Li'l Quilt

The bluebird family that checks on the bluebird house just outside my kitchen window. Can you imagine a life this carefree and full of color? Oh no, I wouldn't trade places for anything, but I do appreciate their beauty.

 I finished the little quilt I told you about in my last post. It's 36 in.x36 in. and my first quilting project.

 I quilted it on the sewing machine and backed it with plain ol' muslin. Quilting seems to be easier on my hands than knitting so I think I'm going to stick with sewing for awhile.

I'm sure you've heard of the Scopes Monkey Trial that pitted the theory of evolution against The Bible. (What a debacle.)  Goodman and I were recently near the town of Dayton, Tenn. where the trial took place so we stopped by the courthouse as I'd seen it before and wanted him to see the style of it. I think is a beautiful building.

In the basement (which seemed so fitting somehow) of the courthouse there's a tiny museum with a couple pf displays and info on the trial.

This is a homemade suet made from a mixture of cornmeal, peanut butter, raisins and a bit of suet I had in the freezer is drawing a crowd. I put the mixture in the freezer for about thirty minutes then shaped it into a ball and put it in an old plastic onion bag that I had saved. This Carolina Wren and Chickadee think it's every bit as good as the suets from the store. ;)

Till next time, hope you're warm and cozy. :)

New Hobby, Maybe...

 Hi there! Uh huh, my bloggin' is sporadic at best, but anyways we've been offline again and will be for awhile. Meantime....I've kinda taken up quilting - in the most rudimentary manner, of course. I'm using what scraps I have on hand for the most part and winging my way to a small, baby-sized quilt.

 Not perfect, but it's workin'.

 All the squares are 2in. which is way to small to start with, but I usually do things the hard way. Sigh. More on this later.

 This is the wildlife viewing point at the Hiwassee Refuge.

 After hearing about the Sandhill Cranes over at Chipmunknits Goodman and I decided to take a roadtrip and get a look at them ourselves. (My camera wouldn't take a great pic so I'm in the market for a new one.)

 The black bird in the pic is an Asian Crane. Nobody knows how it got to the refuge, but lots of folks are flocking to see it.

 After viewing the birds we followed signs to a memorial to the Cherokee Removal.

 Oh, what a sad, sad memorial. It's really hard to understand how that happened.

Hopefully it's a reminder, like the ones we see about the Holocaust, to never forget so we don't make the same mistakes again.
Hope your having a great New Year!

The Frugal Bugle, Pt. 1

Hello from the foothills!

I'm concerned about wasting anything that I could use for another purpose. And I'm really concerned about paying the high dollars for cleaners that aren't even safe for us to breathe or handle. So, I've done some research and found homemade cleaners are actually easy to make. A few months back I read about a homemade cleaner that could be made with white vinegar and thinly pared orange peels. I love the scent of orange oil so I gave it a try.

I've put the peels of 5 or 6 oranges in this quart jar with enough vinegar to cover them well and set it aside to steep for 2-3 weeks. It starts to smell very nice after just 1 week.

The idea for this cleaner is from the blogger at Just Like My Nan Made.

When the cleaner is ready pour it into a spray bottle and spritz it onto a dust cloth or mop as you clean.