"Twin Sisters" quilt

Here's part of the unfinished top of the baby Thomas quilt. You can kinda see where I'm going with this. I think it's gonna turn out pretty cool, and can you tell it's for a girl?! Very pink and purple-y *grin*
A picture right outside the backdoor shows the prairie in bloom. There are yellow flowers everywhere...and if you look close you can see a bunch of different purple ones as well. It's quite the site driving home as it's just mile after mile of yellow. And in less than 2 months this will be a burnt up bunch of brown.

Even though it was hot, though not as hot as yesterday, today, I made a chocolate sheet cake from a recipe from my mom. It has this icing you pour on when the cake it still hot and it melts all into the top of the cake. When it cools, it gets that crunchy little bit of dry at the top. The girls and I had that with some homemade ice cream for dessert....heavenly!

The people who bought the horses are supposed to come pick them up tomorrow. Jeremy reminded me how nice it'll be this winter when we don't have to fight the snow/wind/cold to go feed the beasts. I won't miss the days trying to drag a bale of hay through a snowdrift while the wind is driving needles of snow in your face and you can barely feel your hands....ah, I do love the summer much more!

The girls were playing outside and Grace came in informing me that Maggie was chewing on the neighbor's dog. Secretly going, "What the..." in my head, but dutifully putting on my shoes to see what's up, I head outside. Maggie's definitely chewing on something dead. Upon a bit closer inspection I recognize kitty feet on the very desicated carcass. Sunny has not been seen since we got back from the Big Horns. I couldn't quite tell by the color of the fur, but it very well could have been him.

Now to wipe the chocolate off of little faces, put on their jammies and kiss 'em on the cheek while wishing them sweet dreams.

I Scream for Ice Cream

One of the guys I work with and his wife are expecting another baby in November. They just found out that it's a girl. So I figured I ought to start the quilt I am planning on making. I found a pattern I had called "Twin Sisters" that has a 'positive' and a 'negative' block. I'm doing it in pinks and purples. I haven't sewn since about February and it felt good to dig out the sewing machine, who was once my constant companion, and get to manipulating fabric again. I've always been fascinated with taking fabric, cutting it up, rearranging it and sewing it back together to get something so totally different than a big piece of plain ol' fabric.

It's amazing how much faster laundry goes when it hang it outside on the line to dry. No waiting for the dryer. And the smell is always so....wonderful! And, heck, it all looks nicely ironed.

Every once in awhile I'll get on a kick of making my own ice cream. The recipe I found is super simple and I don't have to cook any darn eggs:
2 C. milk (I use whole)
2 C. whipping cream
1 C. sugar
some vanilla extract
Put in all in the canister of an ice cream maker and in just 30 minutes you have ice cream. I took half of it and left it plain and the other half I mixed in fresh raspberry puree. Jeremy doesn't like running across frozen fruit in ice cream, so I make sure it was super smooth. It's a nice afternoon treat as we have yet to get our swamp cooler put in the window and it's been upper 80's lately. Usually the swamp cooler gets put in too darn early and we have to cover up the opening. Maybe when Jeremy's gets off his long stretch of nights. Until then we just grin and bear it.

Moose, Elk, and a Bear, Oh My!

We went up to my grandma's cabin in the Big Horn Mountains over the weekend. We went to help my parent's cut some firewood and play around. Jeremy got his fishing fix and was outfished by Grace and my nephew, Weston. We saw handfuls of moose, elk and deer....even a bear!

Jeremy spotted the bear early one morning in one of the trees not 100 feet from the cabin. He got some fuzzy pictures that resemble one of Bigfoot. Then he watched it climb down the tree and amble away.

We've been trying to sell the horses as they don't get used as much as we like, so might as well let somebody else enjoy them. He put them on Craigslist and has had a bunch of inquiries. We sold them this morning. The guy wants shoes put on, so we'll be doing that and getting a branding inspection. Then the guy will come pick them up in a week or so. We have half the money, so we're pretty sure he won't back out. And we at least got what we paid, so YEAH! Now I have a feeling Jeremy's gonna be looking pretty hard at finding a camper....

Lakes, Cleanin', Horses

I was supposed to join Jeremy and the girls at the lake during the weekend. I dutifully monitored the weather all week....and come Friday the weekend was supposed to be rainy and 45°. So I decided I'd rather not sit in his parent's camper all weekend in the cold, wet weather. The weather report turned out to be correct. I don't think it ever got above 50° all weekend and last I checked we had over 1.5 inches of rain in the rain guage.

