It's Me...

This blog post is going to be more of a pictorial update of the past week than a word-filled one. I guess I have more time to snap pics than to compose. So, c'mon along while I fill you in on the happenings in and around Chez Goodneedle... and beyond!

Our oldest granddaughter represented North Carolina in the Southern Zone Championships in Orlando last week. 

We drove down to watch her compete; personally, she did incredibly well!  The thing that we're the most proud of is her sportsman-like character; she's such a great teammate and cheerleader for others, both in and out of the pool. 

What to do between events (back in the hotel room) and in the car to and fro? Hand finish bindings!

One of the sights from Orlando, near our parking deck. This INSANE ride (450' tower!) spins riders out and around as it ascends and descends; the number of similar attractions were mind-blowing. Thanks, but no thanks; not for me! 

Back home again: blueberries are abundant on the backyard bushes, we've enjoyed yummy, fruit-laden pancakes twice this week already. 

The Marathon Runner was quilted this week...

...under the watchful eye of my constant sewing room companion. 

Fruit Salad Quaker is fully stitched and awaiting assembly into a pinkeep. 

I tried this recipe for French Bread which is a winner; hands-down. I'll be making this again (and often)! 

Our youngest granddaughter came to spend the night before school begins again. We made this cute zipper pouch together yesterday afternoon. She loves to sew... and bake... and visit. 😊

 Dahlias are blooming like crazy right now!

This brings me back to the beginning... and the title of this post: "It's Me"~ do you remember the song: 

… It's me!
It's me oh, Lord, I'm standing in the need
I'm standin' in the need of prayer...

Right now I am asking for prayer for friends who are ill, friends who are hurting, friends who are facing health issues and uncertain futures as a result of recent diagnoses. Thank you, God knows their needs and your prayers on their behalf are deeply appreciated! 

Life is Good!

Busy Days!

We're in a hot and humid weather pattern right now; no surprises there, indoor activities during the heat of the day are the norm around here. I finished quilting up "School Spirit" and was able to score a pretty piece of red solid for binding when I visited a cute quilt shop in Greensboro, NC on Friday. We were there to watch Lucy Ann swim in the Age Group State Championships (lane 7, below).

She did quite well; so well, in fact, that she's swimming in the Southern Zone Age Group Championship meet in Orlando next week! This has been her dream for the past three years. We couldn't be more proud of her dedicated, ambitious, determined spirit!

I managed to get this wall quilt finished and hung on the side porch for July...

...and completed the stitching on a pin keep for this month, too. This is Patriotic Quaker by Lindsay Weight of Primrose Cottage. I used the called for floss colors and stitched over two on 32 count lugana linen. I love these patterns, each little element is fun to stitch on its own. You can see lots more of these by clicking on the hyper link above. I'm currently stitching another one, Quaker Fruit Salad. 

Between her swim events on Sunday Lucy Ann and her Mom came by for a few hours in the afternoon. Our son and Gregory were already here, Gregory is rebuilding a car in our basement. It's impossible to believe that they will both be earning their Learner's Permits this fall! The six of us enjoyed lunch together while these two almost-fifteen year old cousins entertained us all; it was a rare, impromptu, get-together that is still eliciting smiles. (I never knew she had my phone, I only discovered this photo later in the day. A souvenir for the heart ❤️).

While we're on the subject of "impossible to believe", guess who turned 17 years old today? Yep, Mason! Those of you who've been part of this blogging community with me from the beginning may remember this day. Sigh. 

Most recently, later in the day, after the hottest part of the afternoons have passed, I've been enjoying some stitching out on the porch where the light is just perfect. This is the afore-mentioned Quaker Fruit Salad.

The Dahlias are so pretty in the garden right now, the more that I cut the more they bloom!

The Crape Myrtles flanking our driveway are putting on quite a glorious show this year too. I mentioned those of you who've been part of the blogging community with me from the beginning... my very first post, (←linked here) July 13, 2006, was on this same subject!

As much as things change, there's comfort in what remains the same.

How's your summer going?

