Happy Earth Day!!

From: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


“Earth Day is a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth's environment. It is on 22 April. It was founded by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisconsin) as an environmental teach-in in 1970 and is celebrated in many countries every year. The first Earth Day was in 1970.” 

Earth Day, like other holidays, should remind us to revisit the purpose of the holiday in the first place. Obviously, we really need reminding that we have to change how we think about our planet.

A Gift for a Special Person

Hello Everyone,

I made a "Thank You" gift for my sewing instructor Sue for all of the guidance, instruction, patience and friendship she has given me over the past year. Sue is such a wonderful woman and I have learned so much from her.

Here is a basic tutorial of how I put this together:

1. I cut out 26 flag pieces 7 1/2" x 9 1/4". The amount of fabric you need will depend on the lettering you use. I chose 2 coordinating colors (and Sue mentioned to me a while back that she liked yellow).
2. To make the letters, I chose the size (to fit the flag accordingly) 2" and font and printed it out. I then traced the letters on the paper side of paper-backed webbing. Make sure the right sides of the letter faces down on the paper side.
3. To fuse, place the nubby side of the webbing on the wrong side of the fabric or paper side up.
4. Fuse with the iron, cut out the letters. Remove the paper-backing and center them right side up and fuse.
5. I appliqued the letters on with a zig zag satin stitch and sewed around the edges of each letter. To do a satin stitch set your width to about 3mm and the length to 5mm. This will make the stitch look as solid. Since this was my first time doing applique, going around curves was a challenge (I guess I will have to make more of these to get them just right LOL).
6. I placed 2 triangles Right sides together and pin. I stitched with coordinating thread along the long edges of triangle, using 1/4" seam allowance. Trim the seam allowance at the point to 1/8". Turn the flag Right, sides out, using a point turner (I used a chopstick to make my corners pointy). You can also do a satin stitch along the edges, Wrong sides together, instead of turning them out.
7. Fold the flag's top edges in by 1/4". Press and topstitch.
8. One all the triangles are assembled, arrange each triangle-letter so that the top edge of each triangle overlaps the next by a scant 1". Sew across this area to secure.
9. Center the entire banner on ribbon, cord or bias tape. I chose single fold bias tape about 4 yards long. Make sure to leave spaces between words (or add an additional blank flag) and leave extra on the sides to either tie a bow or fold over a 1/4" and stitch closed.
10. Have fun and enjoy your new beautiful banner.

Here are some other close-ups of the banner:

**Quick update - I am almost done with my quilted jacket. I just have to hem it. The wool coat will also be done this weekend and I will post pictures.

Have a wonderful day and weekend!!

Unfortunately...things don't work out

Hello Everyone,

I am going to keep this short and sweet. Unfortunately, we had to surrender Lily to PAWS Humane Society yesterday. She was a very sweet and loving dog, but, she was constantly nipping and coming after Holly. We also noticed at times she would show her aggression towards E and myself. We believe that Lily didn't have her mother or father around to teach her right from wrong. We asked the vet at Auburn if this was possible and they agreed. Thankfully, PAWS has foster parents that help with behavioral issues and I know that Lily will find a wonderful home. This was such a hard decision for E and I. We did fall in love with her and wanted to make her part of our family, but, it just wasn't meant to be.

The main reason this all came to past was that Holly has an injured knee that we are trying to mend so she doesn't need surgery and we need to take care of her. On Monday, we took Holly to the vet at Auburn University to have her knee checked out. We were so relieved to here that at the moment she doesn't need surgery. She had pulled her ACL either in the house or out in the backyard. We think because of the the finish on the wood floors here and the major contributor was the Blue Buffalo dog food. The story behind that goes...E ran out to Petsmart to pick up Holly's food about 6 months ago. We always use Eukanuba Lab, but, there was a recall. A Blue Buffalo rep approached him and told him how great the food was and how healthy it was. Well, in two weeks time Holly packed on over 20 pounds. This is what caused the pull in her knee. Our vet put Holly on diet dog food and we got her down to a very healthy weight. She is now 68 pounds and the Auburn vet would like her to be at 64 pounds. We learned that Blue Buffalo is a very high protein food and should be given to very active dogs (ie. Military and K9 working dogs). Especially, with this Georgia heat Holly is not that active and we would never subject her to the water with the alligators in it.

We do miss Lily's sweet face and big heart, the way she would run around the house, how angelic she looked while she slept either on my lap or in my arms, and how she loved the way E rubbed her ears. E and I are having such a hard time with this and we miss her.

Spring Ahead!!

Some facts about Daylight Saving Time:

Daylight Saving Time gives us the opportunity to enjoy sunny summer evenings by moving our clocks an hour forward in the spring.

Yet, the implementation of Daylight Saving Time has been fraught with controversy since Benjamin Franklin conceived of the idea. Even today, regions and countries routinely change their approaches to Daylight Saving Time.

Most of the United States begins Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday in March and reverts to standard time on the first Sunday in November. In the U.S., each time zone switches at a different time.

Many fire departments encourage people to change the batteries in their smoke detectors when they change their clocks because Daylight Saving Time provides a convenient reminder. 

Have a wonderful evening!!

Lily - our sweet new addition to our family

Hello Everyone,

We have a new addition to our family. Her name is Lily, she is 7 weeks old and a rescue. We saw this picture of her (she is the one on the right) on my friend C's FB page and she said that a friend of her rescued these sweet babies from being PTS and we just fell in love. We met with the lovely woman L who rescued them yesterday and brought Holly to see how they would get in love. Holly is doing well with Lily. She is slowly adjusting to having a little one in our home and so are we.

Lily is on the right.

Cute as a button.

Getting ready for a nap.

There will be more pictures to follow.

Take care,