Enjoyable Break

I have had a wonderful break from my regular routine, except for my rug hooking....
A number of my family members were visiting and every day of the nearly two weeks were filled as much as could possibly be. Each day we allotted out what we were to do with the little time we had, such as shopping, walking, visiting places in our little community that we hadn't in years and reminisced about our childhood, exchanged recipes, made great lunches and dinners {at my hips expense}, dyed each others hair, chatted, chatted, chatted late into the night. All things that were good for all of us.
So now, it is back to the "grind" with harvesting the vegetables, more canning and of course, the most pleasurable project of all, MY RUG HOOKING. I began a mat a while back but have just one little house finished yet. Gotta get to it!!!

This little picture depicts how I feel at this time..... :) :)

Preparing for Winter

Yesterday was such a Beautiful, Sunny day that I was outside for the better portion of it. My DH and I are preparing for the winter by cutting and packing wood in our shelters for when the snow falls and we can sit inside and enjoy the heat from our wonderful wood furnace and I can hook to my heart's content. The turkies enjoy our company and are not shy with following us wherever we go. Our two Maramma sheep guard dogs, Alexis and Mona, are always on the Hill close to our house overlooking the expanse of land we have and making sure everything is ok below. { Alexis is to the left of the photo next to a green bush}.
Today our weather is not that great. Torrential rains....good day to hook if I didn't have to clean my house for expected company tomorrow.....

Recipe

Hope you will try and like this recipe. We sure did......

BEET RELISH

4 LBS. Cooked Beets
4 LGE. Onions
3 LGE.Green Peppers
1 TBSP. Whole Cloves
1 1/2 cups Sugar
1 1/2 cups Vinegar

Grind beets, onions and green peppers. Tie cloves in bag. In large kettle combine vegetables, clove bag, sugar and vinegar. Add 1/2 cup water and 1 tablespoon salt. Bring to boil. Reduce heat. Cover. Simmer 20 minutes. Stir occasionally. Remove clove bag--put into HOT jars. Process in hot water bath 15 minutes.

We Dare Say " BUSY" !!!!

As promised, here is an example of a "BUSY" day in my Mother's time:

She arose before the children and made sure the fire was lit in the kitchen stove with the wood she had helped to gather and pack into a "Wood Box" in the porch, went off to the barn to milk a number of cows and feed the other animals before returning and preparing breakfast which consisted of bread toasted /porridge made on the top of the iron stove . Bread had to be made and of course, the fire had to stay lit in the sweltering heat of Summer time. Laundry was done each day using a Wash Tub & Wash Board, using lye soap that she had made previously, and which was ironed later by using a flat iron that was heated on top of the stove. After making a lunch, off to the" meadow " to make hay for the animals for the winter. Back to make dinner meal. At night, clothes were made by using a hand operated sewing machine and socks had to be knit for everyone in the family. Berries had to be picked and preserved for winter months in between when possibly bread/laundry was delayed for another day. Now remember, that some of the milk she had gotten from the cows had to be made into butter and this task consisted of churning and separating the milk using two different machines , one of which had umpteen parts that had to be washed each time she used it. ALSO, she helped with planting a garden and in the Fall of the year, harvesting it all. Then there was fish to be dried for sale and some for food for the long winter months.
You may wonder, where is the man of the house: Off to work away from home---in the lumberwoods, working in the Flourspar Mine, fishing........ The children who were big enough to help were put to the task.

Now think of your day from beginning to end......... And my MOM lived to be 91 years of age.....

Another Canning Day

The vegetable garden is keeping me quite busy still. Today I made 13 bottles of "Beet Relish", it being the first attempt at those. { If anyone would like the recipe, just let me know} I forgot to take a picture of the 16 large bottles of "Pickeled Beets" that I preserved two days ago. Also today, I finished designing my rug and put it in the frame, now to get to it.... The wood is ready to be cut up and stored away for the winter months. From now until late October/early November, it will be a very busy time for me.

After reading this for errors, I realized my days may be busy but come back tomorrow and I will tell you what a busy day was like in my Mother's day........

Shapes

I just want to post these pictures to show you the wonderful shapes vegetables can be. In gathering fresh vegetables from the garden for dinner today, these are a few of the potatoes we dug...so different and cute!!! MMMMM.....

TIZZY/UNSTRUNG!!!!

