Happy June 30th!

Today is my oldest baby's birthday! Mark is 22 today, I just can't believe it, I am feeling older and older each day! LOL. He is in LA enjoying the Anime Expo. He goes there every year since he moved to California. He usually goes with a group of friends. Okay so where am I? Seems like I am only getting to work on projects on the weekends any more. I just get really tired during the week and don't feel like doing anything when I get home from work. So, last night I worked on Doris' quilt. I am doing the binding differently on this one. I sewed the binding to the front and I am folding it over and hand stitching to the back. It is taking me quite awhile to do the hand sewing, I got one long edge done last night. I am going to work on it again after I finish posting here. Today, I went to the Mason Jar and helped the daughter of the lady who sells the Miche purses learn how to sew. She had never sewn before so it was a lesson in reading patterns and picking out material and then laying and cutting out the pattern. We did a little sewing today but not as much as we could have. The pattern she picked out was a little more complicated than I had foreseen so it took a little while to figure out and then I had to sew some of the more complicated curves. She did really well though and picked things up quickly. She is going to buy her own machine and she bought some more material and another pattern after she left for the day. She had wanted to see if she would like sewing so I guess she did! We are going to meet again Tuesday morning to hopefully finish the dress up so she can take it on a holiday trip with her on Wednesday. When Beryl was here visiting, I asked her if she would do the embroidery on a sampler I had bought. I had hoped to do it myself but realized I was probably not going to get around to doing it so she took it with her and I got it in the mail this week all done. It turned out really good. My plan is to put it in the middle of a quilt. I think it will look nice. I will probably do some applique around it too, I have an idea in my head for it, I just need to write it all down and buy the material. Dave and I are going to Mansfield, OH tomorrow. Decided to get away for a couple days. I booked us a bed and breakfast and I've found a couple old houses to look at and then Monday we are going to the old Mansfield Reformatory, it is where they made Shawshank Redemption, one of my favorite movies. Ghosthunters has also been there to investigate so it should be fun, I think, except for it is probably going to be really hot and there is a lot of walking. Hopefully I will make it through okay! Okay, I am going to work on the hand sewing now. I will post some pictures of our trip on Monday.

The above pictures are me hand sewing the binding to the back of Doris' quilt. Dave took this not so flattering picture of me sewing on my couch. This is my usual spot in the evenings!

This is the sampler that Beryl did for me. I wasn't totally thrilled with the material color that the pattern was printed on but hopefully I can find a complimentary fabric to go with it.

This is the material and the front half of the dress that we worked on today. The material is really pretty shade of green, this picture doesn't show it to advantage.

This was the temperature when I got off work Thursday. Last night we had a very nasty storm roll through. Some folks are still without power and that isn't good with all the heat we have had. There was quite a bit of damage done and some cities are still cleaning up.