Sonora Caverns

Pa and I took took Ben and Cara to Sonora Caverns today...

 It was quite an undertaking since it was a little over 2 hours

in the car each way plus about a hour and a half tour. I must

Be getting old... Because I'm too tired to sleep... We had

a wonderful time  and saw some awe inspiring sights.

I loved how the lights showed through to the thin ribbons of

Calcium Carbonate growing from the ceiling. 

Ben and I were amazed at the raw beauty God had made

out of sight of man...

I wish I could do justice to the many wonderous sights

we beheld...but soon the tour was over, and it was time 

to head back home through San Angelo... Which, of 

course, meant Mexican food at Fuentes downtown. 

Once we were full, it was time to pose with the sheep 

out front and head on home.

Jam canning vindicated...

I went to our local grocery store yesterday and while I was there I checked out their cheapest store brand peach jam, and guess what? My home made jam was cheaper! Not by much, only a few cents, but it was cheaper to make it than buy it... I stand vindicated! hmmm... Time for toast and jam... Drool!

More peach jam....

30 jars more!!! Yikes! Believe it or not, I'm getting tired 

of peaches! Who knew that old tree could produce so 

many peaches! I can attest that it's cheaper to buy 

peach jam at the store... But the taste of home grown 

and made makes it worth every penny!!! Let's see ...

 30 jars at $7/doz. ($17.50), 5 pacs Sure Jell 

at $3.59 ($17.95), 3- 4# bags sugar at $1.88 ($5.64)

 total cost $41.09 for 30 1-cup jars of jam. Cost per 

jar of jam $ 1.37..... Yep, I think it can be bought 

cheaper... The value to me of getting to can... 

The peaches being from a tree my Dad planted 

and cared for... Knowing what is and isn't in 

my food... The self sufficient feeling that comes

 from a job well done that the majority of Americans

 these days have no clue how to do...  Priceless!!!!!😍

I did finish the last quilted bag as well...

And it's MINE! YAY!!!! 😜

Bags and peaches!

Mercy! It's been a whirlwind week! 

The peaches have started ripening on our
 two trees, so there's been lots of canning 

going on around here..7 qts. Of peach
 pie filling , over 4 dozen half pints of 

peach jam, and 2 cobblers later..
We're still not done yet!  Papaw's old 

monster sized peach tree went into 

overdrive this year and We are even 

getting a good crop from our 2 yr. old tree...
The peaches are much smaller on the

 younger tree,

but it worked hard at making lots of them.

This is what my granddaughter
 and I have worked on this week...more bags!

 We used the same pattern as last
week and tweaked it a bit by changing 

how the lining was attached, and
we quilted the outer material to batting before 

adding the lining... I am very
 impressed with this version and still have one 

more to go like them before
 I'm through...
We also went camping at Hords Creek Lake 

on Friday, Saturday and Sunday
 morning... Hubby,'s work place had a 

sponsored camp out for their
Employees. We took our old camp trailer 

and two of our grandchildren...
What a blast! It sure was hard to drag out, 

load up, and hook it back home to get
to Sunday School on time... 

Boy are we tired now... I'm betting that all 

four of us sleep good tonight!

Hmm...

Now to figure out how to size my pics

Maybe...

Happy little seamstress! 

And 7 quarts peach pie filling canned with Clear Jel! Yummy!

My new baby... 2013 Gammill Vision 18-8 longarm quilting machine!

Jason's Turtle quilt...

My, how time flys....or is it flies?

Both of the above quilts were for our Carter Reunion this year... And they were my final quilts on my old Gammill quilting machine. Did I say old? 1982 qualifies as very old in the longarm quilting world!

And this was quilted on my new 2013 Gammill Vision 18-8!

And so was this!

And here she is!!! Sadie is her name, she's named after the sweet lady that taught me to hand quilt around 39 years ago now... I loved that lady! This Miss Sadie is just as sweet and easy going as her namesake!

I'm sure hoping that this time I have how to add pictures figured out!

Yay!

At least I got most of the pictures in the scene! 😆  This IPad has changed how I do everything... And since I don't have a useable laptop anymore, I'm being somewhat forced to learn how to work my way around it.... Today is Mother's Day.... I hope you and yours have had a great one... I certainly have! Two great church services, and a FaceTime chat with two of the grand kids! The grand daughter, Cara, has become quite interested in growing herbs in containers, and has a beautiful Basil plant up and doing great! I'm so looking forward to having her and her brother, Ben staying with us this summer...Bike riding, fishing, camping, swimming, sewing, gardening, canning.. You name it... We might try it! Hopefully, we'll have lots to blog about and pictures to share!

Latest quilts!

