My crafty finds and Apple Picking

This past weekend my husband and I loaded up our 2 kids and one of my daughters friends. We headed to Sky Top Orchards in Flat Rock North Carolina. about 4 hours ride for us. W e left really early and arrived about 10:30..The orchard was full of folks . This is the busiest we have ever seen it. We have been going their annually since 2004. The kids had a great time..I was worn out and we couldn't stay as long and walk as much as we used to...But it was a great trip...Loved breathing in that fresh mountain air...So fresh and clean...The weather was fabulous. Clear sky's and a nice temp of 69 degrees.   We picked apples, peaches and grapes.We brought back our fruit plus a huge jar mountain wild flower honey. Which is my absolute favorite . Their is so much to do at this orchard. It is mammoth in size. They have picnic areas. Concessions, hay rides, pumpkin patch, animal petting farm with sheep, chickens, peacocks, turkeys, and goats. And of course all the hiking you want to do...

 Yes that is me under the apple tree picking some lovely little apples. 

 Of course we had to treat ourselves to lots of orchard goodies too. We bought fresh caramel apples &  cider.

The girls had a great time feeding the animals. The sheep were their favorites of all.

 

My husband snapped this picture of me and the girls grape picking..lol....that is my daughters friend on the left then my daughter and me.

I took this of my son and husband.  We had just got to the orchard in this shot.

 My daughter took this shot of the mountains and a lake in the distance looking down the mountain side.

And another shot of the girls feeding the goats.....This young lady is a vegetarian and loves her animals. She has a ton of farm animals at her home and they are all her pets...She says...

Just a random shot of the orchard.  I thought was kinda pretty with the mountain in the background.

This is one of my favorite shots of the girls  They thought this old phone booth was just the coolest thing.   What a fabulous day we had.....

A few days prior to this hubby took me to Walmart to get a few things. I discovered they had marked a bunch of school supplies down and moved to their clearance shelves . While looking through the clearance I discovered some Fiskers titanium scissors for teachers with non stick blades. They were $2.00 a pair. And came with a sheath to cover the blades. I can all ways use more scissors so I had to grab 2 pair of them.

I also found the Frixion erasable gel pens on the clearance rack also. They were marked to $2.50 a pack. These are the ones that the iron makes the ink disappear off of fabric. That work great for marking hand embroidery designs. Had to  nab me  a few of those as well. I have seen these same packs for as high as $7.99 before.

 

I would love for you to follow my blog. Their are several ways to follow along over on the right side of the blog. 

 

Until next time Keep on Quilting and sewing

Tammy

 

 

Update Post On My Health

I have received numerous emails from folks asking about my health and wondering how I am doing. Thank you to all my friends near and very very far in Blogdom. I love you all and look forward to hearing from you and reading your blogs as well.  My mastectomy was on August 14th. I was in the hospital from that day which was a Wednesday until that Friday evening I was released to come home. My husband stayed with me the entire time. My older sister met us at the hospital and stayed with my husband until I came out of surgery . Then late that evening she went to my home to stay with my children.  Between my 2 sisters they looked out for my kids until we returned from hospital. 
       My husband was off work several days with me. I had a good friend helping to cook meals and bring over and one of my sisters as well. In
addition to  my husbands cooking and getting take out.  I have been quiet sore and in lots of pain. The first muscle relaxers weren't effective. And a week later I finally got ones that actually worked. The pain meds work as long as I take them around the clock. Literally setting my alarm for every few hours to get up and take them. This week I am feeling quiet a bit better. But their are still lots of things I can not or should not do. 
    A couple days after my surgery by that did the mastectomy called me to let me know the lymph nodes he removed were all free of cancer. And that all my margins on the breast tissue were cancer free this time. That he had gotten it all this go round.  So awesome news....Yipppeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
      I have had my 3rd check up with my plastic surgeon as of yesterday. I had drain lines left in from the reconstruction process of the surgery. He removed one the first week after surgery and finally removed the last drain at yesterdays appointment.
      The plastic surgeon placed a tissue expander in the chest to start reconstruction as soon as my other surgeon had removed the breast on the day of the mastectomy.  At last weeks visit they were able to get 50 cc's of saline into the tissue expander. At yesterdays appointment more saline was placed in it. Their was 70 cc's added on yesterday.
   Because I am very small chested and very petite  I have the smaller version of tissue expander in me. Which means It should hopefully require less fills to get my skin stretched out enough to create a breast. Once the correct amount of skin is their and the tissue expander has been in long enough. Then more surgery will be scheduled to remove the expander and place my implant in their and as I put it create a boob...Hey I gotta stay light hearted and attempt to find humor where I can. The seriousness of this diagnosis can really get you down if you aren't careful. 
   I am not looking forward to more procedures. As each time they place the saline in is very painful to me...and it makes me start to hurt all over again.  Sleeping is difficult as I can no longer sleep in my normal position. I feel like I am in a sea of pillows all around me.  But overall I am doing very well. The plastic surgeon says I am healing very well and am ahead of schedule. So things are looking up.... No sewing & no  crafting is happening around here these days and I am several days behind on reading blogs. And I am going into withdrawal over both of them.

