Another Birthday... One More and I Get Paid!

Well, yesterday was the 61st birthday... wow... One more and I get paid... Social Security... Can that be possible?? Really??? As said about a million times every year by everyone who reaches 60...Where did it go?

My sweet DH surprised me yesterday when he came home from coffee with these...I almost cried. I have wanted some of these for several years, but could never really figure a way to justify them besides just loving the look of them. So I would never get them for myself... Well...take a look at this...

For the first time in recorded history the top of my end table beside my chair is visible...lol... and I still have access to all the things that are usually scattered about on it... How cool is that...

This is the second set that he gave me. Both sets have magnetic closures that are wonderful...not so easy to spill things out when lifting them up... These haven't found a home yet, but believe me...they will.

DH's Surprise!

DH went for some groceries yesterday. He had me sit at the kitchen table as he brought in the "surprise" from the car.

Look what he came back with... Twelve place setting of porcelain china for a real bargain.... He had been wanting to replace our dishes for about 5 years and he finally did! grin

First Spinning Lesson

Wow... It's hard to believe something so simple can make such a difference in how easy it is to spin! By changing the ratio, it suddenly became as if I had been doing it all my life. Love that. I had my first experience with a ball winder...gotta get me one of those. As a result, I found that it is quite easy to do a double ply instead of a triple ply and come out with 1/3 more yarn ... wow. Linda, of Yarn Again, was a wonderful teacher. Patient and encouraging, and laughs a lot. This was more like old friends getting together than a lesson. If you are ever in the McKinney, TX area, I would encourage you to stop in and visit.. Not only does she have hand spun yarn, roving, novelty yarn...but also hand woven scarves, shawls. She also gives weaving lessons...lol Ok..won't go there yet...grin

She also teaches how to knit socks...grin Guess what's next so I can use this new, smaller, double-plied yarn?

Yarn Again is located inside Morningstar Antiques on Louisiana St. Great place. Jim and Don went with us... what a wonderful day. DH, Jim and Don spent the hour plus that I was having my lesson wandering the antique shop. The lovely wedding teapot in the pic is my surprise gift from DH that I was unaware of until we got home... Isn't it lovely? We also found a couple of pieces of Hall's for my collection...

We had lunch at The Londoner ... wonderful English pub atmosphere with real fish and chips... then wandered the many, many antique shops around the square. Jim found a lovely, great condition treadle sewing machine...it now belongs to him..grin

A wonderful day....

Pincushions

I bought 4 or 5 little American Girls Short Stories books in an antique shop a couple of years ago and several were given to a granddaughter for Christmas that year. But a couple of them had been in a moist environment and had some mold on a few of the pages. These I kept and when Chuck was home I set about reading them to Allie. I had no idea they were such a gold mine of information!

In the 1700's pincushions were given as gifts. Is this one not lovely...and such lovely needlework... but... it's not needlework. I was shocked! The design is put on the pincushion using pins! Here's a little more information toward the bottom of the page. And here's another historical page saying that the pins were used for diapering the baby and as a result very few of these can be found today.