Of Picnics. . .

My long-time pal, Kathy, recently did a post recalling her family's Fourth of July picnics when she was a child.  I don't remember my family having picnics on the Fourth, and actually only remember a few lunches which could possibly be called picnics because we ate them while taking drives for the day (people used to do that back in the day, take drives just to drive).  

In my pondering, I remembered a picture I have of my mother's family taken at a picnic with friends.  The year would be circa 1927.

First, notice how dressed up the men are--suits and hats!  Mom told me some years ago when I asked her about the photo that the car was her family's.  Grandpa Hansen is the tall man in the center.  The man standing next to him in the straw hat was his older brother, Lawrence, and he is holding my mom who looks to be about two.  Grandma Hansen is peeking around beside Mom, and that's Mom's brother, Richard standing in the front with his hand on the watermelon.  The other people were family friends.  

Apparently going on a picnic was a big deal, worthy of dressing up!  Was this the Fourth of July?  Grandpa and his brother had both emigrated to the United States from Norway in the early years of the 20th century and became citizens as soon as possible.  The U.S. was good to them and perhaps they were celebrating the birthday of their new country.  We'll never know; Mom is gone now and was too young to remember the details anyway.  Looks like watermelons have been an integral part picnics for a long time though!  ♥

Happy 4th of July!

It's a beautiful, warm but not hot day here at the resort and we are enjoying a relaxing afternoon after some work here and there earlier in the day.  I just took a lemon cheesecake out of my InstantPot and it will be a cool, tasty treat this evening.  

I've started a new Americana table runner and it's well on its way.  I may even get some stitching done on it today!  The pattern is based on a Moda "Honeybun" pack which means width of fabric strips that are 1 1/2" wide. There are a lot of 1 1/2" squares in the design!  Stay tuned for a post with pictures, hopefully in the next few days.  ♥ 

End of June?!?

Hmmm, how did June fly by so quickly?  Here it is the last day, and so in a valiant effort to improve my blogging I'm going to see if I can come up with a few coherent things to share.  

I haven't made any new dresses for my dolls, but I did make an effort to take Ann Estelle's blue dress and make it suitable for Easter.  I was thinking I would add lace and ribbons, but when I searched among my findings, I found a wire-edged dusty blue organdy ribbon that just seemed to say use me.  So I did.  

I loved using it to tie around her head and then just cut a piece to tie around her waist.  It's not stitched on, so I can still make changes to the dress if I get inspired later on.  Meanwhile, AE felt quite stylish for Easter.  

Another thing I forgot to share was Ann's Mother's Day gift.  

A plethora of new cloth napkins, which she knows I love, and my new favorite mug filled with lemoncello almonds from Costco.  I had never tasted the almonds before and let me tell you, it was love at first bite!  Mmmm...

And that's it for now!!  ♥

A Couple of Completions

My first project to share is actually a year old, made last summer when I was in a blogging drought.  Years ago I purchased a booklet of patterns for banners for each month of the year by Pat Sloan.  I used it as inspiration for two banners for our front porch, one for fall and one for the summer.  I made the original summer one with machine embroidery and sadly lost the design somewhere over the years.  The sun had done a number on the fabrics and for several years I pondered making a new banner but never quite got to it.  Last summer, it looked so sad and washed out I knew I had to do something. 

I dug around in my piles of quilt books and found the booklet and decided to make a new banner using the July pattern with no alternations.  It graced the porch for the rest of last summer and I was happy to hang it out again a few weeks ago. 

I just love having the brightness of it hanging there!  I was befuddled about how to quilt the star section but then came up with the idea to trace the star shapes on freezer paper, iron them here and there, and then stitch around their edges with my walking foot.  It worked! 

My other completion is current.  Remember the Snowy Day quilt I began last winter?  I finally finished it!! 

Dan is just crazy about it and I have to say I'm pretty smitten myself.  It was a very different project for me and I'm kinda proud of myself for giving it a try.  It boosted my quilting confidence and I think I'll try some other projects that I probably would have passed on before.  Guess I'm not too old to learn some new things!  ♥

My Kitchen and Me

If you've read my blog for very long, you know I'm a kitchen person.  Notice that I did not say that I'm a wannabe chef, or even a cook.  I do cook, and I do bake, but I claim no expertise in either area.  But I do love my kitchen and all the things a kitchen holds--tools for the job so to speak.  

