Little Dragon

October is birthday month around here. Most of the grandkids seem to have been born in October and November, so those parties march along in a row on weekends in the fall, and we get to celebrate. Besides the family parties there are "kid parties" for friends and classmates, and there is usually a "theme". Last year it was Pirates and Greek Mythology, and this time it is Dragons. I'm not sure how this will be carried out by the hosts and the guests, but an old pattern came to mind, and I took myself up to the attic to see if it was possible to locate this buried treasure. I confess that my section of the attic is challenging. I picked a likely place to begin the search, and what ho!--there it was. I selected some fabrics from the collection, and headed downstairs to the sewing room.

It took quite a few times reading through the directions until it made sense--I always have trouble with written directions. Give me a diagram any time. Really, they were pretty clear, and so I made my templates, stitched on the lines and started stuffing. The whole deal is doing the stuffing so that it isn't lumpy, and it turned out pretty well.

MyTreasure said I should have included a "Top of the Mornin' to ya!" squeezy button and a mini flame thrower, but I did no such thing. Little Dragon will be on his way to his new lair on Sunday--Happy Birthday Hadn!

That Was Fun!

I confess I am easily amused. I had wanted to try these cupcakes, and an appropriate audience was coming for dinner on Sunday, so I gave it a try. We had a leftover box of ice cream cones, and a way too big container of rainbow sprinkles calling to me from the pantry, and look how cute they came out! And, tasty too...

They are top heavy, however. I lost some of them moving from the kitchen to the dining room, so for the next time I have to invent some kind of a holder--I'm thinking a cake board with holes cut out--that ought to do the trick.

Heart Doll Project

My doll club was approached by two women from Women Heart, a volunteer group who visit women in the hospital who have suffered heart attacks. We offered them dolls to take to patients and they thought it was a very nice idea. Someone suggested that we make Raggedy Ann dolls, and the club ordered lables to be sewn onto each doll.

I couldn't get my head around the raggedies--seems like when your whole life has just turned upside down you need something more than "cute". I had seen other artists work doing "healing" dolls or tokens, and decided to go in a different direction. I took a pattern for a little "Friendship Doll" by Jill Maas and redrew it larger--more like a pillow to hug. I beaded them, like the original pattern, and added a hand and a heart. The heart/hand symbol is from the Shakers, and means "Hands to work, hearts to God". But, it could also be a healing hand, and since the hearts in these cases all are having problems, it seemed right.

I confess I can't leave anything alone--I always have to put something extra into a recipe when I cook, or tweak the pattern when I sew, so my doll has evolved into a "Life Map". I decided that rather than fool with paint or dye, I would buy batik and use the colors as they fall on the fabric. This is a bit time consuming, since I have to design a different "map" for each doll to fit the color , but it is intriguing thinking up new little scenes, and each one is unique. I may rethink the batik part, and give the paint a try. So far there are only three of them, and goodness knows, what with all that is coming up in the next month, plus the church fair and holidays looming in the background, that may be the end of them. I really enjoy doing them though, and I'm thinking there will be others down "Life's Winding Road", especially if they have places to go, and won't be just hanging around my sewing room looking back at me.

End of Season Bonus

As I have confessed before, I am no gardener, but I love flowers. GF gave me these ageratum as a transplant from her own garden, and I stuck them into an empty place, and they have been happy to come back every year, in spite of my neglect. They are a bit invasive, and they keep trying to move over and are crowding out my rosemary, which I am proud to say has wintered over for the third year, and is finally getting to be a decent size. I always felt so bad about cutting off a "sprig" for our dinner when the thing was so puny. But, I digress.

This ageratum is the just about last thing that blooms in the garden. It stays green and leafy and leggy until now, when it starts putting out little periwinkle balls, and then I think, "Oh, it is not going to do too well this year." But, then the flowers keep getting bigger and bigger until they are 2-3" across. The bonus is that it is butterfly season, and they all seem to love this plant. One day there were 10 monarchs out there all enjoying the flowers and the sun--all right outside my kitchen window. Sweet!

A Non-Event

Hurricanes are serious business--nothing to fool around with. We haven't had a real one since the eighties, and the weather people keep saying that we are overdue. So, here comes this year's string on the radar maps, looping their way across the Atlantic, swooping through the Islands and heading on up the east coast. That seems to be the pattern this time around--the last few years they have all gone to the south and into the Gulf. Yesterday was supposed to be "Earl". I say "supposed to be", because it sure turned out to be nothing for us--not even a gust of wind. We had a couple of 20 minute straight down showers, but for the most part, the day was still, gray and humid.

I put our pots of plants down from the deck, and unhooked the ones that were up on hangers. MT moved the deck chairs to the basement, so that nothing would blow around--all little stuff like that, since we don't have a boat or anything. Well, there was nothing.

Come dinner time, I'm deciding what to make, and I decided to grill some corn, and some tuna medallions. I put together some compound butter and a batch of chimichurri, and we pulled the chairs out from the breakfast table, and ate out on the deck. I guess there was a little breeze that blew out the citronella candles, but it was a beautiful evening.

I keep thinking of all the stories of the hurricane of 1938 which was a direct hit on Long Island and Rhode Island and there was absolutely no warning system, and big loss of life. They say it was a beautiful day, and people went out to the shore for picnics and parties, and the storm blew in and the surf came up and everything got washed away. Now we are "warned" for days ahead and "prepared", but no storm this time around. Just as well. We toasted Earl over our dinner, and know they'll be others in his track. May they all stay offshore!