I feel so blessed and lucky to be doing what I love to do. I get to design fun new patterns whenever an idea pops into my head (a sneak peek at something I'm working on now) and I get to teach fun classes and meet wonderful ladies who love to make and create things with their hands. I feel blessed that I'm able to pass on any knowledge that I might have to others so they can carry on traditions that I think are becoming lost in our society today.

This afternoon I had a wonderful group of ladies meet to make a recipe card. We teach one card several times during the month and we have several groups that meet during the month. Today's group call themselves the Sunday Stampers and they are just a lovely group of ladies. Especially love them when they come bearing gifts and food, which they did today. I was given a treat from a recent trip that the ladies took to Ashville which was a wonderful and sweet surprise. Thank you so much. And then Debby made the recipe that we taught last month -- Cherry Dump Cake -- which was so yummy. What a way to end a class!! Thanks Debby for sharing.

Today starts my Christmas in July classes and what better way to begin than with making Santa Clauses! I had a lovely group of ladies come to my house for a Santa class. Some were experienced sewers and a couple not so much experience. Well, maybe one! But she did great and we have the pictures to prove that she actually sewed on the machine and by hand. Right Cari! We had chocolate, dark of course, to keep us energized and on task. The Santas each turned out different and each was an original work of art! I hope everyone had a good time and maybe will have a head start on making Christmas gifts. Thanks ladies for a great class!

No matter how many Santas are created, each one will be unique and different. That's what makes the wool classes so much fun. I believe the personality of the individual person comes out in whatever they are creating.

Wow, you never know what you might run into when you're out and about. I took the girls for a doctor visit on Friday and look what we saw. Traffic was diverted from one street around the block and when we came out at the light there was this huge hook and ladder firetruck lying on its side. As I came closer to the intersection I started snapping pictures. Luckily I had the camera right in the seat next to me, as any good blogger should! No one was seriously injured thank goodness. The girls couldn't believe what they were seeing and wanted to know just how that firetruck ended up in that position. I told them he was probably just driving a little too fast on his way to help someone and tipped over. They said "Oh". Guess that was a good answer.

On this date 33 years ago I married my husband. How fast those 33 years have gone by and how hard it is to believe that it has actually been that long. But some days my bones make me remember that it can be that long ago! This being our 33rd anniversary, what better way to spend it than with our two granddaughters. The girls came over around 8am and were here until 3pm. We had bought the girls two dress-up dresses while we were in Florida so I presented those dresses to them this morning. They immediately started stripping clothes to get into the new gowns. Reagan posed for pictures and even had a parade in her new gown. Raleigh, however, would not even let me take one picture of her. She ran everytime I lifted the camera, thus no beautiful picture of Raleigh.

At lunchtime we had a picnic on the back porch. It was a beautiful day outside with low humidity, not very common this time of year so we decided to take advantage of it. After lunch we headed to the garden to see what might be ready to pick. The girls found lots of cherry tomatoes, cucumbers and green peppers that needed to be picked. They had so much fun hunting the cherry tomatoes among all the vines. I'm afraid the garden has turned into quite a jungle.

After the garden adventure was over, we unloaded our bounty into a basket. I went around the house to take some pictures of beautiful flowers when I heard the girls squealing in the back yard. I ran around back to find that Reagan had turned on the sprinkler and they were both
running through the sprinkler, with their clothes on. They had a blast playing in the sprinkler and even chased me with it a couple of times.

Of course I didn't have a change of clothing for them, so once they were bathed I dressed them in a couple of my PJ shirts while I washed and dried their clothes. They spent the rest of the afternoon coloring and watching their favorite shows. What a busy, busy time we always have.

Mark will be spending a couple of hours with the girls this evening while I teach a class so he will get his girl time in also. I'm sure they will be modeling their new gowns for their Poppy!

Happy anniversary to us!

