Fall-ing

In the interest of not falling so far behind.....here we are again!  So what can I say about fall.  Ummmmm.....

Leaves are falling.  Fast.  There were even some snow flurries the other day!

Trying not to fall asleep at the sewing machine this evening.  I finished up this attractive quilt top.  Carolina blue anyone?  :-)

It doesn't help with others falling asleep all around me.  We have the headless dog.

The dead dog.

And the ha ha I'm more comfortable than you dog.

Charlie?  Tell me what I can say about falling in regards to you.  Oh yeah.  Stuff falling on the floor.  That's the way parrots roll.  Sigh.

Newspaper catches some of it.

The dogs hope at least some of it is going to fall to the floor!

Silly dogs.  It's falling on you!

Don't we look pleased with ourself.  Are they your fall guys Charlie?  :-)

In the interest of keeping Charlie busy I've been researching making foraging toys for his cages.  Here he is hanging from his toes finding the Cheerios inbetween the beads.  There are crackers on there too and the little Milk Duds box left over from the pinata fun is stuffed with more goodies.  He's still learning to find stuff so the box is still intact.  Quakers aren't supposed to be the best climbers but he hasn't fallen yet!

 Maisy's morning nap in her sunbeam, though the sun has "fallen" downstairs a bit.   As long as one paw is still in the sun she's happy.

 Last week I started to take this Singer 15-91 apart for cleaning and rewiring.   I'm hoping to fall in love with the process.  We'll see.

The motor and some parts are off and klutzy me is taping the screws to paper so they don't fall to the floor and get lost.  At least they aren't as tiny as the screws on our laptops.  When The Tramp has one of those taken apart I'm afraid to even come into the room!

In the interest of seeing falling numbers on our bathroom scale we've been enjoying brisk walks around the neighborhood.  Yesterday I managed to catch the rising moon as well as the effect of the falling sun.  Lovely colors.  Have to enjoy them while they last!

Now I'm going to fall into bed.  Nite!

Arrrggggghhhhhh!

Hi!!

(We'll get to the arrgghh later.)  Since I last posted Halloween has happened.

We had hoped to see Poyla, MD and Stardust Halloween weekend, but illness prevented it.  I'm told Stardust is still recovering and they are glad they postponed.

T-shirt quilts have rolled out the door.

And I even grabbed a few minutes to make some sewing machine covers.  Finally.  I've been saying I should make them all covers for years.  Prequilted fabric, purchased bias tape.  Now really, how hard could it be?  ;-)

The view out of every window (ignoring reflections) is amazingly colorful.

And this weekend we were treated with a visit from The Sailor Son and his boys!  They missed Halloween too, due to illness and bad weather so we tried to give them some extra Halloween related fun.  Stickers from Aunt ED.

The gluten-free lasagna came out ok.

And the caramel apple trifle even ok-er.  :-)

Cousins had a great time together.

The Viking's new hobby is opening and closing the drawers on the various sewing machine cabinets.

 Ninja Turtles were carefully carried around all weekend.

In lieu of trick or treating, The Sailor Son surprised the boys with Ninja Turtle pinatas and oh what fun they had swinging that stick around!  It takes a whole lot of swings when you're four years old.

When you are six you can beat your turtle to death pretty quickly.  They weren't sure they liked "killing" Leonardo and Michaelangelo so I taped them back together with neon orange duct tape and everyone went home happy, with lots of little boy jokes about my taping up the turtle's butts.  :-)

I think Maisy sees candy on the table.

Yup!

Ivy with her "what did I do?" look.  :-)

There were treats for everyone.

Sunday was the train show at the fairgrounds.  So many layouts to see.

So many buttons to push.

"Daddy, Daddy!  I want to see!!"  Five was heard to say, "This is fabulous!"

Then we went to Pullen Park to work off some energy in the playground and ride the train and the carousel, both firsts for The Viking.

After a day of recovery, today I tried to get some things done.  Heh.  Tried is the operative word.  The arrggghhhh happened this afternoon.  We have this big ass Zojirushi bread machine.  Fabulous appliance.  Unfortunately I only have a few gluten-free bread recipes suited for this size machine.

So.  This meant trying to work out how much larger I needed convert the measurements in this book to make it work.  Hmmmm.  Cups and mLs.  Ok.  I tried to up the recipe by 1/2 and it made for some crazy measurements.  The Tramp was willing to help me but apparently I wasn't asking the right questions.  :-P  It ended up that I brought a variety of measuring cups and spoons, both imperial and metric, up to The Sandbox so he could help me get my head around it.

