthday!

 Mom and I recovered some foam to make new rocking chair cushions since none were available in the stores!  Old foam and a new sheet-it worked out great!

The men have completed the walls!  The hurricane straps are on, too, and you can see them if you look at the base of each two by four!

Pleasure Takes Many Forms

 The quilting is done on Mom's wall hanging; we put the binding on and now she has the hand sewing homework ahead of her.

 It is covered with dragonflies!

 The men are making good progress on the shed!  The front wall has the big door so a bit slower on the construction but they will conquer it!

We had a lovely knitting day yesterday-so nice to have a day to knit and share our lives.  I am working on a little Easter sweater for Ella.

I am a Skype Grandma...........love our weekly visits!  Aria's face just lights up when she sees me on the screen-hoping she will recognize me when they visit in June!!!!

Bike Week

 So nice to have company stop by to celebrate bike week!    My brother, his wife and youngest son and brother-in-law and wife stopped in for a tour of our house!  Harley Davidson is well represented in their troupe.

 My one and only bestest brother, Bob and his wife, Shelly.  We enjoyed a great visit and a fantastic lunch served al fresco at Dad and Mom's.

Sparkly Notes

 Find one tri-fold card,

 layer organza and some fabric confetti and some colored threads,

cover it with some sparkly organza, 

 add some quilting lines to keep it all together, glue it behind the cut-out ,

and you have a nifty note card to send to a crafty friend!

Decked!

The guys started right in on the shed this morning, and moved to nailing the decking this afternoon.

 I hung up this curio cabinet we found when cleaning out that old portable garage.

 It is hanging in the sewing room over the antique sewing machine.  I filled it with little knick knacks that were out and about the house.

 Another unpacking find-an old clay plant hanger which I scrubbed, filled with new soil and a planted a baby bromeliad inside of it!

After lunch while them men worked, the ladies went to do the sleeping bag sewing.  After dinner, I sewed this bias challis scarf for Mom.  Now, I am headed to the recliner and some knitting!

Cosmetology-Spin Style

Several years ago, the finish went on my Ashford Joy spinning wheel.  It has been sticky ever since and not attractive to spin with it!  It was a huge dust bunny and not in a good way!

I worked for 5 hours but I got it all apart, all sanded to remove the old polyurethane finish and then  waxed all the cleaned parts and then put it all back together!! ( I took each part and put it in a baggie labeled well so there would be no question of what went where!  )  It looks so much better and my socks don't stick to the pedals anymore!

( I will share with you my consternation when I was about halfway to having it back together and I saw the poly drive band sitting. over. there. and not on the wheel; which should have happened as  step one.  Nothing to do but take it all back apart and start again.  I was much quicker on the second assembly! lol)

Domains

 After bombing on the knit kits we tried to buy online (they were back ordered too far in the future) and not having the right fabric in my stash to finish Mom's wall hanging, we sat and did some knitting.  And Mom promptly ran into a snarl and had to rip out. again.  We laughed so hard!!!

The men built their support beams and then leveled them and started laying floor joists.

This evening we had dinner at our house and then games..........I am sorry to say the men beat us soundly; buy not silently.  They have no sense of humility!  What a perfectly delightful day.

Love-An Action Verb

 I finished this pair of socks for my daughter-it is fun to use up the skeins of yarn for each sock! The socks are long and lean just like Marsel!
(See the shadow on the upper left of the picture?  It is in every shot I am taking and I can't get rid of it.  I am afraid it is a piece of sand from our trip to the beach last time!  It is going to drive me crazy!!!)

When Abigail, my grand daughter,  was here a few weeks ago, she 'planned' an outfit for me to make for her American Girl Doll.  I put her plans to work this morning and was able to mail out the package of love this afternoon!

Colored Blooms

All the blocks are together and sitting pretty in a table runner.  It was a good day in the sewing room.

Blooming

 The hemp knit up beautifully; I see some spa washcloths in my near future!

 Mom and I had a sewing day, we cut up some pretty fabric and rearranged it-she is making a wall hanging, me a table runner.  Today was cutting up and then we will do several blocks for homework!

 One block is complete to help with the game plan.

The yard is blooming, too.  Spring is giving us signs that it is coming.......these wild crocus grace the front yard, 

right next to these neighboring Egyptian Iris.  What inspiration.

Visitors Part II

 Saturday morning was clean up and regroup mentally after saying goodbye to family. I decided to spin some of this month's FiberBinderClub hemp fiber.

 While it is a bit coarse compared to wool, it spun very nicely and I would love to make a woven mat from this for the table.

I remembered I had another ounce of this fiber somewhere and sure enough, found and spun that , too.  I am leaving this as singles and going to boil it to set the twist and see how it knits up.  I might have to ply this, too, but it is good to have ideas to try out!

In the afternoon, we had our next visitors from NY.  We took a drive up to Corky Bells for our dinner and our traditional picture on the dock!  They are official visitors now that they have this picture as record!  (The picture is wonky because of the sloped rails where I rest my camera for this timed snap shot!)  It is so nice to have old friends make the time to drop in for a few days.

Visitors

... to our usually quiet lives are welcome.   I love a February filled with family!  We did a lot of this-hanging out and soaking up the sunshine and laughing.

 Well, most of us wanted to be in the sun!

 After my Georgia peaches left for home, we took a last day at the beach day with my sister and family.

 We saw a gopher turtle in the dunes......always fun to spot them.

 Bill and the girls went out farther than the rest of us but did make good use of the sand bar.

 We were some serious shell seekers.

 These monoliths were high and dry at low tide.  Usually they are out 50-75 feet from the shore on the Matanza River.  They looked inviting to me even if they are just some old bridge supports!

 The ocean was just a bit cool (65F) but just as alluring as always.

I found an unusual amount of sea glass, yippee!

Vanilla socks kept me busy in the car and in slow times of conversation!

ReCovered!

 We woke up to a nasty freeze-the kind that lasted ALL night.  Bad for flowers, bad for orange blossoms.  Bill ran the sprinklers all night to help some of the plants in the front yard.

 These will bounce back after a bit of a rest.  We are hoping this was our last freeze this winter.

 This morning, Marsel and I started right in on a re-upholstery job.  Since she hasn't done this on her own, she brought the chair to her Mom for a fun lesson!  We started the job in front of the fireplace!

 In the afternoon, we went to visit at my parents and had a rousing game of Spinners with everyone!  While playing we saw this flock out the window.  The bird bath is a favorite spot for Dad and Mom's feathered friends......the bird feeder is just to the left of this so they have a front row seat to their actions.  (Yes, this was frozen solid this morning, too!)

 After dinner, we finished our sewing project!  The chair is now ready to travel back to Georgia!
We did have to re-do one cushion which turned into a good object lesson for Marsel because part of every job is the skill of fixing mistakes!  Together, every job becomes an adventure.

I am ready for my recliner and some knitting.........