We had a fun July recipe card class tonight. The recipe is for a Patriotic Fruit Trifle which is a delectable dessert that was created by my friend Sally. When I asked to turn the dish into a recipe card, Sally volunteered to make the trifle for two of the groups, the one she belonged to and one other group. So tonight's group were the lucky recipients of a very beautiful and delicious treat. The ladies worked diligently at getting their cards done knowing that a treat was waiting for them. The card we did last month was a great card but a little more intense than tonight's card.

It's hard to imagine that a beautiful recipe card will come of all the bits and pieces of paper that you see lying on the tables. But one does evolve and by the end of the evening, everyone has a new card to add to their collections.

And of course, being the month of July we had to have a patriotic theme to the card. Look at that sweet little boy that came from a vintage picture I borrowed from a friend. Who knew he would end up in a recipe card some day.

For those of you not familiar with our little recipe classes, my friend Evette and I meet and design a card for each month, usually theme related to the month. We then teach classes at The Rusty Bucket located in Apex, NC where several groups of ladies attend each month to create their own one of a kind recipe card. We met all through last year and are still going strong this year. The classes are so much fun and are a great stress reliever as well as allowing individuals to be creative and also complete a project within an hour or so. We've made lots of new friends and love seeing what each month will bring in the way of our project. Evette and I are surprised by some of the things we've created!! We never know what might come from our brains (or lack thereof!). Thanks ladies for making this such a fun time for us and hopefully taking home a little of that joy too.

A dear friend sent this "History of Aprons" to me and it brought back such vivid memories of my grandmothers wearing aprons and of my mother-in-law who is never without an apron when she is in her kitchen, that I wanted to share it with you. I love the look of an apron and have many pictures of my mom-in-law donned in an apron. It just makes you think of a simplier, easier time in our lives, those of us that were lucky enough to be born a little while ago!

So the story goes............................

"I don't think our kids know what an apron is. The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath, because she only had a few, it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and they used less material, but along with that, it served as a potholder for removing
hot pans from the oven.

It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears. From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.

When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids.

And when the weather was cold grandma wrapped it around her arms.

Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.

Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.

From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.

In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.

When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.

When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the menfolk knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.

REMEMBER:

Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw. They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.

I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron."

Does that bring back memories for any of you? Maybe we all need to start wearing aprons again..............bring out the farmgirl in all of us. Maybe we could have an apron club or wear our aprons to stitching bee. Maybe we should all get together with an old vintage pattern and make ourselves an apron. Maybe if we made ourselves an apron and actually wore them, it would help us to all slow down and enjoy the days. Thanks for sharing Nancy.

My dear sweet friend Debbie from Wooden Spool Designs helped me figure some things out on my blog this afternoon. She has been blogging for awhile and I, of course, am new to this so I cried HELP! Neither one of us had the time to be playing on the computer but we somehow found the time to do just that. Thanks so much Debbie. I really, really need to be doing a dozen other things right now, like packing for our trip to Florida tomorrow, working on kits for upcoming classes and maybe even a little stitching. And I know Debbie has a zillion things to do getting ready for an upcoming show. So again, thanks for your valuable time!!!!

Actually, I did work on kits yesterday for a snowman pillow class as the picture will attest to. So some progress has been made in that direction. I have decided to teach Christmas in July classes for the months of July and August, so I'm busy working on snowmen and Santas in the 97 degree heat (well, of course I'm in the air conditioning) but it just doesn't seem right to be thinking Christmas when it's so hot. Thus the reason we could never live in Florida.

I've also been working on some new pattern designs, possibly in preparation for a trip to quilt market next spring. It takes a long time to come up with an idea, draw it, design it, stitch it, and then turn it into something fun. And don't forget create and write the pattern directions. So a lot goes into the production of one pattern design. Here's a sneak peek of part of something I'm working on. So far I really love the designs. I've been busy the past few years with so many other things that I haven't been doing much designing. I didn't realize how much I had missed it until I caught myself drawing one night. I had a blast coming up with new sketches and couldn't wait to start stitching. That's when I knew it was time for Liberty Rose to get back to business. And I'm doing just that with the encouragement of a few good friends!! So back to work I go. Wishing everyone a safe and happy fourth of July!