Off to the beach

We are off to the beach.

Better not forget Roxy's sunglasses this time.

I won't be blogging. I plan on doing a whole lot of nothing.

Til next time, Ronda

Burlap Roses

As I mentioned in an earlier post my oldest son is getting married on October 13th. My future DIL has asked me to make the bouquets and boutonnieres for the wedding. She wants them done out of burlap, I thought no problem. WRONG!

Burlap may be popular right now but it is a pain in the patoutie to work with. It unravels and sheds like crazy. After much trial and error I think I'm getting flowers that look somewhat presentable.

 

Don't panic, these are just the flowers and I will be adding feathers and other fillers to make the bouquets look beautiful. I must admit looking at this picture making me nervous. I just have to remember they are suppose to look rustic.

Wish me luck, Ronda

Automatic Rug Hook Needle

Each Memorial Day and Labor Day weekend our little community has a Peddlers Fair. This year MM found this and brought it home to me:

Please note it's called an EZ Automatic Hook Rug Needle

The "Simple" instructions are on the back of the box.



Looks like too much work for me. I think I'll put it in a nice display case and hang it in my studio.

MM knew I would like it and was sweet to buy it for me.

Til next time Ronda



My Man is creative

MM has been creative lately. He made this cool flower for my garden.

 

He found a steamer at a thrift store and he made this sunflower, one of my favorite flowers. I love the big bug.

He also made these snails. This is not the best picture, the black drip irrigation hose makes it hard to see the big snail and you have to look very carefully to see the tiny snail. This is what happens when the photographer is too lazy to move their subjects to a better location.

I saw some wooden decorations at Joann's that I liked and asked MM to come up with a sign for our front porch. Here's what he came up with:

 

I added some dollar store finds and now our porch is starting to look like fall:

 

 

I tell him often how creative he is and how much I appreciate him.

 

Til next time, Ronda



 

Birthday

My birthday was yesterday and I was blessed to receive messages from family and friends via Facebook. Having retired from the greeting card business I know social media often takes the place of cards, but I love being able to connect with people I might never hear from otherwise.

My Mom hosted a family gathering on Sunday and had a cake made just for me. It was an ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins, and had a lot of my favorite things: chocolate kisses, white cake, and gold medal ribbon ice cream---what a treat.

 

MM did the honors, we could hardly wait.

My almost Grand-daughter gave me these beautiful flowers. She'll be official when my Son marries her Mom on October 13th. (Oldest son and his finance are in the picture above---just behind the cake).

All in all it was a very nice birthday. Ronda
 

It's almost Fall!

There are still a few weeks until the official start of Fall but for most of us it starts on September 1st. I love, love, love fall colors.

 

September is a big month in my family, there are three birthdays, mine, MM's, and my brothers. We'll be celebrating our 44th wedding anniversary and this year I'll celebrate one year of being retired. In a couple of weeks MM and I will be going to the coast for a few days to celebrate.

 

In other news I've finished hooking and binding my purse. Now I need to attach the straps, lining and closure, I hope to get it completed soon.

 

A couple of months ago at Wool Club we were given a little zippered pouch as a challenge. We were to decorate it and bring it to Septembers meeting to share.

 

I chose a purple one and as of last week I hadn't done a thing with it. Wool Club is Sept 11th so I had to get busy.

 

 

What to do? What to do? I know I'll decorate it with one of my favorite things:

 

 

Can't go wrong with sunflowers. Now all I have to do is stitch around them and add some embellishments. I plan to work on it at our sewing circle today, hopefully I'll get a lot done.

 

Hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend.

 

Til next time, Ronda



 

 

 

 



Quilts, Rugs and animals at the fair

The Mariposa County Fair in Mariposa CA is held on Labor Day weekend. MM and I decided to check it out.

The good thing about small fairs is that they aren't very crowded.

 

4H is very active in this community. This boy was getting ready to take his goose for a walk.

 



 

These two won 1st and second place for their technique in showing their goats. The girl won first place.

 

Here are a few of the quilts, because of the way they were displayed it was hard to get good pictures.

 

 

I think this one would make a good rug pattern:

 

 

Appropriate pattern for a mountain town:

 

 

A crazy quilt won best of show:

 

 

It was a king size quilt

 

 

Here come the rugs.

 

This one is about 3'x5'

 

 

Another rug artist version. This one was 4'x6'

 

 

A mat to cover a wooden foot rest.

 

 

Flowers seemed to be the theme this year. This one is about 4'x3'

 

Roses 4'x3'

 

 

Final rug, the only braided rug in the show.



 

 

 

I was pleasantly surprised to see rugs at the fair. I can't wait until October to see if any are entered in the Fresno Fair. It's a much bigger fair so I'm hopeful.

 

On our way home we stopped at the Mariposa Coffee Company:

 



 

 



 



They roast coffee and it smelled wonderful. I bought some burlap bags to repurpose, but no coffee this time.

What a fun day we had.

Til next time, Ronda



 

Red Sun

I woke up this morning to a red sun behind a curtain of smoke, it was an eerie sight. The smoke is from the "Rim" fire on the northern edge of Yosemite (Yes this is the fire that has been on the news for over a week now). The wind direction changed yesterday bringing the smoke into our area. I feel bad for tourists going into Yosemite this weekend, the smoke is blanketing the area hiding all the beautiful views. Firefighters are starting to get an handle on it but it will probably be a couple of more weeks before it's completely out.

Mariposa, a small town about 30 miles north of us, was suppose to have clean air so we decided to go over for the day. The Mariposa County Fair is going on so we thought we check it out. We got to Mariposa in time for a parade.

Crowd lining up before the parade.

 

Best seats in town:

 

 

Here comes the parade: (notice the bright blue skies).

 

 



Grand Marshalls:

 

Love the flag bearer

 

 

Have to have a marching band

 



 

Rodeo Queen

 

A boat???

 

 

Now this is a float

 

 

Local football team (only in small towns)

 

 

Here come the cars

 

A painted pony

 

 

My favorite parade sidekick 

 

 

This trolley is a long way from San Francisco. It ended the parade.

 

 

 

We enjoyed the parade. It was fun hearing family and friends cheer for their "people" in the parade.

 

I felt bad people trying to drive down highway 49, it goes right through the middle of town so they had to wait for about an hour, until the parade was finished.

 

In my next post I'll share pictures from the fair: quilts, rugs and a few animals.

 

Til next time. Ronda

 

Road Trip part 2

After leaving Golfsmith we headed to Manteca, CA where we were spending the night. I booked the hotel that was in the same lot as Bass Pro Shops thinking that we would go there the next morning. Wrong. After a nap it was off to shop some more.

If you get a chance to visit a Bass Pro store stop and go in. Even if you're not an outdoors person it is quite an experience. At this store you enter though the middle of a giant sequoia. 

The store is huge, the picture below shows half of the bottom floor. Fishing, hunting, camping, boating, clothing, cabin décor, anything to do with the outdoors is in this store.

You might even run into some of your friends.

MM found a camo shirt and was checking out ammo.

I didn't find anything this visit but did see some cute shirts and sweaters for fall.

We were tired when we got home but we had a good time on our road trip.

Til next time, Ronda