Memorial Day 2011

My family is gathering for Memorial Day at my niece's house in "little" Washington, NC.  But the real purpose is because my nephew and his wife and little one are home for a visit from NYC.


I am taking the dessert which is a yellow cake with chocolate icing. We are also serving ice cream with it to celebrate several birthdays, so I will have candles on it too.  Also, some cup cakes for the little ones, ages 2,3,& 5.

When I decided to decorate the cup cakes I remembered that my mama had a little box with some flags in it that I kept when we cleaned out her candle drawer. This box musts be 40 plus years old and was in this drawer since I can remember!!

This is a picture of my sweetie from 1974 when he was a captain in the Army Reserves ...this is not in memory as he is still very alive and did not die while in service...Isn't he handsome!!!

Here he is today at the Seymour Johnson AFB air show on a jeep...

We are getting together at daddy's house this afternoon while my nephew and wife and little one are still here...


Steaks on the grill...


I am also adding this delicious recipe that I read on Joyful Heart blog...elainepack.blogspot.com



Her site is a real inspiration to read..


Peanut Butter Chocolate Swirl Bars...

also great blog give away on   http://theplaidscottie.blogspot.com
  


http://theplaidscottie.blogspot.com



take a look...


We had a great time all together...

I tried to fit into the swing like I thought I could...please keep me in your prayers about this weight thing...trying to remember that my body is the Lord's temple and that I need to start taking better care of it!!

Here are the three little shirts that I embroidered for my sister to give to them...they turned out cute.

Cove City

Today, daddy and I are going to a funeral in Cove City.  This is a small town in eastern North Carolina where both of my grandmothers grew up. My daddy's mother moved to Kinston at the age of 16 with her mother, three sisters and one brother. Their father, my great grand father, died in "Cove" and is buried there. The rest of the family moved to Kinston for work purposes I believe. So my daddy grew up in Kinston and so did I.


My mother's family lived in the Cove City area. Daughtey's Chapel and Wintergreen where she spent her young years. After her father died, (she was 15 and the oldest) her mother and four sisters moved into  "Cove" and lived with my great grand parents. My mama moved to Kinston after HS graduation and met my daddy and married.


So, my grandmothers grew up knowing each other and all attended the same church. But my parents did not know one another. I believe they had heard of one another...


When my grandmother from Cove City would come to Kinston to visit us, she would also want to visit with "Gladys"...I thought it not at all unusual for my grandmothers to not only be together but to like each other....I was grown before I realized what a special thing it was to have grand mothers that were friends!!!!

Gladys Rachel Heath Davis Wiggins (left)   Paternal     
Dugette Estelle Wetherington Johnson (right) Maternal
 This picture was taken circa 1965 at our home on 612 Meriwether Lane , Kinston, NC


Both of these ladies quilted and sewed as did my mama...I have quilts from both grandmothers...


This first is a top only...my mama could tell me which fabrics were from her dresses!!

This second one is a nice old utilitarian quilt circa 1890-1920's . Perhaps a quilt that she was given for her first home...perhaps from Craven County or Sampson County, where her husband's family the Johnsons were from.

This is the label I made for the back of this quilt...

This third quilt is also from the early 1900's and is called Eight Hands Around...

I will have to upload Mema's quilts later...

Please vote for my quilt!!!!

I entered a picture of my quilt "Chickens on the Farm" in the Quilting Gallery's contest...The topic this week is birds and insects...

It was made several years ago after I saw a sample in Archangles Quilt Store in Raleigh...
I was also my first time searching for fabrics on line!!
The prairie points were a challenge and add a great dimensional effect.
Just scroll down under Vote Now: Quilts with Birds and Insects  and VOTE!!  


Thankswww.quiltinggallery.com

A Favorite Scripture to Share

Everyday I try to think on a different scripture that the Lord brings to my mind. Some days I am more successful than others!!


todays is...He will keep you in perfect peace whose mind is set on Thee... Is 26:3

I have to be careful to rest because I am a high energy person and the Lord has given me some fun talents. But I am slowly learning to look to Him and not go on my own steam...


This is a restful place that is my husbands mothers family property...

Embroidery galore...

I first learned to embroider at the age of ten while working on a Girl Scout badge called Needlework.
Mrs. Julia Woolard taught 5 of us little girls in her sun room. I loved it then and still do some 44 years later...

This redwork is for me one day...not sure what pattern to use...


