November 1, We woke up to White Stuff!!!

 Hi Everyone!

As promised, I'm on track for my second post of this 2023 and am not a day late.

Today is actually a beautiful day outside, we have blue skies, can still see the golden hues of the maple tress in the yard along with a new addition this morning, 4" of snow!  Yikes!!  The weather forecast said we could get 2-5" due to lake effect variety.  They didn't disappoint.  Actually, as I write this, it has gotten dark and the sun has left and it is snowing hard again.  Here are a few photos from earlier this morning.

4" on Shed

The pine trees always look gorgeous

The mailbox didn't look so good this morning.  The rain prior to the snow made the branches of this maple tree heavy and the snow clung to it and pulled it down over the mailbox.  Bernie had to go out and help it out!

Prior to all this inclement weather of today, it was beautiful mostly on weekdays.  Here Macy is out for her early morning stroll amongst the down leaves.

Bernie and I got a pair of Electric Bikes.  These are great!  When you get tired of pedaling or if you're going up a hill, you just give it some throttle and up the hill you go!  This was our first time taking them out.  We drove over to Linesville as they have a nice bike trail over there and we unloaded them and went for an hour and a half bike ride.  We went a total of 12 miles for this trip.  For a first real outing, we did good.  The weather was fantastic and there were several others on the bike trail as well.  That's Bernie by the bridge.  

We came across this really neat bike tool station.  It was at one end of the trail and you could tighten your bike up, We never seen anything like this before.  A handy-dandy tool kit in the woods!

These Black-Eyed Susan were so pretty.  I believe that is what they are called.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

This is my favorite photo of the day.  This beautiful view of Pymatuning Lake with all the beautiful fall foliage.

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Here is a selfie I took of Bernie and myself.   We don't take many photos of ourselves.

And now what you've all probably been wondering about.  The Christmas in the Woods Show of 2023.

First off, all I can actually say is the weather was not cooperative.  All four days of the show it rained, and the first day was a wash out.  It poured all day long, but guess what????  People still showed up!  I couldn't believe it!  Sunday it rained in the AM and then got a little better as the day progressed.  The next weekend once again rain, but the people were bound and determined to come to the Woods to buy!

After the show, we figured that we had sold one less than last year which would have been 100, but after running all the numbers and doing all my paperwork and such, I came up with 101!  Exactly the same as last year and last year was beautiful weather.  So you just don't know.  I did manage to take a few photos of our cabin this year.  I have the same cabin each year and rent it from a lady who does Shakerwoods in August for three weekends.

Cabin in the Woods

These are our three lamp sizes: Small, Large, and Tallboy!

I showed you some of the table runners that I sent over east to my nephew and his wife's brick and mortar store in McConnellsburg PA.  Here is one of the Christmas Cardinals I did as well. 

Christmas Cardinals

I've posted many photos of my sewing area in the basement in previous posts.  I've sewn off of an old dining room table we had since we were married.  Never thought much of it until I started having shoulder and neck pain.  The sewing machine was too high for me.  So after much back and forth, I decided to jump off my wallet and purchase an Arrow Sewing Machine Table.  This table enables me to lower my machine so that my table and machine are flat.  It took us an entire evening to put it together once we got all the pieces.  It has one drawer on the left that self closes and I can add a table to the top of the drawer so it becomes more workable space.  It is a huge surface and my quilts will no longer hang over the sides of the table and give me grief while quilting.  I love it!!!  I actually have 8 quilts and one table topper that I'm currently working on.  

Here is my new table!

I just want to leave you with my Thanksgiving Cactus.  It has been confused and bloomed before in October before Halloween.   I put it outside in the summer and before I brought it back in the house in September,  I noticed it had buds.  I always repot my plants as I don't want to bring in any bugs with the old outside dirt.  I wasn't sure if the blooms would make it at all, but it did and it is thriving right now.  

I'm sure that by Thanksgiving it will be back to just being green, but it has brought me great pleasure to see it so beautiful.  

By the time I write my next post, Thanksgiving will be history!  It is really my favorite holiday and I already have the house decorated in my turkey and pilgrim things.  

I'll close with my wish for you, a Blessed, Happy Thanksgiving Day! 

Gobble Gobble!!!

Hugs, 

Debbie

PS:  As always, I love your feedback and would love to hear from you about this post.  

October 1, 2023 One Year Ago Tomorrow Was My Last Blog Post

 Hi Everyone!

 To say time is flying by is an understatement.  I was reading a few blogs and just thought I’d look at mine and saw it was one year ago, Oct 2, 2022, that I last posted.  It seems to be a trend because 2021 last post was around the same time.  What a better day to begin blogging again.  I’ve had many people say that they miss my blog.  So, I hope you enjoy reading this post.

Where shall I begin?  Let’s see…….  I’m still quilting and we’re still making lamps.  We did the Pymatuning Lake Festival the first weekend in Aug.  I sold some lamps and some quilted table runners, a few ornaments for Christmas too.  It was a beautiful weekend and the weather cooperated, no rain and not too hot temperatures,  Guess you’d say it was picture perfect.