When we bought this house almost twenty years ago, I was thrilled that it had a pantry.  I'm not certain that it was originally meant to be a pantry, in fact, I think it was meant to be a utility closet for brooms, vacuum, etc.  There's even a light in the ceiling, or at least there was until we took the bulb out and taped cardboard over the hole.  Some other owner installed shelves and of course, that made the light useless as the only part it illuminated was the top shelf.  

Collector of kitchen tools that I am, a good portion of the pantry is dedicated to hold them.  Waffle iron, Instant Pot, toaster (not enough room on my counters to leave it out), snackster sandwich maker, and so on.  Then of course there's the actual food storage including containers of different kinds of beans and pastas. (Have I ever mentioned that I'm a total lover of different shapes of pasta??  Hopeless addiction.)  

Several weeks ago I decided it was time to clean out the pantry and once again find out just what lurked behind those closed doors.  Here I begin to take things out. 

And I began to fill up a counter with the goods.

Maybe more than one counter.  And the floor...

And here we are after careful sorting, consolidation, and judicious replacement.

I don't think I threw away anything but some empty containers after consolidation, but that just shows that I do use what I have.  Which was a relief.   

A Stunning Place for a Shower

And no, I don't mean a fancy bathroom!!  Several weeks ago we headed down to LaGrande, Oregon, to attend a baby shower for Mariah, my nephew JR's wife.  They are expecting a little boy in July and the time had come to shower them with gifts.  

When the invitation came, the location was listed as the Stang Manor.  I texted my sister-in-law, Karen, and asked if pearls and high heels were required.  She laughed and said no, just comfy clothes.  Eric and Keaton were out of town on a school trip, so Ann and Daniel rode along with Dan and me.  It's a four-hour drive, so Ann suggested we spend the night and enjoy a leisurely drive home the next day.  It was a brilliant idea and Dan and I agreed.  (We tend to be quite linear and think, go, attend, drive home.)

We left home before eight, picked up Ann and the D-man and headed out.  The drive was spectacular, and spectacularly slow.  They don't call one of the grades "The Rattlesnake" for nothing.  Steep? Yes! Windy? Yes!  Up we went, down we went, up we went, and down we went. Thirty-five miles an hour was speedy for many miles.   But I digress...

Upon arrival in LaGrande, we dropped the Daniels off at JR and Mariah's to spend the afternoon with "the guys", and found our way to Stang Manor.  Turns out, it's a lovely 100-year-old home built by a timber baron using the same plans as his home back in the upper midwest. It is now a bed and breakfast and part of our family was actually staying there for the weekend, and because of the multiple days, we had access to the whole house, including the kitchen.  

I have taken some pictures from their website but encourage you to go to the actual site for even more pictures and history of the house. 

Front garden with house on the right

Kitchen of my dreams!

Sitting area for one of the suites

Dining room with original table and sideboard

Beautiful entryway

The shower was a great success as JR and Mariah received many lovely things for their soon-to-arrive little boy. I made my usual gift, a quilt, and though the design was very simple, the fabric made it one of my favorites.  

The motel was just the thing for an eight-year-old boy because it had a big, empty pool, and I'm here to say Daniel made excellent use of it.  After eating all kinds of treats at the shower (the boys all joined us after it was over and enjoyed treats, too), we checked into our rooms, D hit the pool, and Dan and I headed out to pick up a pizza to eat in our room. Following the pizza, D hit the pool again, this time with Ann joining him in the water, and needless to say, he spent an hour or more there again in the morning before we headed out.  

We meandered (literally!!) our way home, stopping to admire Lake Wallowa and skip rocks, and decided a stop at Costco when we reached Clarkston was a much-needed break.  What a fun weekend.  Family, food, swimming and Costco!!  

Happy May Day!!

It's finally beginning to look like spring around here! The trees have been valiantly trying to leaf out and from a distance, we can actually see hints of green when we look at them.  This Mary Engelbreit drawing gives a glimpse of how I'm feeling about all this!!

And it's May Day.  I remember as kids we would make May baskets in school each year and then take them home to fill with flowers to leave on someone's doorknob.  I don't think anyone does it anymore, and it's kind of sad.  But then, if I even wanted to try it this year, nothing is blooming yet in our yard, and it sort of negates to whole thing if you have to buy the flowers. Just not the same as lilacs or tulips or daffodils picked at the last moment before delivery.  Ah well.  

Happy spring!  And happy May Day! ♥