Just downloaded a new photo resizer app for my iPad so...here goes nothing!

And the beautiful flowers from my son on Mother's Day!

Sharing a new friend with you...

I am drowning in fabric scraps! English paper piecing isn't whittling it down fast enough- yikes! So I spent some time surfing and came across the most wonderful and talented lady... Bonnie Hunter
quiltville.blogspot.com   She's awesome! She has scrap quilting down to an art. Thanks to Bonnie's inspiration, I've started two new projects that I think will quickly whittle down my stash of scraps! Here's what I've come up with...

String quilt blocks and...

Crumb blocks!!!

How wonderful to be able to use almost every little crumb of fabric! I've heard of crazy quilting before and am even working on one now... But crumbs!? It's totally right up my alley!!!
Bonnie also has a cool system for organizing those precious bits and pieces... She's a genius! Check her out at the above link!!!
Until next time... If your life goes to pieces... Make a  scrap quilt!

Long Time, No See!

It's been forever since I've shared anything, so thought this wonderful rainy day would be great for playing Catch Up! Life has gone on at a fast pace since we last visited...We had the opportunity to purchase my Dad's house here in town, and gleefully did so! That was a little over a year ago, and we've been super busy ever since. Most of the work on the house itself is finished now along with the addition of a outdoor kitchen and living area, plus a metal carport. Now we're concentrating on converting a garage styled workshop into a sewing room for me...This week we completed installing the vintage tin shed siding for the ceiling...It's very rusty,...I mean rustic! :) still need to add the burlap covered 1x4' s to cover the 3 seams, but am very pleased with the charm it adds. Along with a bit of rust, the manufacturing stamp still shows in places. We've used this tin on a shed for around 20 years now and it was taken off a roof in Winters before that...there's no telling how old it is. I'll try to post a pic once we get the trim and lights up...

Our Latest Project....

Hubby has been very busy on his first week of vacation....and the result has been that we now have a beautiful wood looking laminate floor in the kitchen and dining room... He's amazing!...and so is the floor!!!It sure will be nice for the holidays... and every day....

You're right, it looks like a booster seat...and it is! to make it easier for her to get up and down!

This side has 2 rows of smaller pockets and the other side has a large velcro closed pocket...

This is a closer view of the kitchen floor...sooo needed!!!

And for my step-mom, I ulpostered another cushion...one for her kitchen chair and a walker pouch for her tv remote, cordless phone, magazine, paper, etc....

New Phone & latest project....

I'm throughly enjoying my new cell phone... so thought I'd use it to take pictures of today's project... A nice thick cushion to put in my stepmom's recliner. She broke her hip 2 weeks ago tomorrow and hopefully will be going home next week. At least for a while, getting up and down in her recliner will be a heroic task, so I thought I'd try my hand at upolstering a cushion to put in the chair. It's 21 X 21" and fits perfectly...snug enough that it won't slip out  of position while she's getting up and down... Next I'll have to to make one for her kitchen chair..We'll see how that turns out.... Here's pictures of the one I made today...

New Phone!

Man-oh-man... I think I've died & gone to Heaven! I just got a mid-range smart phone and it's da bomb! It's a Samsung Galaxy Ace and uses the Android running system... I knew it would be better than my old flip phone, but this is truly amazing to me... There are literally hundreds of free apps out there to download and the whole system is so much easier than anything I've ever had before.... At one time I had a Palm Treo, using 2G networking, and then I had a Motorola C3 (I think it was...) anyway, it was like a trimmed down Blackberry....with WiFi...... The Palm was way too slow to be of any real use...then the Motorola wasn't much better due to not having a Data plan, just using it WiFi was slow and the screen wasn't big enough to see much...more bother than it was worth... This new baby has built-in GPS, another 1st for me and it is sooo awesome... I can even watch Netflix on it (the sound and picture don't exactly sinc, but hey, I'm not complaining!) And did I mention that I now know what all the fuss about Angry Birds is about..and it's too cute!...The flashlight app is really bright using the flash from the 5mp camera...and I can catch up on Facebook on it! Nook and Kindle apps are free to download as well as dictionaries, Bibles, maps, Tetris, Jeweled, card games, dominoes, word games, sudoku, Yahoo mail...note pads...etc....etc... As you can see, I'm having a hard time keeping my hands off of it for more than 2 seconds at a time....

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAnfShoQZA0

The above site should take you to a clip about it....And it really is that quick!
Guess what I'm saying is that, if you don't want to spend a fortune for an ipod, then this is a great way to go, plus you can use up to a 32 gig micro SD card with it...tons of memory!

Can you believe it?!?

