Back to school mantle

I am actually pretty happy with this mantle this year, so I figured I better document so I can remember next year!

Hummingbird visitor

For a few years now I have been feeding the hummers outside my kitchen window.  I have been working on taking down the backyard pool for three or four days now and after HOURS of working on the last bits of water Sammi yelled out, "OH NO! A hummingbird just flew in the garage."  Apparently they are often attracted to the red emergency handle on the garage door opener. Who knew?

We tried all the google tricks to get it out of the garage. The garage rafters are open and SUPER high and this darn thing was not coming out.  It's hot today and I had to keep closing the door because another one kept trying to come in while we were trying to get this one out!

Eventually it exhausted itself and Dave and I were able to trap it between a net and a rake. He scooped it up in his hand and carried it outside.

The poor thing was just too exhausted to move.

I was frantically searching around the kitchen for something small and red to put some nectar in. Desperately, I just poured the leftovers from refilling the feeder into the peanut bar jar lid.

It sat in Dave's hand drinking for a LONG time. 

The kids were able to investigate very gently for a long time!

Once it could hold  it's head back up we moved it to a stick. It still took another 15 minutes or so to fly away.

Now I am scared to open the garage door because they are feeding so heavily right now to prepare for migration!

Great American Eclipse

Yesterday we travelled about an hour south to be directly in the path of totality for the solar eclipse. We are so lucky to live in a state that was right in the path and to be able to get to a place where we would have a reallllly long totality. We went to de soto, where totally was nearly three minutes long.  We spent the whole morning watching it get closer and closer to totality. When it happened it was amazing! Birds rushed to roost, cicadas started chirping, you could see the planets, it was much cooler than it had been (it was blazing hot yesterday).  Completely awesome! I am so happy I decided to keep the kids home and travel with them to get closer. (Here at home our house was out of the path. Two miles away we would have gotten about 30 seconds worth.)

When it was over Grant looked at me and said "mom, can we do it again!?"  I tried to explain that no, we could not, but he was sure that since the moon and sun come every day it should be able to happen again.

Dave took this shot of Jack at totality. 

And this interesting sign was in the gas station.  

 The kids also enjoyed hanging out a bit with family we do not see very often!

Best science event for a long time I am sure!

Flea Market Sunday

I was in a bit of a crab ass mood junking this week. There's a post on facebook going around called "I cant even with this eclipse" or something like that, have you seen it? Because it's me right  now. LOL It was a MASSIVE issue to get approved glasses here as we are right near the center of totality and total eclipse madness has taken over here.  My plan is to keep the children home from school and try to travel to family in De soto where totality will be 2.5 mins. Will we make it? Traffic predictions are DIRE y'all. Oy. 

Anyway. I will be back tomorrow with either a tale of success or a tale of woe (that might include pouring rain?)

The finds this week:

Border print fabric, enough to eek out a pillow case.

A few quilt blocks.

An AMAZING unused autumnal tablecloth.

A crappy pic of a very nice pot. But why did I buy it? All my pots are in the basement and have been for ages.

a huge piece of old labware.

And a HUGE tree topper. The biggest I have ever seen.

Wish me luck tomorrow?

First day of school 2017

 Eighth grade for Jack (With an independent study ninth grade math)

 Pre-k for Grant

First grade for Sam.

Last day of summer vacation

I've survived 84 days in this house with the children.  While everyone else has been going places or doing things, we've just been here, in the house. I cannot even wait for the bus to come tomorrow.

I felt like we should do something today, but I have not slept in two days and it's hotish, so I needed easy.

Park and splash pad it is.

Tomorrow three hours of peace will descend upon my house.  Amen.

Flea Market Sundays

Some days you get SUPER lucky, some days you don't get lucky at all and some days you have to go to two banks because of non working ATMs, put gas in the car, arrive very late, spend too much time dawdling and still get *just* lucky enough.

You can guess which day today was/

Even though I just spent three days selling off a HUGE pile of quilts, apparently I can't stop, won't stop when it comes to the quilts. Especially antique quilts in double pink and indigo.

Or putz houses.

See? Just lucky enough! :)

Shark Whale pencil pouch

I was cruising etsy for fabric the other day and they showed me a shark pencil pouch in their ads.  Of course I thought "I can make that."  I wanted to make it for Sammi for her gifted ed pencils.

So, off to google a pattern.  A pattern was easy enough to come by, but oh boy. I WISH WISH WISH I had had the foresight to google a different tutorial on putting a zip in a round pouch and used that instead.  Pain in the rumpus and not as nice as I would like.

It's cute, but I want to try making it again. You know, when I am done with the other 90 million projects.

Here is the pattern and tutorial, but really, do yourself a favor, go find some better zipper instructions and just use that. Assemble the fins and stuff, put the buttons on, then use the curved zip pouch tutorial to do the zipper, lining and finishing. You will not be sorry I told you so. Also please note SHE DOES NOT MENTION SEAM ALLOWANCE. You must add seam allowance.

Kids craft - sun paper

Sammi has been bugging me forever to get out the sun paper. Today I said sure.  First we had to go for a little drive to hunt down some wildflowers.

I do love this craft. That's lace from the sewing room on the bottom right. I wanted a big piece of lace but I couldn't round one up fast enough.

The kids were like oh look! A fish! A butterfly!  They see things I wouldn't see at first.

The new wise craft quilt book has an AMAZING quilt from cyanotype fabric. If only there was enough time to make all the quilts I want to make in the world, right?

Way to go Sammi!

Sammi received her acceptance letter into the gifted ed program at school. I couldn't be happier for you Sammi!  Last year was a real struggle and hopefully this is going to make school a lot more fun for you.  (Plus, once again the IQ score of my kids literally knocks me over.  These kids are not just smart but top 1 or 2% of the entire world smart. No wonder I often feel DEAD. LOL)

Fairy wands

I was working on a SERIOUS bugger of a project the other day (which I will show you tomorrow).  While I was at the sewing machine for hours trying to interpret a very bad pattern the kids got out a bunch of craft stuff and made themselves fairy wands. 

All by themselves! Woot!

Above by Grant, below by Sam.

S is for slime

Thanks to tv commercials the kids were SURE they HAD to make slime.

They did enjoy it. Mostly.

They did not enjoy when they mixed several colors together and it turned into brown poo. (Told ya so.)

I did not enjoy it finding it on the walls, the couch, the carpets...you get the idea.

What Cheer, the spoils

This time nearly everything in my cart was made of fabric. What a shocker!

First purchase - green/aqua picnic tin.

I passed up several nice, reasonably priced quilts and only bought this little beauty. It's flannel, the best aqua color (cloudy day today), and so, so soft!

Kids toboggan for Christmas card photos.

Oh boy, tablecloths again Sarah? My love is reignited, what can I say?

Fabric Scraps, some feedsack.

Vintage flatware. My kids want to know why. Why! For parties, no more disposable.

From the $1 bins. Doublglo angel, easter chick, two teacup wall plaques I have no clue what to do with.

Barely enough quilt squares to eek out a doll quilt. Maybe I should try hand quilting it.  And a rag ball. Why? It's like a fabric surprise ball as you unwind it! I was thinking it might be fun to try string piecing with it.

The fabric.

The sacks for my quilt in progress.

Feedsack border print pillowcases, my fav! 

For some reason while I was wandering I became obsessed with the idea of a kitchen rug. I found a few I liked, but at $10 I was having a hard time pulling the trigger (plus they were mass produced rag rugs).  Then I found this one - handmade and $3, score!

Thanks Iowa, I do not love your rural "no place to eat, no place to pee, no place to sleep"ness but I do love your junk!