The 2007 Graduation Class of GRHE

(Lt. Col. Cool is the only guy without a jacket)

Friends

It has been another big weekend here. I did get some sewing in though. I have almost completed a black toile and solid black bag for a lady. I just have to put on the handles and some buttons. I altered 7 pair of pants for the minor league baseball team. Friday was Lt. Col. Cool's graduation. We spent the afternoon seeing the new Pirates movie. Graduation that evening was a very nice event. There was 13 graduates. We had family come down from Northern VA, the Shenadoah Valley, and Stuart. It was a wonderful ceremony. Afterwards we went to Cracker Barrel for a late supper. Saturday we went to a friends farm for a cookout. Sunday was church and we still have family here. Today I have to get caught up on laundry and some paper work. The guys are working and will be home this evening for a cookout. Just a few more weeks and Lt. Col. Cool will be headed off for the Summer Transition at VMI.

Sew Long for Now!

With the help of my three great children I got the garden in today. We planted 36 tomato plants. We also planted 12 Habeneros, 4 crook neck squash, 4 green bell peppers, 4 red bell peppers, 4 eggplant, 8 cucumber mounds, and three rows of green lake beans. It doesn't sound like much because I live in the city and that is all the room we have.
Here is a cute yellow moth who came to sample the water we used after putting in the plants. I don't know if I will get any sewing done today. I will try to mend two pieces I have for a lady and maybe put together a bag I am making for another lady.

Sew Long for Now!

So far today I have hemmed a pair of tuxedo pants. I hung out two loads of laundry. I helped Capt. Chaos do science and math. I need to do some more sewing, but I need to go do English with him and make a sour cream pound cake. Oh, and I better get in that laundry.

Sew Long for Now!

We had a busy week! The General took the week off for vacation. We did our version of spring cleaning. We moved around people in bedrooms at our home. We have five bedrooms. They are rather small. My sewing room was in one in the back of the basement. Since Lt. Col. Cool is headed off to college in a month or so I wanted my sewing room more accessible. We moved him in the sewing room, Capt. Chaos in to Lt. Col.'s room, Capt. Kitty into Chaos' room, and my sewing room into Kitty's. The family told me that I had to stop doing this. I have done this every spring for several years. Wednesday was Awana awards night. Captain Kitty got a special award for the finishing her book, finishing the review, and saying 32 verses, 32 questions with four answers each in one hour. Both Capt. Kitty and Capt. Chaos got clubber of the year in their respective groups. I am so happy for them, mostly because they have memorized so much of God's word! I included pictures of both them at the event. Our oldest dog passed away, Lady was 14 years old. She was a good dog, but she has been having problems the last several years so we were not devasted by something we did not expect. Friday night Kitty and Chaos went to the Awana all nighter and Saturday I sold some homeschool books at our groups yearly used book sale. So many other things happened also. I felt like I was caught up in a tornado and going around and around rapidly. Oh, I forgot one of the most important things, Capt. Chaos was baptized Sunday morning. All our children have now been baptized. I did not get much sewing done with all the moving around of furniture and things. I did get three pair of pants shortened this morning for the baseball team. This week is Lt. Col. Cool's graduation. I also really need to get my garden in. I have tons of sewing to do. Wish me well!

Sew Long for Now.

We have had an exciting last couple of days around here. The General and I celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary. Lt. Col. Cool turned 18. (I am now officially the mother of an adult, do I look any different?) Last, but thankfully for my family not least, we celebrated Mother's Day. It's been fun! I saw Randi's post about aprons and wanted to participate. I love my aprons!


This is a picture of some of Capt. Kitty and my aprons hanging up in the kitchen. I attached four hooks on the side of the cabinet to hold just them. I wear aprons almost all the time.

This is my clothespin apron. It has three big pockets stuffed full of clothespins. I put it on when I am hanging out the clothes and bringing them in. It is such a wonderful way to keep up with the pins.
Just for fun, the General's BBQ apron I made him. Here even the men wear aprons, manly type of course!

Sew Long for Now!

The soft yellow and greens of a baby blanket. I have another to embroidery today. I mended the cover of a bed for an RV. I fixed another pair of pants for the minor baseball team. I have more to do, but we have been busy with outside activities. Yesterday we helped at our monthly nursing home in the morning, then Lt. Col. Cool's singing school sang at a nursing home, next both singing school groups sang at a local mall, as the children split up and went off with friends for the afternoon I went shopping. I left the house at 10:30 and got home at 7:00. I did not like that. I felt like coming home and hiding out all day. I am definitely a home body and do not like the "thrill of life."

Sew Long for Now!

4 a.m. wisdom from Lt. Col. Cool, "Stupid questions require stupid answers."

Sewing Shreds

based upon the film,

“How to Make an American Quilt”

No life is a perfect sheet

Made of one continuous piece of fabric.

It is a collection of scraps

Picked up from the floor,

Cut to the appropriate size,

And sewn into the quilt.

Not all stitches are straight.

Not all patches are square.

We must “learn the art of sewing

Shreds together And seeing beauty in a

Multiplicity of patches.

Rae Douglass

8-9-98

America has become a throw away society. We have let our lives become so busy that we don't know how to make things last any more. We have also accepted cheap consumer items in the market place so they don't last. I started realizing my part in this a few years ago. My first endeavor in mending items was socks. I still haven't learned a good way to mend socks. I ask an elderly lady who grew up in Switzerland some ideas in mending. She is great at it. When she was younger they learned how to mend. She gave me some ideas and I need to learn more. My next foray into mending was t-shirts. The General wears t-shirts working at his maintanence job and doing odd jobs around here. He gets lots of holes in them. T-shirts can be purchased inexpensively, but why throw a good shirt just because it has a hole near the bottom. The lady I ask gave me great advice and I am getting better at mending t-shirts. You almost can't tell I fixed them. Over the years I have tried to mend jeans. Jeans are not so easy. Especially since my guys seem to rip them at the belt loop or corner of the back pocket. This pair pictured has a hole where the belt loop was caught on something and it ripped. I will remove the bottom of the belt loop. Then stabilizer is important. You can get iron on patches, but they don't stay. If I have some denim around I use it as stabilizer, if not I use a blue or gray material. They key to mending or even hemming jeans is the right color thread. Blue thread doesn't work. Grey works best. Sometimes if the denim has more blue in it I will use a blue in the bobbin and grey on the top. If you look at jeans you will notice they are a blend of colors. With a hole, I stitch around the outside first to secure the hole from distorting. Next I sew back and forth across the hole from side to side and then do the same from top to bottom. On this pair I will then change to a dark gold thread and reattach the belt loop with a tight zig zag. Mending takes a little time and it would be easier to chuck the jeans and go to Walmart and get a new pair for $10, but is it really better? I keep thinking about the old saying, "Waste not, want not."

Sew long for now!

Quote from Lt. Col. Cool at 4 a.m. this morning, "If necessity is the mother of invention, then boredom is the father."

I am working on repairing the flags that got ripped during the recent high winds we have had here.

I don't do well with heat. Yesterday when our city broke it's record high temp our a/c went on the fritz. Today's forecast is another record breaking day. Sigh...and just where is that weather forecaster from? He said 90 was very very warm and it may even get hot? I melt around 76.

Sew Long for Now!