Provincial Exhibition Results

This is the first year that I entered my knitting in the provincial exhibition. I didn't know what to expect, as I had never even been to the exhibition before. I had to make three trips to Charlottetown, one to drop off my knitting, one to pick up my knitting, one an extra trip in between to check out the competition and to see if I won anything, and I did! Two first place ribbons, two seconds, and a third. My two pairs of mittens didn't win  anything :(   Next year I hope to enter not only knitting, but maybe some quilting and cross-stitch also. I'm going to be one busy girl this winter!

Hat and mitten combo, and preemie set

Work socks and baby set

Fancy socks (and my foot, lol!)

Fancy mitts and work mitts

Sad Days

This is a picture of my mother-in-law, taken July 16, 2013, on her 92nd birthday. She has lived with us for the past 5 years, and in the last couple of months her dementia has increased significantly.She has basically stopped eating, stopped talking, and is now so weak she is spending most of her time in bed. The doctor was out to see her tonight, and we have made the difficult decision to put her in hospital while awaiting a nursing home bed. As soon as a bed is available in the hospital, probably tomorrow or the next day, we will take her in, and at least we will know her basic needs are being met, as she won't let us help her, and she no longer has total control of her bodily functions. My husband is quite torn, as although he knows we cannot properly look after her anymore, he made her a promise years ago that she would always live with us, and now he feels that he's breaking his promise.

Busy Days

We are busy, busy, busy with the garden. Canned beets, canned beans, dill pickles, dilled carrots, dilly beans, mustard beans, bread & butter pickles, dehydrated zucchini chips. Today we have made 9 quarts of bread and butter pickles and have another batch ready to go this evening.

Yellow beans in the pressure canner

Canned beans and dill pickles

Dehydrated zucchini chips

Mustard beans

Bread & Butter Pickles covered with ice

Canning Season is Underway!

I picked 2 buckets of beets this morning, giving me 9  pints of canned beets and 2 quarts and 1 pint of pickled beets.

 

While the beets were cooking, I made a strawberry cheese pie. It has a layer of cream cheese, a layer of strawberries, and a layer of lemon pudding and dream whip. It looks delicious, and I can;t wait to try it out.

 

After luch, it was out to the garden to pick peas. Fortunately I had some help.

Jessica and Jasmine helping to shell peas

 

 

 

 

 

We had peas for supper, and I put 10 cups in the freezer

Yesterday, July 16th, was my mother-in-laws 92nd birthday. She has dementia and I don't think she was quite sure what all the fuss was, but we managed to get a few pictures.

Mildred with granddaughter Amanda, and 5 of her great-grandchildren

Mildred with her son David and his wife Glenna, who came over from Nova Scotia for a visit

The Gardens are Growing!

For some insane reason, we seem to plant bigger gardens every year, even though there are only the two of us that enjoy the fresh vegetables. This year we have our own 2 gardens, plus 2 plots that our neighbor wasn't going to use this year.

This is garden #1 - onions, lettuce, spinach, carrots, beets, swiss chard, parsnips

This is garden #2 - turnips, asparagus, peas, beans, zucchini, cucumbers, strawberries

Garden #3 - tomatoes, peppers, and pole beans

Garden #4 - buttercup and butternut squash

Today we had our first feed of beet greens

I have been knitting up a storm lately, trying to get some things ready to enter in the provincial exhibition in August. Here are a few pictures of what I have done so far.

These will be my entry for fancy mitts

These are my entry for hat and mitten combo

My entry for work socks

My entry for fancy socks

We had a couple of grandchildren spend the night last night, and today our son Russ and his 2 children came over for a visit too.

Jessica, Emily, and Lincoln

Lincoln and Hayden

Russ

Hayden and Russ

My hubby, Dale

Say It With Flowers Blog Hop

Today is my day for the Say It With Flowers Blog Hop.
 Spring has been very slow arriving here on the east coast of Canada, but we do have a few flowers appearing in our garden.

Pansies

Bleeding Hearts

Tulips

Azalea

Now you know who we have to thank for this hop; don't you? ....yes; our wonderful Madame Samm, and the fantastic Carol.....and don't forget our  sponsors,  Andover.
Let's get to what I made for this hop. I wanted a couple of placemats to use when we eat outside on the patio table, so I made a couple of tulip placemats. The pattern for the tulips is from Bee in my bonnet

 And because knitting is my other passion, and I have three co-workers who are expecting babies this fall, I made this cute little baby hat with a flower.

Please be sure to visit all the rest of the lovely blogs that are participating in the hop:

June 3^rd

Marla’s Crafts

Hanging On By A Thread

Moments

Lixie Makes It

Tied Up In Ribbon

Made By Me In Red

Nanny’s Nook (you are here)

Sew Incredibly Crazy

Cindy’s Crafty Creations

                                                                    Meadowbrook

It's been awhile

It's been awhile since my last post, but I have been keeping busy. I am back to work every Friday at Kindred Spirits, and I just found out that the owner, the manager, and one of the housekeepers are all pregnant! That means I am knitting and sewing baby things. Hopefully one of the babies will be a girl. I am going to make a little hat and maybe booties to go with this sweater. After this outfit is done I will make one for a boy, and by then I will know the sex of at least 2 of the babies, so I will know what else to knit.

I finished a couple of little cross stitch projects. These are going to be made into Christmas tree ornaments.

On the sewing/quilting front I have started a long term hexagon project

These flying geese blocks are my May blocks for Block Lotto. These would make a great border for a quilt.

This quilt has been on our bed for several years now, and I just realized that I didn't have a picture of it.

We have started planting our vegetable garden. So far we have planted onions, spinach, lettuce, swiss chard, beets, peas, turnips, carrots, parsnips, and radishes. I have peppers and tomatoes started in the house, and they are coming along nicely

Peppers

Tomatoes

Our azalea bush is in blossom, isn't it pretty?