Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

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A Favorite Thing #14

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Welcome to the fourteenth week of A Favorite Thing! I’m writing this as fast as I can because we’ve been having trouble with the internet all day long and I’m afraid to wait until the last minute to write this! I was so flummoxed by my slow connection – especially when trying to do anything with this blog – that I called my server (all was okay there) and finally my cable company. They said there were problems with the internet in my area so, though I can get online, I don’t have 100% of it working. Okay. Hopefully, all will be fixed soon.

Let’s look at some highlights from last week.

Gardenbug World’s son had returned home with his friends to spend some time working on enhancing the software on the One Laptop Per Child computers that are used all over the world. How neat! This is such an honorable endeavor and they are to be applauded.

Cozy Little House shared the little Sugar House she found at Pier One – for $5. It looks right at home near her coffeemaker.

Olive Out shared her beautiful wax ornaments made from German molds. They are truly lovely and remind me of some wax ornaments that were on our Christmas tree when I was a child.

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My favorite thing this week is:

Mabel, my gorgeous Featherweight. Mabel was my birthday present this year, delivered two months before the actual day. One day I was antiquing with my husband and, recognizing the familiar Featherweight case, zeroed in on her. After careful examination and several minutes of  ‘should we?’ Don and I decided timing is everything and that she should be my 60th birthday present. I love her. I have waited many years for my own Featherweight. The only frustration is that with all my necessary crocheting, I haven’t had much time to spend with her yet. Soon, Mabel, soon.

Now it’s your turn! Share a favorite thing of yours with us!

By the way, the December 21/22 edition of A Favorite Thing will be all about favorite Holiday (Christmas or Hannukah) things. I’ll remind you again as we draw nearer to that date.

You can link up anytime from this evening through Sunday. Make sure you enter the URL of your post. If you’re unsure how to do that, just click on your post title after you’ve published it and copy the information in your browser address window. Come back here, paste the URL into your link entry and there you go! If you have any problems, drop me an email and I’ll help you out. Please link back to this blog on your post. That way, those that read your post and are interested in reading more can do so.

One of my concerns about link parties is that the very reason for them has somewhat gone by the wayside. They’ve become so big and there are so many of them that many bloggers don’t take the time to visit any of the other participants. Link parties are a way to meet new bloggers and share with each other and the only way to do that is to visit each other. So, please, take some time to visit everyone over the next few days. No rush. Stop by, introduce yourself, and leave a comment. It’s the neighborly thing to do. It’s also nice if you leave a comment here, as well.

I’m sorry but I had to remove a link from this post as every time I tried to visit it came up as a Web Threat in my Virus Protection software. I want this party to be safe for all those involved.

Have fun!



Friday Free Associating

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I hung on to my porch plants for dear life this year. Countless cold evenings found me dragging them all indoors for the night. One by one, the impatiens are fading but I have 2 pots that are still blooming. The hanging plants lasted until yesterday when I forgot to bring them in for the night. Actually, I most likely forgot on purpose as the realization that it was almost December hit me. It ain’t going to get warmer, Claudia (I said to myself.)

I have this problem. I can’t let anything die if there is a way of saving it. Bug, spider, potted plant – you name it. I am Chief Rescuer here at the cottage. But this year, more than any other year, I hung onto those plants for dear life. It gets harder and harder for me to leave summer behind and move into the dark days of winter and besides, I love my potted plants. I guess this means porch life is officially suspended until spring. Sob.

Colder weather means more indoor life. More nesting. More scarf making. I don’t mind telling you, I have been on a roll with the scarves. Lots and lots of crocheting. I’m trying to add more stock to the Etsy shop for your Christmas-present-buying-pleasure. Speaking of Christmas:

Do you see that volume of George Bernard Shaw at the top of the photo? Pygmalion and Three Other Plays? Don is going to be playing Alfred Doolittle in a production of Pygmalion out at our old stomping grounds, The Old Globe. He leaves in December. Before Christmas. We’ll celebrate early, of course,  but this will be the first time we haven’t been together at Christmas since the year we met (when I went home to Michigan to visit my parents and coped with knowing looks exchanged by my mother and father when I would leave the room for yet another long phone call with that mysterious ‘Don.’)

It will be strange. And bittersweet.

And for those of you have been kind enough to check in, Scoutie is back to her old self again. We’re so thankful. She’s feisty, naggy, funny, and full of herself. The antibiotics are doing their magic and my girl with the poodle-like front legs is once more the Princess of Mockingbird Hill Cottage.

Don has a friend who has a Border Collie who is 18. Scout will be 14 in January. So, you see, I plan on another 4+ years.

I am totally in love with my girl. And I miss my Riley. Christmas won’t seem right without him.

It promises to be a very different holiday season this year.

If you check in on my blog roll, don’t panic, it’s still here. It’s now on the navigation bar at the top of the page under “Blog Love.”

I’ll be back at 8:00 EST for A Favorite Thing.

Happy Friday,

My Winter Project

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I’ve been measuring and planning for my big Winter Project.

This quilt top, assembled 3 years ago when I was working in San Diego for an extended period of time, needs to be transformed into an honest to goodness quilt for our bed.

My grandmother was a quilter. She spent hours making quilt tops from scraps with beautiful hand applique. Then she would spend the winter sitting in her rocking chair, hand quilting her beautiful work. I seem to remember that it was one quilt a winter, but I may be wrong. There were four of us kids and we each had more than one of her quilts. So did my parents. We still use one of my childhood bed quilts here at the cottage. It’s a heavy weight and perfect for napping in the chillier winter months.

So, though I vowed I would have my next quilt machine quilted, I am going to bite the bullet and hand quilt this one.

The truth is, I like hand quilting. I love the rhythm of it. I love knowing that every stitch on that quilt top is mine. There is a distinct difference between the look of a hand quilted piece and a machine quilted piece and I prefer the hand quilted look. And the end result is all mine – for better or worse.

I suppose if I was churning out a lot of quilt tops, I would be sending them off to be machine quilted because there’s only so much time in a day! But one top? I can handle that. And before you suggest it, I don’t particularly like hand tying a quilt – it seems to me that after all the work involved in assembling a quilt top, it should be finished in a stitched design – even if it’s a grid. (Which I think I might do with this one.) So stitches it is.

I have to find a backing fabric that I like and some batting. That’s next on the list. Then the whole thing will be basted together and my hoops will come out.

I’m looking forward to it.

By the way, my blogroll is still here, if you are a reader who likes to use it. It’s now a link up in the navigation bar.

Happy Thursday.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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