This is my new baby! That's right, this old Amaw is learning to rock, christian style, with this beautiful short scale Bass Guitar! It's an Ibanez Mikro Bass and my latest love! We have a small group of people at our church that love music and we played last Sunday morning and Sunday night...and we're already booked to play for a funeral this Thursday! Is that wild, or what?! It's totally amazing! Jim Laubin plays harmonica and guitar and sings, Janniece Laubin plays tambourine and sings, Richard Massey plays mandolin (and any other instrument needed!), and I'm playing bass! I've played piano for years and would love to do it with the group, but I just can't get my head wrapped around the timing of the guitar playing.(too used to playing for congregational singing traditional style) anyway, not one to be left out----ahmmm....I thought it was time for me to learn a new instrument...and the bass was perfect...one note at a time...no chords... and I'm loving it! Besides, learning new things is supposed to help stave off Alzheimer's  right? Just last Sunday, I couldn't find the church's handheld recorder I had brought...Hubby found it in the fridge on top of a dish I had brought for the fellowship...GRRR!!! Getting old is NOT for sissies! LOL!

On another note....The garden on 8th Street has played out with all this heat ...even watering every day hasn't helped...but it did produce well while it lasted and I've spent most of the summer canning, watering, and knitting baby blankets for the hospital newborns... Quite a productive and busy summer---I've felt like the Ant & the Grasshopper story... with me being the ant! I still have tomatoes and blackeyed peas here at the house in the raised beds, hopefully I'll be able to keep them going until fall---There's more shade for them to take cover from the sun for at least part of the day...

That's all I can think of to share right now...hopefully things will slow down a bit and I'll get to write a bit more now that the gardening has calmed down...  Pray for rain!!!

Canning news.....

 Today I got into the canning thing again with 7 pints squash, and 1 quart & 2 pints tomatoes. All this did was get me in the mood to cook...and eat, I might add...Anyway, for lunch we had blackeyed peas with ham onion & garlic on top of brown rice with cornbread on the side...Yummy... Then we had a bit of rice left, so I thought...Why not?... I've already eaten half of the rice pudding....and I'd be willing to bet that hubby will finish off the rest soon as he gets home.... I can't remember the last time I made rice pudding...It's better than I remembered! I even used skim milk and it still came out great....Hope hubby is planning on a bike ride this evening, I sure need it now!!! LOL!!!

Canning & tatting!

Today's been so nice and much cooler... We had a wonderful 2" rain yesterday evening and it was awesome to sit out under the patio and listen to the rain on the tin roof. Even when it hailed a little, we weren't too upset because we needed the rain so badly.... It sure made for a great night's sleep. Then this morning I finished tatting my homework for the  online Tatting Design class I'm taking. The instructor gave us a pattern for the very center and our task was to design and tat the outer part. Here is what I came up with...

Once the doily was completed, I started a fire in the grill and BBQ'd some chicken breasts, corn on the cob, and veggie packets of yellow squash, zuchinni, onion, pepper and tomato. It was all so yummy! While we were eating out on the patio, a friend of mine came by with a bunch of yellow squash ready to can....so, she and I, along with her granddaughter began the canning process. We filled both pressure canners full... 9 quarts and several pints. I just now took the jars out of the first canner...They're sooo pretty! The tall canner is still too hot to open yet.... Pay no mind to the dirty stove top....it's been working! ;)

Tatting fun....

 I have recently taken up a new hobby... What? Me? Really! This time around it's shuttle tatting. I've needle tatted for a few years and enjoy it...but shuttle tatting is a whole new thing...The only equipment generally needed is tatting shuttles, thread appropriate for tatting, a pair of tiny scissors or nail clippers to cut the thread,  and maybe a tiny crochet hook. This picture is only of a few of the shuttles I use and they all have good points for different types of tatting... I believe the cream ones are Aero's - the clear green one is a Lacis-- and the others are Clover brand. I have them sitting on a 1 inch grid so you can get an idea of their size and I believe the thread on all of these in the picture is size 20 crochet cotton... mostly Lizbeth Brand 100% Egyptian Cotton

This is a tiny doily that I made up the pattern as I went... size 10 crochet cotton.

This can

 be a bookmark, choker, bracelet, headband or anklet...all with just the addition  of a ribbon... also in size 10 crochet cotton.

This and the next picture are split-ring bookmarks of Jane Eborall's design 2004

http://www.e.n.e.btinternet.co.uk/index.htm
These are done in size 10 crochet cotton, but I've also made several in size 20 & 30 crochet cotton... I really love this pattern... I have used many of Jane's free patterns and find they work up very well for me. I've used different treatments for the 'tail' and think I like the split ring with a clover at the end the best...

