47 Years. . .

 May God give us many more happy, healthy years together.

Happy 47th
I Love You, Jerry.

It was such a pretty day we decided to

take a walk,

And we had not gone ten steps

before I knew

That you and I are long past

the point of no return.

Hand in hand we go

Still close, still loving,

Still looking and overlooking

The flaws we hide from others.

Side by side we move,

Sometimes closer, sometimes farther apart

Because of ways we read and talk,

Agree and disagree.

Step by step we advance

Against the cynics,

Those all-knowing unknowings who honestly think

Marriage is dead.

But how can marriage be dead

In a world I choose to walk with you?

How can marriage be dead,

So long as we still seek, still cling,

still want each other?

So at this corner of our life,

Stop and listen to me now, my love,

I still seek,

I still cling,

I still want

To walk the rest of the way with you.

In this uncertain world

This much I know for certain:

I still love you.

©Design Art™

Thrift Store Shopping.

  This is a quilt that was tied with yarn. I want to quilt it so I pulled all the ties out and will load it on the quilt machine.





 It will make a nice lap quilt for a guy!

 It is backed with a soft flannel fabric.  Very nice.

Also found this. It was just two pieces of fabric stitched together around the edge. I separated it and will use it to make two baby quilts. Love those monkeys!

Garage Sale Find for Granddaughter-

We found this machine for the little redhead at a garage sale. It is in really great condition -  just was a little dirty but cleaned up nicely.  It was missing the foot but easily found one at Wally World.


It has quite a few stitches for her to play with while learning. It is a little early for her June birthday but giving it to her now will give her more time to practice.






It had these tools with it.











 Grandpa found the manual for it online so we printed it out for her as well.

The sewing box also came with my bargain and I kept it since I had given her a selection of sewing things for Christmas. It really was a bargain to get all this for $25 !!!
























This was just an extra box of parts for a Signature sewing machine. May also fit a Singer but I have not tried it as yet.

Retreat 2013

 

 The retreat took place in Oklahoma and there were 29 or 30 ladies in attendance. We had a great time. The planners did a terrific job in decorating and arranging all the activities. There were a LOT of decorations!

 

   
The facility was good and so was the food prepared by the staff cook. 

 

One activity was to decorate bags for encouragement notes written to each other to be placed. 

There was one show-off! ;)

 Other activities included: 

Singing songs of praise,

Songs on the big screen.

Mary did a great job leading the singing.

NaVata did a great job with the computer.

Guessing the identities.

A Book Swap

Prayer Walk

Prayer Walk

Prayer Walk

My Group

Small group discussions 

Johnnie

Suzzann

Donna

Special speakers

Chicken Skit

Are We There Yet?

Mary, having trouble with her girdle!

  Skits

Loida  - The Birthday Girl!

Did I say we had fun?

Gift bags

The gift bags had all kinds of little goodies in them including some nice fans!

Betty

Betty issued a challenge to write notes to let people know you appreciate them in whatever area of your life you encounter them.

Lots of visiting and getting to know each other better. It was uplifting and very enjoyable but not enough time to do it all.

My Retreat Project

I wanted to do a little something special for the ladies going to our church retreat. After thinking about it, I decided to make some small bags for each of them.

I had some fabric that my daughter got from a manufacturing plant who gave away their leftovers from their projects. I have three large rolls of fabric that are only 5 to 6 inches wide. I chose two of them to work with.

This worked for out perfect to sew two strips together for the small bags. The fabric has iron-on interfacing on the back so it was easy to iron a lining fabric on the back and iron the two fabrics together for the inside and outside pockets and straps.

I made two types of bags. I started making some (sixteen) with small square bottoms and the remaining (twenty-four) just tote style. 

 

I put a pocket on the inside and another on the outside and think a cell phone will fit in either one.

 When I first looked at the list of those attending, there were only fifteen or sixteen names and I said to myself "I can do that". (I missed the part that a minimum of twenty-five had to sign up. Next time I looked at list, there were twenty-five names on it. I thought "Hmmm, yes, I can do that". Well . . . the next time I looked at the list, there were THIRTY-FOUR NAMES !! And I said "Self, CAN I DO THIS?"

I have made forty bags and decided if there are more than that attending, I will get the names and make them one after the retreat if they want one ! Also added a couple of my favorite little sayings to the inside pocket of each bag.

 I made one for myself and my daughter with a unique lining since we both like to sew.