Look at This!

I am so excited! Today when we drove up - back at home from church, I looked at our little lemon tree and just could not contain myself any longer.

I've been impatiently watching our little crop of lemons ripen and today

I picked one!

Isn't it pretty! And Millie, you can see I'm taking your advice and starting a string quilt. I know you have probably forgotten that advice, it's been so long ago!

And can you see how very juicy it is? I immediately put on the kettle for a pot of tea. Dessert was a couple of oatmeal raisin cookies with a cup of hot tea with our very own lemon. Delicious!

I did finally finish the little baby quilt for my niece's baby. She's expecting a little boy after the first of the year.

I love the Beatrix Potter prints. Each of the little characters is so dear.

I backed it with some little lambs with numbers, though you could certainly never tell that from this picture.

The yellow angel's trumpets are still glorious at the back door.

And the pink ones are framing the sewing room window. You can see how big they've grown from the picture of the back of the baby quilt.

It seems that everything that blooms is trying to outdo itself before cold weather sends its pretty blooms away.

Hope you're having a wonderful day!

Hugs and kisses,

More Birdies

Warning: The birdies are addictive. I have made a couple more.

I had to put everything away or I'd probably still be making them. I have quilts I HAVE to get done!

I tried this candy bar Margaret sent me from Australia, and I have to say I LIKE it. There's a crispy green mint candy inside the chocolate. I've never seen anything quite like it. Probably a good thing we don't have them here. And underneath the candy is the little baby quilt I've neglected for so long. I finished quilting it last night and hopefully I'll get the binding on it tonight.

I've found that I can cut a branch of the angel's trumpets and put it in water and it will last for about a week indoors. They are so pretty and the fragrance in the evening is just indescribable. Oddly enough, there is no fragrance at all during the day.

I just love having flowers to enjoy. Even working in the kitchen is improved by a view of something blooming, don't you think? And Bruno has informed me that he's had enough of all this attention to Chloe that's been going on here on the blog. After all, I AM Bruno's Mom!

We have a beautiful day here. Hope yours is just the same!

Hugs and kisses,

Birdies and Gifties

I saw the sweetest little crocheted birdies over at Attic24. You should hop over and take a look at them. Lucy does the most amazing, colorful crochet and takes wonderful pictures. It's a lovely place to visit.

Anyway, I liked her little birdies a lot, but I started thinking that they might also look pretty good out of fabric. So I used a cd as a pattern and cut around that for the fabric circles.

Then I went to my supply cabinet to see what I could find to accessorize. (Yes, that is Mr. Homer Pigeon. He's been hiding behind the glass since Chloe moved in, and I don't blame him a bit.)

I had a lot of fun playing, I mean sorting through my buttons to see what I could use. My mother used to allow us children to play with her button box once in a while. It was a treat! Just letting buttons fall through your fingers onto the table felt as good to us as Scrooge's coins did to him.

I made this little girl first. She's modeling on the sewing room wall right now since it's night (or I should say early morning) time now. I think I will hang them in the window tomorrow so I can have something else to see.

And here is her sister. Mine aren't nearly as cute as Lucy's, but I still like them.

This package arrived for me this afternoon. Notice that it came to Texas all the way from Australia!

Look, there's even a boomerang sticker on the back!


And inside, all kinds of goodies. I have been really privileged to meet Margaret here in blogland. Don't you just love how you can get to know a little bit about people all over the world from right in your own place! Margaret and I have been commenting and emailing back and forth for a while. She is very involved there in Geelong with the Leukaemia Foundation.

See the little Aussie Bear pins? They are part of a series of badges to raise money for Leukaemia Foundation work. I liked that Margaret wrote a little note on the back. The one on the top right is the Aussie Bush bear. She says he has corks on his hat to keep the flies away. There's a really pretty piece of glittery fabric that might just turn into a scarf of some sort. :)

And three keychains shaped like Australia. I've already snagged the one with kangaroos and put my keys on it, and our pretty daughter claimed the blue one which has koalas. There was also a pretty piece of needlework for me to do, but you can only see the very corner of it. But my favorite thing is that Margaret sent me a cd with her memoirs on it. I do so love to read people's memories of bygone days and hers are fascinating! I've only read the first fifteen pages, and I want to read more.

Thank you again and again, Margaret, for your generosity, but most of all for trusting me with your memories.

By the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARGARET!!!

To the rest of you, thank you for being my friends as well. You are precious to me!

Hugs and kisses,

Helper?

For some reason it's taking me a lot longer to get things done around here since a certain little lady has moved in and taken over. Have I mentioned that she has her own ideas about how EVERYTHING should be done?

And you can forget about trying to change her mind.
Oh, me.

Good thing for her she's so cute! (And that we all love her.)

Have a good time with what you're doing!

Hugs and kisses,

What a Beautiful Day to Be Out and About!

Yep, there's plenty to be done here at Muddle Manor, but Mr. Sweetie Pie and I took the day off and went for a little ride. I wanted to visit a few resale shops. It's been a while since I've been out of my own little area and there were some good shops we visited years ago. To my surprise, they were all right there where I had left them. :)

And some other interesting looking places I need to go back and check out later. ; )

These guys, on the other hand, just creep me out! (They are selling used cars.)

It was such a gorgeous day, people were out everywhere enjoying the day and catching up on work outside.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of this building, mainly because of the little travel trailer in front. It looked to be piled high with stuff inside, but whether it was storage or someone is living in it, I couldn't tell.

I found the sweetest little Anchor Hocking baking dish in the first shop we hit, and it was my only buy of the day, believe it or not.

If you look closely, you can see on the bottom of the dish some of the words I love to see on things I buy, "Made in the U.S.A". It's getting harder and harder to find those words. Seems most everything now is made in China.

This is a passing glimpse of one of the sweet old houses in the Heights. The Houston Heights is a historic district with many lovely old homes, some very nice newer ones and just about every other thing you can imagine.

This little collage is all fairly new, recently built houses in the Heights, though some of them look quite old, too. I love that some of them have ceiling fans on the upstairs balconies. Wouldn't that be a nice place to sit and watch the world go by?

Hope you've had a wonderful day, too. Enjoy Sunday!!

Hugs and kisses,

No Sewing, But.......

Mr. Sweetie Pie and I worked hard all day putting in a new kitchen counter with a new sink and faucet.

From bare, horrible looking cabinet base (after ripping off the old counter), we have moved on to something a whole lot better looking.

I still have to put everything back in the cabinets and it's still a mess, but our new sink and countertop is so pretty and such an improvement.

Mr. Sweetie Pie is a keeper!

Hope you're having a great weekend.

Hugs and kisses,