Here are several little girl baby quilts that I have completed and all we have had so far are boys!! Actually, I only give these hand embroidered and hand quilted ones to my nieces and nephews...

This last quilt is not quit completed... but finally decided it could be for either sex...

I have to run...so I'll post the blue boy quilts with their cute little owners later...

Full of Fun Day...

Well today is one of those days full of fun...I am cooking an old family favorite from both of my grandmothers, neck bones stewed with onions, potatoes and little corn meal dumplins on top!! Also, pointed head cabbaage, and squash!! Don't you just love spring vegetables here in the south...


I made strawberry jam for Cliff last week and had some strawberries left over. I found a bread recipe from Pelleters Strawberry farm in Stella, NC where we used to live and buy them. So I made bread last week and again today for the "feast"!!

 The recipe is easy, and of course, I modified it...

1 cup of SR flour

1 scant cup sugar , or amount desired

poured in some oatmeal ??

1 egg

1t. vanilla

poured in some milk??

added about 8-9 medium strawberries, sliced thin

Greased two small loaf pans

Baked 350 for 45-50 minutes

You will have to try some and let me know how you like it...

Kitchen wall hangings...fresh!!

I had not redecorated my kitchen since we moved in in 2000 and decided it was time. I found a wall hanging in a magazine, I think, that had flowers and it inspired me to try my hand at some. I had previously had a small hanging of ginger jars from a pattern I purchased at a quilt store in New Bern, NC that is now closed. It was just blue and yellow which are my main colors that I use.


Here they are in my kitchen...

I can grow sunflowers in our yard but daffodils seem to get eaten up by the moles...so I am able to enjoy them even if I can not grow them!!

Now I think I will select a new and fresh fabric for the table cloth overlay...what next??

Sunflowers to sunflowers...

Pretty sunflowers that inspired my sunflower quilt...

Well I just love all of my sunflowers that I plant in my yard each year. Last year I photographed them with the bees and butterflies. 

I decided to make a sunflower quilt and one of my Neuse Quilt Guild members, Frances Salt, had made a lovely one using large sunflower appliques.We displayed hers at our Lenoir County Fair booth a year ago and here it is folded for display but you can still see it...it is on the left with the medium blue background!!


Well, Betty Haynes and I decided to make our own sunflower quilt and started selecting yellow fabrics for the petals. Frances gave us a brown fabric for one of the centers so that we would each have some of the same fabric on all three quilts. Betty and I started appliquing our flowers on about the same time in 2010. I finished my top in 2011. I selected a light blue background fabric and sashed it in a gold daisy fabric.


This photo was my inspiration to use the light blue fabric for the sky...and also because our home is mostly decorated with blue and yellow...

I wanted to applique additional sunflowers on the brown border and used a green batik fabric for the vine and leaves.  I actually hand appliqued all of the sunflowers in the center of the quilt but elected to use a combination of machine and hand applique for the border flowers and vines. The button hole stitch on my machine seemed to make more of a decorative statement and I used it for the centers. I used  a yellow variegated thread for the centers and some green varigated threads for the vines and leaves that I purchased at a quilt show and they were hand dyed from England.

 You can see the butterfly here. It is not paper pieced but is a pattern that a fellow quilter from our "Night Owl" group gave me, Ruth Lee. The Greene County Needlework Guild in Snow Hill, NC used this pattern to make a wall hanging of their logo. The wall hanging is displayed in their classroom. I will have to take a picture of it the next time I visit them. It is lovely.
Here is the back of it...

Here are those lovely hand dyed English threads that I used and the variegated yellow thread.

Here is my diagram that I drafted before I started to decide on placement. I actually added an additional border of brown Thimbleberrries fabric. The final measurements are  79" X 62".
I am deciding now on the batting. I have the daisy fabric for the backing. Of course I want to hand quilt it BUT realistically, I might grid quilt the squares on the machine and hand quilt the rest for it for time sake. 


Visited the Green County Needle Workers today and took a picture of their wall hanging with the butterflies.
It is a great piece of work...

Here is that pretty little butterfly that was my inspiration...It is really not that easy to make and I only made one. They made them to surround the quilt in the border.  A lot of talent!!


I need to mention that the author of this folded fabric process is...
Rebecca Anne Harger. The booklet is "Foldin Oldies" Dimensional Quilting  Prairie Butterfly
1998.