We are getting ready for the Christmas In The Woods show this month in Columbiana Ohio with our lamps.  This is the seventh year we’ve done this show.  We thought we had plenty ready for this show, but with the cancellation of the big festival called Penn’s Colony in PA, we will probably need more lamps so we’re at it again.  

I’m busy making quilts, table runners, and some bowl cozies, not for this show; however.  I may do a few shows here and there locally with just quilted items and ornaments, etc., just to get rid of some stock.  Several of these quilted items are going to my nephew and his wife's new shop in McConnellsburg PA called, "All is Well Boutique + Gifts".  If you want to visit there store online, just click the blue link, and a pop up will appear and just click on that and then it says to login to Facebook, etc., but just hit the "X" and it will bypass that and you can view their page and watch their videos.   They have so many things in their brick and mortar store. Here are a few 60° table runners I’ve been working on for them.  I enjoy making these.  I have a Christmas table topper I have just about finished and I joined a guilting group out of Vermont so I’m working on a log cabin quilt too.   This log cabin quilt is just about done, I'll include in it next post.

This one I kept for myself!  Loved it too much!!

The other thing I’ve been busy doing is gardening.  Bernie surprised me in June with a garden when I returned from spending some time with my sister, Peg,  in Olympia WA.  I’ll share some photos of Olympia in another post.  For now, here is my garden.  I had a cherry tomato plant Bernie bought me and three other larger tomato plants a neighbor gave me.  They gave me so many tomatoes. I also had green and yellow wax beans.  They were slow at first, but we ended up with a lot.  I’ve learned that we don’t need four tomato plants, and I don’t need to plant so many beans.  I had a row of three kinds of lettuce and now I know what lettuce I like best.  So it was a learning experience this growing season.  Next year will be better.

This was our first bounty.  Even the blackberries were abundant this season.

I had so many tomatoes that I couldn’t eat them all myself.  I shared with neighbors and actually froze some cherry tomatoes.  We’ll see how that turns out.  I even baked a French dish, Tomato Tian.  I got the idea from a blog I follow From My Carolina Home and found a recipe to my liking online. It was tasty and I enjoyed it very much.

 

A couple photos I just took this morning,  the Montauk Daisy in my side bed that is in bloom.  Summer is still hanging on here, but I think it's going to go South by Friday this week.  Macy sniffing the corn, ha ha!!  And, lastly my front porch.

I think I’ll end this blog post right here.  I’m trying to write this on my iPad instead of my desktop, but I did have to use the desktop for a few photos.   I hope to have that figured out for the next post which will be after our festival ends Oct 22.  I'll try to post at least once a month on the first day of the month, unless I have something to say prior and then you may have an extra post.  Hope you enjoy reading!  Let me know by commenting below or shoot me an email at deb.meyer77@gmail.com.  

Until then, take care of yourself!

Hugs and Happy Fall!!

Debbie

October 2, 2022 - It has been a Year since my last Blog Post!!

 Hello Everyone!

I can't believe the last time I blogged was Oct 3, 2021.  Today is Oct 2, 2022!  A whole year has gone by without a blog post from me.  How is that even possible????  Did you miss me????  Huh?   Did you????  Anyway, I'm happy to be back.

First, I'm surprised I still remember how to post on this blog.  This may take me a while to get it all together.  

You can see that I just added a new gadget to the right of this post for the Autumn Jubilee 2022.  I have been participating in this for over five years and it's so much fun.  Carole at From My Carolina Home hosts this and there is lots of Mystery Quilting projects, some stamping card ideas, some wool sewing, and whatever else she has lined up for us.  There are giveaways from sponsors and last year I won a wool pressing mat and a rotary cutter!   There is something for everyone!

Christmas in the Woods is this coming weekend. Oct 8 & 9th and again the next weekend.  I'm pretty well ready, trailer is packed up and we'll be setting up in our cabin this coming week.  Looking forward to selling our lamps and maybe even some of my quilt projects along with some ornaments.

I can hardly believe that summer is over already.  Certain trees are turning gold and red, but not that much just yet.   In the next couple weeks we should see the trees in their beautiful colors of autumn!

Summer brought us a wide variety of birds this year to our yard.

This Baltimore Oriole and his mate came daily which surprised us.  In years past they only showed up on one day never to be seen again.  This year, Bernie made them their own little serving dish and we kept it stocked with grape jelly.  They loved it.

Scarlet Tanager also came this year a few times, but not everyday.  

The gold finches came all summer long, everyday for their fill of thistle.

Bernie made a new birdhouse this year and the bluebirds moved right in.  They had only one fledging, but we were so happy to have them.  I think they had at least three babies, but by the time I peeked inside they were all gone.  Can't believe we watched them everyday and poof!!!  They were gone and we missed it.

This female cardinal was an everyday visitor with her male counterpart.

And when there is suet out, there are woodpeckers.  This one was a pretty good size one with his red head.  There was a huge one that tried to hang on the big red birdfeeder, but he couldn't quite get a hold of it!  It was comical to watch him try.

