One of the best take along projects...

Can you guess what this is a picture of?


Only one of the best take along projects a quilter can do.








This is my assortment of Aunt Martha's. This is an embroidery pattern company that's been around for over 70 years. These patterns are usually inexpensive, but, I've seen, I suppose what are the original year printing for 20 to 30 dollars, you can buy them elsewhere for under a dollar, depending on the pattern you choose.

I learned to embroider using these patterns when I was a little girl. A feisty widow woman, named Mrs. Park, taught me how to embroider. She never remarried and always said "there are far worse things than being lonely." She liked sharing her love of quilting and embroidery with whomever would listen, so much so, I think my mom dreaded another trip with a visitor to her home, when she felt she had to bring out all the quilts she'd made and lovingly share where each piece of material was from whose dress. I guess that really was my beginning of my love of quilting, because, I was not board by it all.

Mrs. Park showed me how to iron them onto my tea towels. I would make a trip to the dime store, as they were called, before the main streets and down towns of small town America disappeared. The Dime Store held all the little items like sewing notions and kitchen gadgets and small toys, it was a treat to go in there. Once I purchased my embroidery thread at the dime store, I used to sit around my house in my mini skirt and white vinyl go go boots like Nancy Sinatra, doing embroidery. My mom used to laugh at me, all of 8 or 9 years old, trying to look like Nancy Sinatra or somebody like that, embroidering. Hey, I was nothing if not stylish for the 1970's...smile...

Anyway, I like cows. I think I'll start this one on some white cotton fabric. I do like to add an interfacing to the back of the piece for a nice lay of the stitches. I know I have a bunch of cow themed blocks in my special closet. Most quilter's have one, you know a secret place that hides fabric and most of our quilty things that I know won't go bad on the shelf and that someday will become wonderful finished projects.

I doubt if Nancy Sinatra likes cows...or embroidery...

I'm having to come up with a take along project, because we are on our way to take my youngest, Chelsea, to New York City, USA. She is studying to be geologist and is starting an internship at the American Museum of Natural History, to study a somewhat famous meteorite, the Allende.

Well you know, I think it's exciting, but, my DH is beside himself, a bit, with worry...too much Law and Order on TV. I think we've given her a healthy dose of fear-stay inside after dark; don't talk to strangers; and for heaven's sake DON'T LOOK THEM IN THE EYE!...did I forget to mention she's 19? We might have gone overboard...smile...

But, you know, she's going to be there for 8 weeks! Oh well, it'll be a good opportunity for us to visit NYC a couple of times, hopefully. I'm looking forward to it and so is she, it's my DH that can't understand why women like NYC so much. I think I'd like to live there for 6 months, just to see all the museums, then that's probably enough, back to my Old Kentucky Home...smile.

I have a suggestion for a day trip in Louisville, Kentucky. Get your bicycles to or walk the Riverwalk. My DH and I started at the waterfront, at the turquoise parking lot and rode a 16 mile round trip on the bike trail that is both wide and shaded in most places. It follows the Ohio River. Then we loaded the bikes back up and went to El Mundos on Frankfort Avenue.

Happy quilting and biking!