I have to add pixs of my three grandchildren after their Pa and I took them to the crappie hole we found. This cutie is Jason and he's 'almost' 6 years old. The wind was about 30 mph on the lake the night we went with him and his parents... I'm surprized we caught any fish!!! But, true to form, Jason caught 2 of them and his Pa and Dad caught the others! His Mom & I hung several but couldn't get them in the boat!

The weather

was much better the night Ben & Cara went with us and we were better able to feel the fish hitting the minnows.... but Pa and I had loads of fun with all of them...and I think they had a great time too!

My latest love.....

Well used and loved...and will continue to be used and loved! 1926 Singer class 127 vibrating shuttle treadle sewing machine!

The vibrating shuttle is a new contraption for me...and I'm loving it! Works like a dream...instead of the needle going down and immediately back up, it goes down, kinda hiccups, then goes back up---down, bump, up... too neat!

The emblem shows the shuttle shape in the middle of it...and you can see in the upper right corner that the bobbin winder is really different looking! The bobbin isn't a disk but a long spool looking thing...very interesting!

Even has the shuttle design on the side of the treadle!

Beautiful old decals...I'm so afraid to scrub cleaning on it...the gold will come off...

Even has filigree on the cover in the back.... The gold on the decals are worn badly in some places, but mostly still there.

The cabinet has been refinished with wooden drawer pulls put on, but really isn't in very bad shape...It's all wood, not a veneer...

Garage sales are wonderful things....You never know what you could come across....Saturday, Hubby & I got on our cruiser bikes and headed out to the local garage sales and wouldn't you know it...we came across a find we couldn't resist!!!! So quickly we paid for her and back home we rode and got the truck- loaded her up and brought her home. These pictures were taken soon as we got home...hadn't cleaned her up yet or oiled her...and of course her belt was broken.... I threaded her  up and tried her out--sure enough, she lives! A friend had a belt and let me have it....Viola!!! I'm treadling!!! I know I'm gushing, but I'm in love!!!
What a Beauty!!!

My Review of SanDisk® Sansa® 4GB Clip+ MP3 Player (Black)

Originally submitted at RadioShack

The Sansa Clip+ is a tiny MP3 player with an array of cool features and a distinctively big sound.

SanDisk® Sansa® 4GB Clip+ MP3 Player (Black)

Can't say enough good things about this!

By Amaw from Texas on 5/2/2011

 

5out of 5

Pros: Simple Controls, Long Battery Life, Sleek/Compact, Easy To Setup, Lots of Storage, Reliable Performance

Best Uses: Anywhere

Describe Yourself: Avid Listener

Primary use: Personal

Was this a gift?: No

I work these very hard... all night every night and lots every day listening to audio books... They've averaged lasting about 3 years each... Audio books take lots of storage space so the micro slot is invaluable... I've tried lots of more expensive ones and they never lasted even one year the way I use them...For me, this is the
absolute best product on the market---Bar None!

(legalese)

Gardening has begun....

So excited to be gardening again.... So far, I have several onion spots at different planting dates. Some are from bunches...some from seed so I should be set  for them...There's also cabbage, carrots, beets, turnips, garlic,spinach (2 separate plantings) broccoli, brussel sprouts, corn, some tomatoes, and English peas out... In the green house - I have cherry & Roma tomatoes started and up... watermelon, cantaloupe, green chilis, and cucumbers all in peat pots. The lemon balm, rosemary, thyme and lavender are all  pretty good... my 4 forcythia plants are leaving out as well as the two pear trees, the peach and plum trees too... The daffodils are blooming and the cannas, amaryllis, purple jew, and tulips are pushing through the ground... still plan to put out peppers, squash, pole beans, blackeyed peas, pintos, and okra. Have also just planted irises, caladiums, elephant ears, and cinnamon fern.
Just yesterday ordered a trailer for my townie cruiser bike... Should prove to be very useful bumming around town to the store and the 8th St. garden...too cool!!! Looks like a great year started!!!!

On another theme.... I've figured out how to shuttle Tat! Yay! I found the book with dvd, titled, 'Learn to Tat' by Janette Baker. For years I've needle tatted and love it....and for those same years I've tried over and over to learn to shuttle tat and just couldn't get the hang of it... This pic is using size 10 thread on toddler sized socks... This pic is of the 2nd pair I've done so far and I'm now working on a set with dark purple thread....I finished the 1st purple one last night started on it's mate... So loving doing this... The moral to this story is.... We can learn anything with the right teaching style for our learning style... In other words, the right teacher equals success....don't ever give up on learning to do something that you really want to learn to do.... Just keep trying using different teachers...or books/dvds...as the case may be! Each one you try may be the one that will supply the last piece of the puzzle needed to make it all make sense...