Catching Up

Had an email today from my dear cousin Joan, wondering if I am ill because I have not written a blog post for over two weeks.  No, I'm fine!  Dear Son #2, wife and two daughters, and Dear Daughter #2, husband, son and daughter all came for a visit in these past two weeks.  What a treat!  So there was lots of cooking, visiting and crafting going on.

DS and family arrived on Saturday evening, July 2.  So good to see them!  Last time we saw them was at Canadian Thanksgiving last October.  The girls are now 8 1/2 and 11 1/2.  They both have their birthdays in December.

The project we decided to do this year was a small quilt (24" x 24").  So Sunday afternoon while DS took the girls to the local swimming pool, DDIL and I hauled out boxes of material to choose some possible fabric combinations.  We chose some pink and green materials.  We cut squares and started sewing them together.  Before we knew it, the top of the quilt was complete (helps that it was a small quilt), so I started doing the machine quilting.  We chose these nice, deep pink hearts to applique here and there.  All that was left to do was to apply the binding.  Well, it gave the girls a good idea of what they were aiming at with their quilts!  And it was fun to do.  DDIL had never quilted before, so this gave her a good understanding of the construction steps involved in creating a finished quilt.

Monday the girls chose their materials and we all started working on their quilts.  The younger daughter sewed the pairs of squares together, and that was as far as her enthusiasm took her.  DDIL did the rest of the sewing on her quilt.  Hers features dancing ballerinas.  That afternoon, while DDIL took the girls to the swimming pool, I did the machine quilting.  The bindings are cut, but not applied, so DDIL will do that at home.

Her older sister wanted to do all the sewing herself, and was doing a fine job.  But then on Tuesday evening, DD#2 and her family arrived.  These cousins see each other about once a year, so from the time they arrived, the four kids disappeared downstairs and played together for the rest of the visit.  (That's why I like to have an overlapping visit: they get to see each other, but we get to spend time with the grandkids on each end of the overlap.)  So  that granddaughter's quilt went home to be finished.

Here's the four grands together, taking a minute out from all their activities to pose for Grammy.  The two youngest girls have their "cousin" sweaters on, but you can see that the one sweater is incomplete.  The sleeves are a little too short, which I suspected and therefore didn't sew them in.  I'll reknit the sleeve caps to make them two inches longer.  It also needs the buttons sewed on.

When that's finished, her big sister would like to have a sweater just like it.  That's a good thing, because I have a LOT of yarn left over!  All because someone gave me the green yarn.  I didn't even ask the grandson if he wanted one--too girly, I'm sure.

On Thursday the first crew left, and then it was time to start the craft project with the youngest granddaughter.  She had been saying she wants to learn to knit, so mom said, I know just the person to teach you!  We sat down together and started a simple scarf.  DGD is just six years old, will be seven in August, but she did wonderfully well.  The first day we knit two rows.  I did most of the first row, showing her carefully each separate step to making a stitch.  Then she took over.  I had told her it would be hard, and it was.  It took a lot of concentration on her part, but she did it!  The next day I knit a few stitches as a review and then she knit two rows.  The third day she knit three rows by herself.  I videotaped that, but don't know how to get it from the IMovie to the blog.  Near the end of the third row she exclaims, "I'm almost finished!" and I reply, "Yes, you're getting so fast!"  I'll play that tape several times over the next months, and enjoy it over and over.

We had lovely weather for most of their visits, and our landscape is at its best right now.  Flowers and shrubs are in bloom and the field across the road is turning a bright, chrome yellow with the blooming canola.

Life is full and life is good!

P.S. The youngest granddaughter wants to make a quilt next year!