Shari's Garden

Reunited in Cyberland

12:04, Thursday 19 November 2009 .. 2 comments .. Link

This fall I was blessed by my mother and my Aunt Joyce coming to my home for a visit. It had been many, many years since we had been together, it was one of the happiest weeks of my life.

When they came, they brought many things for the kids and for me, things that I never knew about, and things that I had hoped to have one day. One of the most lovely things I was blessed with was a quit made by my Great Grandmother, Mary R. Eastwood. Mary and her quilt are reunited here for your viewing pleasure.

Mary Eastwood

My daughter noted that Grandmother Mary is sitting so very straight and I notice that her ankles are crossed in a very lady like manner. I realized that from my mother back this sort of posture was expected and something that ladies worked hard to maintain no matter their age. It was like breathing to them, necessary.

This quilt is all hand stitched, a sewing machine was never used, even for joining the pieces. I am so humbled to have been given this lovely quilt.

From here I will let the pictures speak for the beauty of this quilt.

1

2

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You may note that the pencil lines for the quilting stitches are still visiable, and the tiny stitches too. To me, it is just the most lovely quilt I have ever seen and I am thrilled to have it in my home. It will be cared for with all the loving kindness we can offer and will be passed on to one of my daughters.

Thank you for visiting.

So Much to Share

06:51, Monday 9 November 2009 .. Posted in Handwork .. 2 comments .. Link

I have been away from my blog for a long time, so many things have been happening while I was absent. I think I will have to go backwards to fill in all the things that I have missed sharing over the last few months.

The last thing that I did was to embroidery a little motif on a tote bag that was given to me by my Aunt Joyce. This plain tote was in a kit that she had ordered and decided not to complete. I didn't care for the crochet rounds that the kit included, so I chose to do some embroidery work on it instead. The motif was in a lovely craft book that I have been hungering after for a few years now and was able to finally purchase for my brithday. Here is a link to the book at my Amazon.com store:

Sew Pretty Homestyle

I highly recommend this book, there are so many beautiful crafts in it and it is amazingly easy to follow the instructions. You will find things for yourself, your home and wonderful gift ideas for friends and family.

This is how the tote bag turned out:

I think it is perfect and will be a nice helper for carrying my little shopping purchases in, as it seems most stores are not offering bags for smaller items. A decidedly feminine way to "Go Green".

What sort of changes have you made for "Going Green" when you shop?

In addition to this little craft project, we have been getting our fall clean up finished. The garden is completely put to bed. All the things that needed to be picked up and store and taken care of and we have laid in a nice supply of fuel for heating our little house.

Tonight I will be helping the oldest bake banana bread and cook a vanilla pudding. We are having a Banana Bread Trifle for our games night tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by to visit me.

Hot Summer Days...

07:28, Wednesday 29 July 2009 .. Posted in Musings and Considerations .. 2 comments .. Link

...Make for lots of naps for me and mine. The heat seems to drain us of all energy. We get up early in the morning and get our daily chores done before the heat of the day sets in.

This week we went for an early walk and found this delightful spot, it is on private land, not a public area. Too bad because is it a beautiful setting.

I have also managed to do some crochet work this summer. I decided on a crocheted rug for my bathrooms. One is finished and there are three more to make, alas, they have to wait until a trip to town to purchase more yarn. This is rug was made by a method called surface crochet. It makes a thick rug, which I hope will be nice on our feet during the cold winter months.

There was good news this month, the taxes are paid on our property. There was sad news too, my father passed away after a long illness.

The garden is growing, and the squirrels are eating well! We have gottens some squash and some peppers, but the squash bugs were so bad, they ruined the plants early. I did learn one thing, squash bugs are not put off by Nasturtiums. My companion planting experiments are not going well!

That pretty much catches up my July. Comfortably busy.

Thanks for stopping by.

Been Away for a Long Time

06:04, Wednesday 1 July 2009 .. Posted in Musings and Considerations .. 0 comments .. Link

I have been away from my blog for far too long. The family and I have been working hard around the place getting weeds cut down, getting the gardens in shape, starting seeds and transplanting the seedlings when they are grown enough. In addition I have been working for my husband, that takes up so many hours of my day.

With summer here the temperature has climed in to the 100's but our spring weather was lovely. We had lots of cool cloudy days and lots of rain for our area. I am looking forward to any produce we might be blessed.

Not only that but I have been able to sell some of my homemade soap. Making more is on my To Do List, which just seems to be getting longer by the day.

Now if I can figure out how to get these grasshoppers to leave!

I hope your spring and summer have been full of all the blessings you could hope for. Now I must go and move the water hose to another rose bush.

Thank you for stopping by and have a good day.

A Little Spring Clean Up - Outside

01:14, Friday 3 April 2009 .. Posted in Around the Place .. 1 comments .. Link

My kids and I have been on a mission for the last year to clean up around the outside of the place. I am ashamed to admit that it has been terribly neglected and that my kids were embarrassed at the amount of clutter and the messes that I had allowed to happen.

Here are some before and after photos of a small project that we worked on yesterday. We have loads of sand stone here on our acreage, so there is not limit of terrace material yet.