Life is Good! 

Here to There and Back Again

We've been on a road trip to the Lakes Region of NH. Spent time with Mom and Dad for both Father's Day and my mother's birthday this past Tuesday. This photo is from five years ago. There have been a lot of changes since 2019. Mom can't physically navigate much anymore, she's a good deal weaker than I've ever seen; it's so hard to watch this happen. But, on the bright side, at 91 and 96 they're doing quite well, all things considered. Just two months ago when she was hospitalized, Mom's doctor never expected for her to be at home again. We're rejoicing in the fact that today she is, sleeping in her own bed and spending her days in her favorite recliner alongside Dad; there's much to be thankful for. 

We took Mom out to an ice cream stand for a cone on her birthday, take a look at the cones available to choose from. 😉 We also ate lobster, Mom's favorite; what a special treat! I had lobster rolls two days in a row. It was my duty you understand "when in Rome...".

Arriving home on Thursday other special treats were waiting. 

The garden Phlox and Echinacea are in bloom. 

The Brazilian Verbena is attracting Zebra Swallowtails and Goldfinch in flocks!

I potted up a dish garden for Mom's birthday, found a wide variety of small houseplants at a local nursery before we left. I believe that Mom will enjoy this, they have great big windows that let in loads of light in their family room and kitchen area where this should thrive.

A friend from church shared this. She had gone to prepare the altar for Sunday service and sat down in one of the pews to pray after she'd finished. She looked up to see this reflected on the carpet. Wow.

😊

Smile- God is watching!

Life is Good!

HOLEy- MOLEy!!

Last year we extended the perennial garden to increase the potential for additional plants needing more sun exposure. The "new" section was mulched and this spring I added Peonies and some groups of Lily bulbs. The Peonies were doing great (I had planted four) and then, all of a sudden ,one was dying- and FAST! I tried to baby it, dug it up to replant it and then discovered that the roots were gone! It was right about this time that the mounds began appearing. Oh, no; MOLES, my heart sank to my feet. Since then I've been tamping down the underground trails daily with a hoe. They dug new routes. I've opened up some of the tunnels and dropped in something to keep them from coming back. More raised areas appeared. Yesterday I ordered some solar-powered ultrasonic stakes that are supposed to repel them (along with any chipmunks, voles, snakes and gophers! 😬) with regularly occurring low-frequency pulses which, supposedly, they can't tolerate. Wish me luck! If anyone has any better remedies please let me know. It's a battlefield out there right now. 

1,2,3,4... I declare WAR!

Life is Good!

(and even better without root-eating rodents)!

A Smattering

I swear, I try to keep up with posting, I honestly do; what takes me so much longer than it used to? I don't know. But, in a continuing effort to be more timely, let me entertain you this morning with a smattering of various and sundry events in my life over the past week. There was this-- Theodore the chipmunk who decided to jump in the watering can just prior to my filling it! I heard a telltale scratching, amplified by the galvanized metal, and look who was inside! I jumped-- you bet I did, and my glasses flew off and landed, lenses DOWN (of course!) on the bricks.  The left lens was chipped; smack-dab in the center of my line of vision! Take my word for it, I tried to get a shot of the offensive area (above) but it's hard to tell. I called the eye doctor's office the next morning and was advised to bring them in. I really wanted the lens to be replaced if possible. I was informed, after the glasses were inspected that my lenses were going to be replaced, both of them; and that my warranty expired that VERY DAY! 😲 One day later and it would have cost me, dearly. As they say, timing is everything. Oh, Theodore was released to scamper back under a shrub! If it's not one thing it's something else; remember that toad that hid in my tennis shoe?