  Until next time keep on sewing & quilting

                                    Tammy 

Todays post

Contained  a nice  package all the way from Austrailia.

 

I won a couple weeks back a lovely package of products that Jenny of  Elefantz blog uses to do her beautiful embroidery with here is the link to her blog to the giveaway I won. I have included the picture of the giveaway from Jennys site. This is her picture below here not mine. http://www.elefantz.com/2013/08/a-free-design-and-starter-kit-giveaway.html

Inside was a  the needles she uses for her hand embroidery. They type of pen she uses  to trace her designs with. And a beautiful piece of aqua toned fabric. White hanky linen. And  a product I was most anxious to get my hands on . Something called Weaveline to fuse behind your traced design  before you embroider it. I have never seen this product and have been wanting to see some to know what it is she uses. So boy was I lucky I won this.  Also was two gorgeous thread packs it is a brand called Cosmo Seasons threads. I have never heard of this brand before. But I do believe they seem to have lots more and better stitchery products in Australia than here in USA where I live.  Then again maybe I live under a rock and have lots to learn yet. She also included a gorgeous paper pattern for her stitchery design called  Colour Your Heart. It is gorgeous. And she had it all wrapped up so pretty. And sent the most gorgeous little miniature card I have ever laid eyes on. Just a beautiful gift to receive today. Thank you Jenny. I love every single item and will use it all I promise you. So I took some pictures of my beautiful  wins in the kit. My pictures are never as pretty as anyone else's seem to be but here goes.

Do u see my beautiful little card that had a lovely message from Jenny un it to me. The butterfly has a 3 D effect raised up off the card a bit. So cute.

 

wrapped u so prettily...look at that lovely blue ribbon. It makes you want to see what is waiting insude doesn't it.

 

 And she had put in in wonderful protective plastic liner to keep it nice and safe while in enroute. Thank you  so much. for this extra step. Oh so now I get to open it up and and unstack those goodies....

 

Such pretty and useful stitchin goodies. I notice the needels she uses are much finer than mine. No wonder her stitchin allways looks so pretty and feminine and mine is so clunky looking. . The floss is so shiny and pretty and it feels like a lot finer in quality than the DMC stuff I buy to use.

 

Now I have heard only a couple times fo these pens before. It is called Zig.  I need to look for this. The tip is like super fine. I can definitely see why she uses this to trace her designs with now.

And last is a picture of the fabrics  and the weaveline she irons on to the backs of her embroideries. It looks just like a large open weave fabric. Very light and airy...I am definitely gonna look for some of this stuff.

 

 That hanky linen is gorgeous. And look at that beautiful aqua blue print fabric. Is that just not the prettiest shade you have ever seen.. All of it is gorgeous and wonderful and very useful things to me. Jenny thank you so much again. If you haven't been over to Jennys blog please go visit her. She is so filled with talent. And has the most beautiful stitchery patterns. She sells them on Craftsy also and has some gorgeous free ones their as well.

 

2 Blogaversarys to mention

Both of these blogs are very new to me. And both of them are celebrating their Blogaversarys and have giveaways also in conjunction with their celebrations.

The first blog is  Lucy over at Charm About You. Here is the link to her site.http://www.charmaboutyou.com/
Please pop over and tell her hello.  She is celebrateing her 2nd year Blogaversary.

The other new to me blog that is Celebarteing. her 1st year Blogaversary is Jusmom 1 who blogs at Ugga Bear Cottage.  http://uggabearcottage.blogspot.com/
Please go visit her as well and she also is sponsoring a lovely giveaway as part of her Blogaversary celebration.