Hummingbirds were here all summer long as well, many different kind and many different colors.  

Blackie graced us with his presence all summer long too.  He is still here in the yard daily gathering his acorns for the long-winter to come.  This one in his mouth got eaten, guess he was a little hungry.

A few Sundays ago, we drove the AMX to a PIttsburgh AMC Get Together.  It was a beautiful day for a ride and it was nice talking to some old friends and meeting new ones.

Bernie's 70 AMX Front and Center

This car sported an "I Like Ike" vanity plate on the front.  That should tell you just about how old this Nash is!!

A set of AMC Scramblers

An old dealership tow truck.

And my favorite car there.... A 1969 Big Bad Green Javelin. 
This beauty was formerly MY CAR!!!  It still looks as pretty and the grasshoppers still enjoy sitting on it's fenders!  Ha Ha!!


I've still been quilting and have some things to show you, but I'll save that for another post.  

I don't want to bore you with a super, long post, and a year is a long time to remember what we did or what is going on in our neck of the woods.  I'll try to go back to some other happenings in future blog posts.

Have a wonderful Sunday and have a fantastic Autumn!!

Hugs, 

Debbie

October is Here, so very fast!!!

October is here!  Where did summer go!  The older I get the faster it goes by.  I'm not too, too sad about summer leaving, because we are now in my favorite time of year, Autumn!  The trees have just begun to show a little changing of the colors.  As this month progresses, they will hopefully become a brilliant shade of reds and oranges and it will be time for a "leaf ride."

I'm also excited to begin the new Autumn Jubilee 2021 event over at From My Carolina Home.  I have pinned a picture to the right of this post that you can click on to see what it's all about.  I have participated in this event at Carole's blog for quite a few years and have made some wonderful fall quilts, table toppers,  table runners, tablescapes, felt items, and much more.  Gosh!  So much to tell you, so I think you should visit yourself.  There are giveaways galore from some very wonderful sponsors!  Take a look, you won't be disappointed.

The Autumn Jubilee project from last year is finally finished.  I put it on the backburner and when I realized it was time for the Jubilee 2021, I knew I had to finish the 2020 project.  So here it is:

This was a really fun one to make.  It had trees, maple leaves, pumpkins, and stars.  

Here is my front door.  This is a swag from years ago from Home Interiors.  I put some sunflowers in it and just stuck the fall leaves around.  None of these are glued into the swag, and it stays put.  I like to do it this way because I like to change the look each year.

Here is just a photo of the front porch.  I didn't get crazy this year with cornstalks and Halloween stuff as we don't have Halloween where I live anyway.  This is just a simple grapevine wreath I've been using for years outside, a light-up plastic pumpkin/jack-o-lantern which I turn around to the face side when it gets closer to Halloween.  A cute little wooden scarecrow cutout, a metal cornstalk,  and a beautiful orange mum.  I usually put up, around the door and on the bale of straw, candy corn looking lights as well as purple lights together.  Then I plug in just the orange lights first day of fall, then unplug those and plug in the purple right before Halloween, then switch back again through Thanksgiving.  This way I only put up lights once and take them down once.  Unfortunately, the purple lights didn't work this year so they were trashed and I only have the orange out there.  We read long ago that you can hang lights very easily using spring clothespins.  They clip right on the siding.  We use this method to hang our Christmas lights to the gutters as well. 

I did have a second finish.  If you recall, this is the paper-piecing topper we learned how to do in a class I took at Kimberly's Fabric Stash.

I used a few of the many decorative stitches that my machine has and finished it up.  I think it turned out pretty good.  I'm going to use this method to make the same design using Christmas fabric.

Another class I took at Kimberly's was to make these cupcake or acorn looking potholders/warm mat.  I made a few for Halloween and a few for Fall.  They are made with Insul-bright to protect your counters or your hands.  They are not microwaveable though.

Bryan and Jess were here back in August and since their anniversary is in Sept, and I just know how they love Halloween, I made them a few items.  This was a wall hanging/door hanging of a black cat since they have two of them at home, Peppsi and Mocha.

They also got the matching table placemats...

as well as matching coasters!  That was the extent of my quilting.

We were in Pittsburgh back in August for a mass at St. Paul's Cathedral and these were taken in the gardens.

You can see the University of Pittsburgh Cathedral of Learning in the sky of left photo and the right photo was the Holy Family garden.  Those are Koi and Goldfish in the pond.  It was so beautiful there!

So what is coming up next weekend and the following weekend??????

Christmas in the Woods!  We have 133 lamps done and ready to sell. We've been working feverishly to get that many done as earlier shows have proved to be crazy busy at the woods.  People are out this year from being cooped up during Covid and they are buying I've been told.  The gal I rent the cabin from there told me to be ready as she was selling out of many items each day.  Yikes!!  We will head over there one day this week, to clean the cabin, hang curtains and get things all set-up and ready to go for next Saturday.

I'll try to post monthly again after this show is over.  I may even do two blog posts this month to make up for August and Sept.  

I hope you enjoyed this post.  Enjoy the fall season.  

Hugs,

Debbie