My favorite first cup of the morning tea; has been for years. Stash, Christmas Morning, a blend of black and green teas with a hint of jasmine. It is perfect. Why do they have to mess with the packaging and even the tag? It's bad enough that the box sizes are smaller now but I have a whole new item to search for when shopping, the new branding doesn't resemble the original in the least. I liked the tag to read "Cup of Joy", it made me happy. A dear friend once told me that "change is life" and if one doesn't adapt to change we know what the alternative to life is-- but change for the sake of change?
I took Lynnleigh shopping the other afternoon for fabric to make a sundress. Here's the pattern:

I told her that she would need to choose something to make a dress for herself and and also a contrast fabric. (Yes, of course, there will be a doll dress too!)  She was very serious about the entire selection process, no greater decision has ever taken longer. The hardest part for her? Finding the "contract fabric"!😉 I believe that she had a fun time and was pleased with her ultimate selections. 

She had a performance with her singing friends the following evening, it couldn't have been cuter!

Some quilting has been going on. I quilted this for a friend last week. Her desire was for parallel wavy lines; it turned out nicely, I really liked this pattern. She made it in a mystery block of the month class. 

I have another QOV on the rails now, these are always different, inspiring, and so much fun to work on!

The Hydrangea are spectacular this year! These are around back, adjacent to our patio space. I have inadvertently cut them back at the wrong time of year, more than once, only to be left bloomless the next summer. Now my plan is one of benign neglect and they're rewarding me. We still have no 'start date' from the contractor for our screened-in porch project back here; we know that we're on the list, hopefully we're getting near the top. Sadly, it looks to me like we'll be enjoying it in the fall instead of the summer this year; but there are many summers to come, it's all good. 

The new perennial garden is coming along; blooming is beginning! We have, at long last completed the making of all the stepping stones and are still in the process of installing them.

Another viewpoint. The beaten-up large stone in the foreground has since been replaced. 

As I posted earlier, we made four personalized stones and placed them randomly for the grandchildren to discover, each one bearing their initials. Gregory was first one to stop by and discover his on Sunday afternoon. I think he liked it!

Today is the last day of school in public schools here; remember how that felt?

Forty eight years ago today my husband and I graduated from high school together. We were the last class to graduate in front of the school, outside in the driveway, squinting into the setting sun. (Since then, graduations have been moved indoors, into a field house that wasn't quite ready in 1971.)

SUMMER!! It seemed like it lasted forever back then. 

Life is Good!

Watch Your Step

"So, we had this idea"; isn't that the first thing you usually hear when you're about to learn of someone's latest undertaking, their vision and all the details of what they endured and learned along the way?  This post is no exception! Like all great adventures, it started off innocently. We had "inherited" (translates to: found when cleaning out my MIL's house) a large number of hand-fabricated aluminum rings that my FIL had made for one of his long-ago ideas. We thought that they would be perfect forms from which to make stepping stones for the perennial garden. There are two sizes: 15" and 27". We kicked around some ideas for how to pattern them. I found a link to someone's blog on Pinterest where the maker had used a decorative rubber doormat to make some really pretty stones from concrete, she explained the process in detail and it seemed to be exactly the thing that we had in mind. We gathered the supplies: a doormat, Crisco, non-stick aerosol cooking spray and tons and tons of concrete mix! We were able to cut enough motifs from the original door mat to emboss four stones at a time (three small and one large). This cuts down on productivity and, considering that each "batch" takes twenty-four hours to dry, plus the fact that we figure we will require approximately fifty stones, our days are now consumed with stepping stone production! Every morning, at the crack of dawn (before it gets too hot), we've been up and mixing up wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of concrete and making our "daily four". We're in a rhythm now. The following photos will serve chronicle the process.

Inside each ring we laid out the motifs, initially, to make sure that they would fit properly for embossing. There is a layer of chicken wire inside each stone: concrete, wire, more concrete and then the rubber mat on top. 

Crucial for release is a liberal coating of non-stick cooking oil before placing in the form.

A days' full batch, drying in the sun. 

Close-up of a stone with the rubber form removed, next it will be gently tapped out of the ring form.

And so it goes, one day at a time and four more stones added for a path through the garden. 

There are four special stones for the grandchildren to discover placed randomly along the paths. 

We're all enjoying the garden project, even if we're not strolling through step by step; we have a quiet, tranquil place to rest and observe the birds and the emerging flowers at the end of each day.

Life is Good!