Before #1:

Before #2:

After #!:

After #2:

There is still work to be done on this but we have made a start.

We are growing some ornamental grass that can be planted along the edges and some Rose of Sharon bushes that we can use around this area too.

The best part of all this work that we are doing, besides getting things cleaned up and nicer looking, my kids and I grow closer and closer every day. They are happy to help me with all the things that need to be done, it has not only given the a mission but they see the results of thier hard work and they are very proud of the way things are coming together. They work hard and never complain.

God has greatly blessed me with loving, caring and helpful children.

Thank you for stopping by.

Surprises in the Mail

04:48, Tuesday 31 March 2009 .. Posted in Handwork .. 0 comments .. Link

My Uncle John is one of the smartest people I know. He has a PhD in Animal Husbandry and has been a professor at a major university. Not only is he smart, he is so talented. He plays the guitar and was learning the banjo and he also does wood carving.

I have heard about his carvings but had never seen one, he and my Aunt live 2000 miles from here and I haven't seen them in more years than I want to admit. I am thankful for the internet, it has allowed us to be in touch in such a wonderful way. Well, my precious Aunt and Uncle sent me one of his wood bowls. I am in awe of the beauty of this piece, It will be treasured by me and my family forever.

Here are a few pictures of this lovely gift they sent to me:

Another view:

One more view:

You can visit his site and see more of his work at:

http://www.keoweekarvings.com/

Thank you for stopping by.

After Many Years..

07:00, Tuesday 24 March 2009 .. Posted in Around the Place .. 2 comments .. Link

My family and I live in a 35 year old double wide, we bought it used 17 years ago.

The lowest shelf under my kitchen sink was made of particle board, very thin particle board, that had gotten damp and saggy. Nothing could sit on this lowest shelf, everything would fall over and make a terrible mess. Years ago I tore out the shelf and have lived with using the floor under the cabinets. It wasn't a bad situation but I have always planned on having the shelf replaced. Yesterday was the day.

My son and I worked for about 3 hours, measuring, cutting, fitting, then my oldest daughter did the painting. Just before it was time to start dinner, we had finished. The shelf was in, all the goodies put back in place and the doors back on.

I keep going and looking at the work accomplished and am just thrilled.

Here is a before and after picture of the cabinet (don't you just love 1970 decor?)

And finished:

Thanks for stopping by.

Buried Treasures

02:18, Tuesday 3 February 2009 .. Posted in Musings and Considerations .. 1 comments .. Link

Many years ago I had a subscription to Victoria Magazine. Oh, what beautiful treasures I found in my mail every month. I started my subscription in August 1988 and kept it going until December 1996.

When I got to be a very busy mom, home teaching, raising chickens and goats, I packed away my old Victoria Magazines and cancelled my subscription. I was far too busy to spend my days gazing over such lovelies as I saw in those magazines.

Now, that my family is mostly raised, I can bring out my old magazines and once again look at the lovely pictures and re-read the articles that were so fascinating to me all those years ago. It is like having a new subscription and I will have more time to glean information from the articles and have better abilities to try some of the recipes and decorating ideas that are presented.

Not only will I be rewarded by a visit with some old friends but my girls will have the magazines to look through also. I can hardly wait to share the magazines and the ideas that this resourse will add to our home life.

Buried treasures indeed.

New Tote for my Projects

01:29, Thursday 8 January 2009 .. Posted in Handwork .. 7 comments .. Link

I have made a new tote bag for carrying my crafting projects. It is so much better than the paper bag I had been using, and it is big enough to hold my clip board with ease.

This is another "Making Love Out of Nothing at All" project. The fabrics are scraps from other sewing projects. The pattern is based on the rag quilt design. It is lined with homespun fabrics that I had left over from skirts that I made for my girls.

I was surprised at how quickly the whole thing went together, it took only a few days. For me the hardest part of the whole thing was cutting the squares, after that it went together in a flash. I ran it though the wash and gave it a good shake, then hung it to dry.

As you can see, it came out very nicely and will be a lovely addition to my crafting area.

Thank you for stopping by for a visit.

Making A Home

10:35, Friday 2 January 2009 .. Posted in Handwork .. 3 comments .. Link

I have always felt that it is a "woman's touch" about the house that makes it a home. We all have our different taste, mine is to add crochet pieces, embroidered pillows, afgans and such, to give a breath of life and love to my little home.

This week I have added a few new things to the home. I used some scrap fabric, that was in my storage box, to make a table cloth and matching curtains for my kitchen. I also crocheted a set of curtain tie backs. I purchased the crochet thread at a thrift store near me for $.50, and the pattern for the crochet is from a magazine that I have been using since 1990.

I call these projects, "Making Love, Out of Nothing at All". Yes, it is the title of a song but I think it fits. Everything I used for this project was left over from other projects or from things that were no longer needed.

Here is a picture of the tie backs, and a little bit of the curtain:

And for you crafy people that would like to crochet your own, here is the diagram:

This is from the Crochet Thread Magazine, issue #6, published 1990. I could not find that the magazine is published any longer.

Happy Crafting and Thank you for stopping by.

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