A fun quilty weekend!

Two weekends ago I went on a fun quilting adventure! I started out on Friday afternoon and went to the annual Walnut, Ia. Antique Walk. It is every Father's day weekend. There were antiques galore and lots of fun things to see. I was mainly looking for feed sacks and picked up a couple to put in the new baby grandson's quilt. This little cupboard was so cute, I had to take a picture of it. It was made out of 6 or 7 wooden boxes, cute, cute!

After leaving Walnut,(the boothes were closing so I had to leave), I headed to Guthrie Center. They were having all kinds of fun things going on, town-wide garage sales and a garden and quilt show/ luncheon. The picture above was a neat antique double wedding ring that was displayed at the luncheon. The salads were so good! Thanks ladies, you did a great job.

We went to 5 different houses for the tour. they were all very beautiful, but just about the time the tour was to start, it also started to rain, and just didn't seem to want to stop. Oh, well, it was still beautiful!

This was a unique display with the old tractors and quilts.

A cute little garden shed with quilts hung beside it.

After finishing the quilt tour I headed east to Adel. They were having an outdoor quilt show also at the quilt shop. Here the owner Jackie is visiting with a customer. It was a fun show too! I felt like I had been around the world in a day and a half!

How to save peonies

Bouquets from my dotter, Lindsay's wedding. About 2 weeks before the wedding we picked over a thousand buds and saved them for the arrangements. This 1st picture were the bouquets for the bridesmaids.

The next picture was all the arrangements that we used tables at the reception.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I would tell you how to save peonies for later use. The peonies above and below were picked about 3 weeks before I used them and I had just got them out of the fridge. It's really not hard, they just take up a lot of room in the fridge. The trick is to pick them when the bud feels like a marsh mellow when you squeeze it. I pick them with about a foot stem and put a whole bunch in a plastic bag in the fridge. When you want to use them, take them out of the fridge and re cut the stem and put in water. They will open up to their full bloom in about 4-12 hours. SO PRETTY and FUN! They will last about 5-7 days, inside.

This is the Day!

This is the Day the Lord Has Made! I just love this song and verse. This also, is the day we found out that we're having another grandson! Let us rejoice!

We are very happy to have another grandchild on the way, this is just our second.

The feed sack scraps above will go in a special quilt for him. I've been saving them for a special project and this is it! Will show the finished project later. I may even have kits for this later.

Good for the soul retreat!

Hot fudge brownie sundaes topped with pecans. The hot fudge recipe is one of my Mom's.

One of my guests last weekend described their stay as "good for the soul". It was good for all our souls, including mine! Lots of fun and laughing! This is a return group from the Osceola area. They chose the fully pampered deal and seemed to enjoy every bit of it! Here they are finishing their meal with homemade rhubarb cobbler with ice cream. Notice the peonies in the middle of the table, I picked those about 3 weeks ago and was able to save them until this weekend. More info on how to do this later.

This salad below was one of the things we had for lunch on Friday. It was a Hawaiian chicken pineapple salad made similar to the one at 54th Street Bar and Grill. Lot of compliments on this meal and all the meals. Thanks ladies! I love serving you and using all the fun dishes!

Below: everyone took lots of pictures...if you have any good ones, send them to me by email. Thanks ladies for the wonderful weekend!