One or Two Pumpkins.....

I have recently ran into several readers that wondered if I was still doing my blog....which was nice to be missed.  Answer.....Yes, just haven't been doing a good job with it.  It would be extremely encouraging to hear from some of you that enjoy these epistles.  You all know I have a "migraine life".....so really you don't want to hear from me, when I am not doing well.  That is part of my problem with writing, I can't be very authentic when I am barely functioning, so I struggle with that.  I don't do well at faking things, which is probably a good thing.  Any way it was nice to hear that some had missed my little corner of the world.  I will try and do better.  I think I have said that before....me bad!

I got rid of my Halloween decorations several years ago, divided it up between my girls.  They could enjoy all the stuff with all the grandkiddos.  So I have pumpkins and turkeys instead.  I really do like fall, just don't like what comes after.....SNOW & ICE.....ick!  I want to move to Arizona every winter.  :)  really!!!

Here is a cute pumpkin coaster I knitted....have a pair of them very cute and fast project.  One of my previous neighbors from La Porte City, wrote a darling book of knitted coasters.  I have been having a lot of fun doing some of them.

Milk glass pumpkin under glass.

I love old books.....here are a couple of them from my collection.

I love Mr. Scarecrow sitting on his bale of straw.....

My Grandma T. did beautiful ceramic work....this piece is darling.  I love the lit up faces!

This bale of straw came from the Thresher's Reunion in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa many years ago.  They had a small machine there that made these small bales.  I have used it to decorate for fall every year since.  So fun!
Do you want to see how they make these?  straw bale

A machine embroidered mini quilt.

By the back door

Oh those fall colors!

I found this little gem a few months ago at a sidewalk sale for 90% off.  I guess nobody thought it was worth the $2-3 I paid for it.....I thought it was gorgeous and have been carrying "my stuff" around in it.

This is my kind of pumpkin....no carving.  I never liked doing that....now they have all these tools for you to use, probably would be a lot easier.  But I still love this one,  just plug it in!  :)

I had these theme sweaters, that are out of style now, but I still hated to part with them....so I made some of them into pillows.  I just rough cut them apart and then mark them on the wrong side where I want to stitch and run them through the serger to get the right size and stabilize the edges.  Sew it all around with the sewing machine and I used the button closure to make my opening.  Oh, and I made it the same size as a pillow I already had.  So I can take it off easily to change them out.

Isn't she cute?

Inspiration From the Iowa State Fair 2013

We so enjoy going the the Iowa State Fair and this year was no exception.  The weather was stellar which made the crowds exceptional.  The spiral potato chips and rib on a stick went down nicely too!  Had to bring home a bag of cotton candy too.....that's gone!!!!

I mostly took pics of machine quilting designs for my MQ notebook.  I need ideas when I have a new quilt in my frame....maybe you will find something that inspires your next project too!

I was mainly looking for quilting designs that fill a certain space....

Wonderful border!

This is a wonderful mini.....love the border fabric!

The 4-H building is always a good source of ideas and inspiration!

This is garden hose and electrical ties fashioned  into a basket....genius!

How about an upside down stool made into a portable gift wrapping station!

Love wooden advertising yardsticks!

Cute little bench!

Great clock!

I call them Gertrude & Hecliffe....I think I need a pair of them!

A Boar Pen to Summer Pool

This summer has been a blur....I've spent the last couple weeks trying to catch up and recover.  So hoping to catch up with a few postings in the coming days.  

I have wanted to take this boar pen down for several years. We put the pool here and could use the extra room.  So on a nice May day the Silver Fox dug in!

This is for you farm types....What is it?

I thought I knew pretty much every tool around here.  I did work in a hardware store for a time too.  So when the Silver Fox asked me to find this....I had no clue what he was talking about.....so off to find this needle in a haystack in one of the buildings.

 And this is what I come back with, all of these plus the one above.....which was the one he was looking for.  And we used most of them.  Now just so we are clear, I pulled nails and was the resident "go fer"......the silver fox did most of the work. What a guy!  

 Does this give you any hint as to what he was using it for?

 It's coming down.....

There goes the framing from the roof.

 The side and back came down pretty fast.....down to pulling the last of the nails.

So what was the tool?

I will try describe this....a video clip would be better....that ridged part of the handle slides back & forth to the bump on the handle. The end on the left has a set of pincher like teeth.

The silver fox puts the pincher teeth as close to a nail head as he can get it.....then rams that handle back and forth with his right hand on the bar, until you get the teeth around the nail head. Then he uses the bar coming off the pincher end as a crow bar to pull the nail out of the wood.  Handy little widget really!!

Now there's piece of knowledge you didn't have when you got up this morning!

Pool all set up and ready for a hot day, which we have not had in 2 weeks.   The extra room on the cement pad is great.  FYI.....we started putting the pool on those interlocking foam floor pads several years ago, (I get mine at Sam's Club) it helps with the unevenness of the concrete and we haven't had to patch the bottom hardly at all since we started using them.  It is much softer for the kids when they play in the pool too.