So this is what we ended up with.  Not only is it complicated by all the many flours and seeds but I got all wound up in both types of measuring cups and spoons.  Arrrrgghhhhhhh!  After I started measuring ingredients I flipped to the front of the book and realized, HEY!, the book is Canadian!  Well dang.  No wonder my breads from this book have always seemed a bit off.  I've been using the wrong measuring cups for.......two years?  Sigh.  Lesson learned.  (Yes, that's a coffee grinder for "cracking" the flax seeds.)

This gluten-free business is ingredient-heavy.  Almost the whole refrigerator in the garage is taken up by all the flours, meals and seeds.  Crazy.

But in the end.....at least it looks like a loaf of bread.  :-)

Catching up

Being a bad blogger lately, I had to wade through my photos and edit down to these "few."  Ha!  Get ready.

The weather was warm just a week or so ago!  Now it's fully autumn and the heat is on.  On a recent warm day The Viking discovered slides at the park.  It was great.  He belly laughed all the way down and wanted to go over and over again.

Lilly Pilly got finished and delivered to the state fair.

Thank goodness.  I was getting stressed out enough to fall into my old M&M sorting habit.  I guess it's a control thing.  Heh.  :-)

T-shirt quilts have happened too.

As well as a Needlestars workshop with Paula Nadelstern.  Fabulous!

I had an iced tea incident in the car.  Sigh.  Wet seat, wet pants, and wet purse with all the contents.  The purse washed up fine but my old wallet was looking pretty threadbare, so I gathered up some batik scraps and made another one.  Love it!

Speaking of batiks, The Viking liked my new fat quarter so much he wouldn't let go of it even to eat lunch!  Training him right, don't you think?

The North Carolina State Fair ended yesterday after 11 days of madness fun.  We're lucky it's so close to home.  We can hear every fireworks display.  :-)  On day 5 we had our day at the fair with ED, LZF and The Viking.  He was less than impressed with the huge pumpkins.

Monday morning is not the most crowded so we were able to give him some walking time.

No rides for us but the amazing number of food vendors were enticing.  Two words......Funnel Cake!

We stopped in to see my ribbons.  Willie got a blue!  Woot!

And Lilly Pilly had a second plus a Golden Needle Award which is given by the Capital Quilters Guild.  Double Woot!  And it was so cool that it was hung next to Marilyn's stunning Alaska wall hanging.  I wish you could see it up close all sparkly with crystals.  Beautiful!  So many friends won ribbons.  :-)

Before we left The Tramp managed to talk LZF into testing out a Krispy Kreme cheeseburger (He declared the new Krispy Kreme Sloppy Joe would be too messy to eat in public.  I quite agree.).   He said the only thing the "burger" was missing was bacon.  How male.

On Thursday I took Mom and Dad to the fair.  This time I was able to take the time to admire all the quilts and needlework.  Inspiring.

Thursday was much more crowded.  ED, LZF and the Viking joined us and it was hard to walk together.  All the action, color, humanity and noise can get pretty overwhelming.

At 8:00 this morning I went back to the fairgrounds to pick up my entries.   Since every inch of the huge fairgrounds are used by the vendors and rides it was strange for those of us who had to drive in, wend our way through and find a place to leave our cars so we could go inside with our claim tickets.  What a Twilight Zone experience.  The rides and games were still and silent.  A few carnies were just arriving to continue the job of packing up.  They couldn't have had much sleep!

Most of the food vendors and smaller rides were closed up.  A few were gone already.  Some of the tables still had cups and plates on them as they must have been left when the fair closed at midnight.  Like those movies where all the people suddenly disappear.  Eerie.  I could hear the Twilight Zone theme as I walked.  :-)

The myriad of trash barrels were full or overflowing.  The crowds were so thick on fair days I had never even noticed them as a hot pink feature.

Since the majority of the food is deep fried I had to be careful as I walked between builings.  After 11 days the pavement is greasy and slippery.   Ugh!  Some of the booths had full kitchens.  Look at those gas hookups.  Wow.  Some large scale frying went on here.  The pavement was filthy black in there.  I don't know how they clean it up but they do.

Friend Kathie won ribbons too!  I picked up her entries this morning as well.  She sent me this happy photo with her dyed silk scarf....which someone actually tried to buy from me today!  Kathie sells them, so she was pleased.

This is Kathie's gorgeous sunflower.  I believe she learned the technique in a Susan Brubaker Knapp class called Wholecloth Botanicals.  I think I need a lesson.  :-)

And her nuno felted scarf.  Lovely.

Mom just finished this cool beaded project.  I'm impressed.  The Tramp and I are going to make a stand for it and then it will be ready to enter into next year's state fair!

We are excited that Mama Cat and her Stardust Kitten are coming to visit us this weekend.  Can't wait!

So.  Consider us caught up.  Goodnight!  ;-)