What a tizzy I was in yesterday!!!!! I learned about the entries for the Provincial Art Bank just two days before the deadline, which was yesterday, the 11th. I thought all I had to do was to fill out a form as I had done before for other exhibits. Nothing to it!!! Boy, was I surprised!! In reading the material for entry I learned that a "CV" was required---what the heck is that? Off I go to "Google" and discovered it meant "Resume". Now I had never done a resume before. I was my own employer and the people who worked with me were those that I knew. Well, my nerves were unstrung for sure. In searching for samples of a CV/Resume, I found most of it didn't apply to me as I wasn't looking for a job, I wanted to sell a piece of Art. After a couple of hours, I decided to get in touch with my son, Dale, who I knew was quite busy because of his duties as Professor at MUN University. Lo and behold I caught him a time when he wasn't too busy and he asked me to do a write up for him and he would send it back as a Resume. It arrived about an hour later and Boy, was I proud. I could'nt believe all the "stuff" was about me when indeed it was. Later when I talked to him about it, I told him I felt like I had a million dollars in my hand as I headed off to post my project. Maybe, just maybe I will get an acceptance because of how wonderful my CV looks..... :) :) Thank God for children...Thanks Dale xx

The Art Bank of NL.

I am not sure how many of you know about the Provincial Art Bank, whereby individual artists present their different forms of Art for purchase by the Provincial Government to be displayed in different Offices throughout the Province. I have made an attempt at being one of those lucky artists. I have one of my mats namely, 'When Cod Was King", sent to be juried by a committee of five people for purchase. I think I am becoming really brave with my mat hooking....:) Please wish me luck with this project.. I,again, am posting a picture of the famous mat...

In Defense of the T-shirt...:) :)

I am posting two photos of t-shirt material that I just cut to show the difference in when it is cut and when it is ready to hook. I do not use a cutting machine; ALL my materials are cut using scissors, thus various widths are achieved. In cutting a t-shirt, if you cut the hem off completely and then cut from the bottom to the top, you can get a nice length depending on the size of the shirt, of course and you can cut whatever size you desire. I use different widths so as to get any number of different effects, dimensions, whatever. When I use it to outline something, such as a house, I use a very small cut. Works fine for me... In my pic. here, the tie dye material is t-shirt that I bought on e-bay. I love it in sky and water. I have green that I used in the ground of some of my mats. I bought other colors but haven't used them yet. Sometime I hope to do a sunrise/sunset and will use some of it there.

Absolutely Beautiful Weekend

The "Fall" chill is in the air but that doesn't matter when Family members are around. We had a spectacular weekend filled with fun, a lot of it because of the Grandchildren. They do make one smile, don't they? When my children were very young, I was so busy with working day and night that time passed by so quickly that I had forgotten some of the things they did but having grandchildren around makes all of those stored memories come back to life. It was a joy to watch them as we gathered vegetables from the garden for our Sunday meal. Of course, we encouraged them to help, especially our fourteen month old grandson, Liam... He was quite amazed by everything around, such as the baby chickens we have just bought, the turkies, a little scared of the hens and rooster, was charmed by the sheep and lambs and wasn't scared of the sheep guard dogs as they sniffed at his little being.... He enjoyed visiting the greenhouse and being able to touch the tomatoes and cucumbers... But Alas, time goes by swiftly when having fun and the time came to go back home again. Then it is back to looking at pictures and smiling at each of them and contenting ourselves to do our Fall chores until they return for another visit. Here are two pictures of them.....Alena and Liam

Mixture of Materials

I have often wondered what rug hookers were talking about when they said they used different materials such as wire, twine, plastic bags, saran wrap, leather cording, etc. Well, here is a prime example of that. It is a picture of a finished product by Toni Jette on "The Welcome Mat". I have to say she has lots of patience to accomplish this, for sure. Do many of you use this method?
If you enlarge this photo, you will get a better idea of how it really looks...

One Great Day

Today was a very busy one, to say the least. We are into haymaking and for in between times, I decided to pick some wild raspberries that grow on our land. It was such a beautiful, sunny day with just enough wind blowing to keep the flies away. As I picked, I thought of the beauty around me. The sheep were making their calls for lambs that had wandered a little from their sight, the hens did their clucking as they picked away at the grass, the sea was making those soft sounds as it brushed up against the rocks, chickadees made their presence known. Then there is Mona, one of our Maramma sheep guard dogs coming around every now and again to make sure I was ok. What more comfort and beauty can you find than that? Then there is the drought in Africa and when you see that on TV, it makes you realize just how blessed we are.....

"AGE"

The days go by so quickly......is it because of age?? I remember it being said years ago when I wasn't paying attention to "Age" that" the older you get the faster time goes". Now I know what was meant by that phrase .....HOWEVER, my mat is completed and I have a close up of the portion that is t-shirt materials... All of the woman's dress....the green, white, black for trim. The face and arm is done with 100% wool that is cut real fine that I bought from Deanne Fitzpatrick. It may be boring to look at the same design that I am using but each is "Original" because one could never use the same stitches or cut the materials the same width when cutting by hand and then I use different colors, of course. I have another design in my mind for this particular scene as well as "umpteen" others. Hope I can live long enough to get them all on mats and can hook one for myself...... :)