I managed to be a decluttering fool. I actually found the floor in my closet and Grace's closet. Anna's happens to be a storage area for all my crafty crap, so not much luck there, unfortunately. I found gobs of stuff to donate to Goodwill, toys, games that aren't played with, old clothes and shoes of mine. And it's wonderful to actually be able to step into my closet again.

Everybody had a good time at the lake, even with the rain and yuck. Grace drove the boat all by herself. Of course, her dad and Papa were there making sure she didn't sink it. It sure was nice to have some time alone, but I sure did miss everybody!

Jeremy confided in me that while he was at the lake he did some thinking. He's thinking about selling the horses and possibly looking into getting a camper. As a camper would be used more and could be used all year round, who wants to ride a horse in the dead of winter even on a sunny, windless day. (Do we ever have those here?) Lately he's been a fishing fool, and he'd rather have the camper than the horses. We did some wishin' and lookin' on Craigslist. But first we gotta sell the horses...

Spinsterhood

I had mentioned that the dogs are shedding quite profusely. Maggie has taken on a unique appearance. Notice the legs and underside are completely winter-coat free; however, the top is long and shaggy and it looks like she has roots from a long grown out dye job. You can pull some of the hair out in clumps. I'm sure if I took all the dog hair out of the vacuum I could create a whole new dog!

I had made this purse about a month ago and am just getting around to finally taking a picture and posting it. I have made two others from the same pattern, one was a flowered one and one was a Christmas gift. I think this one is so "me" with the western print fabric. And it's nice and roomy for all my junk, I mean.... necessities!

This is the project on the Veggie Socks for my Grandma-in-law. I'm ready to start the heel on this sock and I just finished the toe on its mate. I found a willing participant who wears a size 7 shoe in another department at work that was willing to try on my partial sock, so I would know I was making it the correct size.

Tonight begins my 4 days of spinsterhood. Jeremy took off with both girls to go to Glendo for a week of too much sun, not enough sleep and tons of fishing. Papa and Uncle Wade are gonna be there too. Grandma's going up sometime later, hopefully she'll keep everybody in line! I'll be headed up this weekend. So....what have I done with my free time tonight? A little garden weeding, a little ironing, a little blogging and after I'm done, a little knitting.

Knitting, Knitting, and more Knitting

These are the Sherbet Socks. And here are the stats for the interested folks. Size 1 (2.5mm) needles, menehune cobblestones pattern, ella rae Lace Merino in color 104 (that'd be the fancy yarn). It took approximately 5 weeks to knit them up, granted, I didn't work on them very steady. And I probably have enough left over to make another set of socks.
I was gonna show a picture of the ones I'm working on now, the Grandma-in-law socks, but the pictures were rather blurry. I'm toying with naming them Veggie Socks because when I look at the colors, I think of veggies.....carrot, celery, beet and spinach. Check out the plum colorway here. Does that not remind you of veggies?!

OK, maybe it's just me :)

My sister (as well as my grandma-in-law and eldest daughter) are purple lovers. I found a bunch of purples and couldn't decide which would be the best my for sister, so I bought them all, HA! The middle one is self-striping. The one of the left looks to be more of a dark purple, where the others are plum-ish. Leave me a comment and tell me which you prefer....all 4 of you blog readers!

One, One, Two, Two

As I was clearing off the table and doing dishes after dinner, I heard something that warmed the cockles of my heart, so to speak. I hear little voices counting. I look in the living room and Grace and Anna are sitting next to each other on the floor. Grace is counting puppies and kitties in a book and Anna is repeating the numbers after her. Then I hear Grace "reading" a book she has memorized to Anna. Then it quickly escalated into Anna taking the book away, Grace saying, "No, mine" and tears and wailing from both girls. In a few minutes when all was calm again, they run off to Grace's room and I hear Grace say, "Come on, Anna, lets go take all our clothes off." Life sure wouldn't be nearly as entertaining without my little monkeys!

Our weather has finally turned more toward summer weather. The flowering trees are nearly done with their beautiful displays and the lilacs are starting to bloom now. And the dogs are shedding in full force.

I finished what I'm dubbing my "Sherbet Socks." The name suggestion came from a good friend and I think it's a great descriptor. I will be posting a picture soon. I have now started what I'm gonna call my Grandma-in-law socks for now. My mother-in-law bought the purplish yarn and told me that her mom would love a pair of hand knit socks. I'm going with a simple slip stitch pattern that leaves columns in the socks, very subtle. Just what I'm going for with these multi-colored socks.

And now I have diaper/underwear clad girls running around my house, giggling like mad women!