Keep on sewing & quilting until next time

                                     Tammy

August 22, 1993 the first day of my journey into Motherhood

20 years ago today I welcomed my son into the world with open  arms. My big guy is 20 it is so hard to believe. Some of you may know my son is a special needs child.   He has a slew of health and mental health issues. But to me he is perfect. A wonderful loving child.  One I prayed for for a long time and one that God gave to me to have as my very own. To raise and to love and to care for.  So today we celebrated his birthday. Things are all ways a l little low key for our celebrations as he is Autistic and doesn't like noise and crowds and all kinds of other things. But what a fabulous day  for our family and him. Due to all of my medical issues we will will take him this weekend to pick out his gifts. Today was all about  the cake......And boy was it yummy.   I also had anothr fabulous surprise this afternoon. The florist delivered flowers to me from my friend Barb from California. He husband is a tv producer and I miss her and her family so much.  We used to be neighbors for about 8 years. What a gal. One of the best. And what a big surprise to get her flowers.  Love ya girl and the flowers are gorgeous.

Keep on Stitchin & quiliting till we meet again,

                       Tammy

Mail Call & Update

Update first. Had to go see the plastic surgeon this morning. He did  remove one of the drains out of  me  today. I have one more left in place. I have to return to see him on next week in hopes of that drain being removed as well. Then to evaluate to see if he is ready to start slowly inflating the tissue expander.  And new meds. Thank goodness I hope these will work . The muscle spasms are no fun and are very painful for me.
  So when we get home I have a total surprise...yes mail call....Nothing ordered nothing I'm waiting for just a lovely surprise. My friend Rhonda over at http://ravelly1-quiltzblog.blogspot.com/    had sent me a lovely surprise. Oh my goodness. She is a very generous spoiler this one.  Love her dearly. She is so talented. If you have never been to her blog please go leave her some love and follow her blog. She does the most amazing applique projects. Each project just amazes me more and more and they are all so totally life like. So to reveal her beautiful gift to me  wich came with a beautiful note. I also got a lovely and beautiful get well card from my Aunt today as well.  Without further ado here is a picture of Rhonda's gorgeous gift.

Absolutely stunning small quilted wall hanging. Oh I can not wait to display it this holiday season. Thank you my friend. I love it.

 

Keep on stitchin & quilting until next time.

 

Tammy

Old Passions Are Being Rekindeled

Well  as you all know a while back I joined up to do Jenny at Elefantz new BOM  Shabby Roses Home . You can check it out here if you aren't familiar with it, http://www.elefantz.com/p/free-2013-bom.html
 Well might I add my old passions for hand embroidery or hand stitchin as some folks call it have been rekindled. I am having a blast. I organized one of my embroidery thread boxes. Then a few days before my surgery  Hubby and I made a trip to the city to Joann's Fabric store. I needed to by some iron on stabilizer to back  my embroidery pieces. I also needed to purchase some new needles and some more threads. Unfortunately I bought the wrong size needles. They are too large more for tapestry or cross stitch. But that is OK they will get used at some point, As luck had it all the normal DMC floss was on sale for 28 cents a piece. I obught this multi pack of floss because the colors are all varigated. And  I thought they would look very  lovely in projects.

I had never bought these ball type yarn flosses before. but they were on clearance for 75 cents a piece if they are too big for  me to use for embroidery I will give them to my older sister who is learning to crochet and I know she uses this type thread as trim on baby blankets .  

A few days later I went to a store called Big Lots. They are a discount store and I go a few times a year to stock up on things that I   can get much cheaper their. As We are all ways on a budget and I needed to stock up on stuff before my surgery. Well guess what I found fabric....yes the first time I had ever seen any their. I have no clue as to the quality of it. But being as I am not a fabric snob at all I thought it was a fabulous deal. . I want to make something for special family member out of it. One who all ways seems to help me out no matter what I can always depend  upon her day or night.

 

And I finally found these frixion pens I have been looking for. I found them at Target while back to school shopping for my daughter. Yea.....score for me

 

and fianlly my baby sister has brought me 2 quilting magazines the past couple days when she has come to visit me since my surgery.  She is the best.  I would be so lost without her. My very own perssonal nurse. She is the most loveing person.  She is a Geriatric's  nurse in a nurseing home.  She bought me one of these cause thier is a owl on the cover she said. She knows how I love owls. 

 

 

I don't get to do much shopping or buying  things for my hobbies these days. So I feel like I have won the lottery here lately.  So enjoying all my new cool crafty items. I just had to show off all my sweet new items.....

 

 Until next time keep on stitchin and quilting

 and please follow my blog you will find all the appropriate buttons to the right .

 

 

Tammy