Design Wall Monday

 poodlegirls  Daily Happenings, Our Girls, Travels, Nature, Life at home, cooking, General Sewing, Gardening  October 27, 2025 1 Minute

Actually, there is nothing on my design wall! Need to do something about it as soon as I get a few more bandanas made for the 2 dog grooming salons. I did get some mailed to the shop in CA and dropped some off at the local one. A few medium ones, small ones and extra small ones.

Lady had her haircut on Thursday.  She’s now sporting her Halloween bandana.  It’s not a great picture, but you get the idea.  She wears the medium size.

I sewed more later in the week.

More Fall in the small size.

Have 18 more sewn and turned.   They need to be topstitched, and the band folded and sewn down with a decorative stitch.

We did get to go to Granger.  Not much was flying.  Came home, Galen got a picture of a catbird in one of our bird baths. First time we’ve seen one in our yard.   My parents had tomato plants on their patio. ( in Pennsylvania)  Mom’s would go to pick a nice ripe Big Boy tomato to find the cat birds had pecked a hole in the opposite side. They loved her tomatoes!

Cat bird

Still had a few containers of pumpkin puree in the freezer.  Baked a couple of pies. 

One night, we had Thai pumpkin soup with coconut milk.  It was a hit.  Definitely a keeper recipe.

Did get a couple of planters moved around outside.  However, I didn’t get my plants repotted to bring inside.  Really need o do that this week. Our nighttime temperatures are going to be in the 50’s soon. This is the last week for the hummingbird feeders, too. Will take them down, wash, and put away until next Spring.

On the bright side, we did get rain.  2 inches from Friday night to Saturday night. No where near what is supposed to be our year average, we are grateful for  what we do get.

Until next time, may you have good week.

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Last Weeks activities!

 poodlegirls  Canning, cooking, Daily Happenings, Gardening, General Sewing, Life at home, Nature, Travels, Uncategorized  October 19, 2025 1 Minute

Spent Monday and Tuesday catching up on things around the house.  I’m not sure I made much headway, however. I knew Galen was leaving very early Thursday, so Wednesday was laundry and making pickled jalapeños.   I wanted to send some along with him for our friends.  Only got 3 pints.  I decided not to process these as they will be good for 3 or 4 months when kept in the refrigerator.

Ready to go into the brine.

Thursday afternoon, I decided it was time to tackle the pie pumpkins.  Had 8 waiting for me to puree and freeze in the quantity needed for my Mom’s pie recipe. 1 1/2 cups. 11 packs in the freezer for pies or other recipes.

I was finally able to finish the dog bandanas I started the previous week. 14- 6 small  8 XS.

Indian corn dog bandanas.

I had a piece of another Fall fabric – big enough for 3 medium ones.

Galen’s trip didn’t go quite as planned. Slow traffic getting away from San Antonio. They finally got to their destination around 1 PM. in the Texas Panhandle.  ( Childress).  Then they discovered all the motels near Childress were full. They ended up driving 2 hours to Abilene.  Took a while but finally found one that had 2 rooms available. Galen said it was a $60.00 room that cost $200! Big construction job going on. On the upside, they did get to take pictures of birds, butterflies, and tiger beetles before trying to find a motel. Galen got a brand new Tiger beetle.  Crimson Saltflat. This one is prettier than some of the ones he has photographed!

The Monarch Butterflies have been spending a lot of time enjoying our Mexican sunflowers.

Have a busy week ahead. I need to get more bandanas sewn.  We are supposed to start having more Fall like temperatures now. I’m really hoping that is true. Need to repot some plants outside. I also need to decide what I want to can.  Definitely need to make chicken corn noodle soup, and I have several ham bones in the freezer to use for ham and bean soup. Plenty to keep me busy!

May you have a good week ahead.

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This and That!

Last week was an interesting one. Started with my cell phone giving me problems.  Seems Google and sometimes Android phones don’t get along. About all I could do was receive calls.  Anytime I opened an app I stated getting ads from Google about selling me ad blocker, more virus protection.  Rebooting didn’t help. Once I didn’t need it ( Galen was traveling ) he got home and took my phone to ATT.  They took everything off so I got to spend hours getting everything back on!  Might have been easier to get a new phone!!!! Good thing, I figured out I don’t need it all the time! There have many times I wish we still had our landline.

My downtime I finished binding the last of the quilts. These will go to Linus soon.

I called this one tossed animals, so I thought the fabric for the back was perfect!

Started working on dog bananas for Fall and Thnksgiving.  While sorting through my fabrics, I found about a yard of this cute Thanksgiving fabric.

Have some others cut and sewn now but not finished.  Will get more worked on this week.

Took my main sewing machine in for servicing.  It’s been a while  since it had a good cleaning.

I am really hoping the weather forecast is right.   One more week of low 90s, then we start to cool off.  They are saying it is a La Nina year which means warm and dry for us.   The dry part is not good. 

Hope everyone has a good week

 Autumn Super Moon

 poodlegirls  Daily Happenings, Gardening, General Sewing, Life at home, Nature, Quilting, Uncategorized, Wildflowers  October 7, 2025 1 Minute

If we were still living in Taiwan we would be eating Moon Cakes and celebrating Mid-Autumn Moon Festival.

Our Texas weather is getting better-low 90’s now and the nights are getting cooler. Should help our electric bill. AC isn’t having to work as hard! I ended up making more food for the hummingbird feeders. Filled the feeders on Sunday again. The don’t come into the feeders often we still have a lot of Mexican Sunflowers and the Firebushes are full of blooms. First picture is one of our Firebushes. They come back every year. Second is the Mexican Sunflower. They reseed every year. Butterflies and Hummingbirds like both of them.

I did manage some time to work on binding my quilts. This one is #2. Color block pattern by Connie Kresin – Freemotion by the River blog, Made with a layer cake. Fun one to do.

And yes still working on dog bandanas. For those interested I use templates from Winner Designs. That way I can cut out multiples with no problem. Linda has quite an assortment of different templates with no slip backing. And she is very easy to work with. Has some really cute ones for Halloween right now.

Dog Cat Bandanas – Traditional Collar Insert Style

This is another one for Halloween. Made the medium using this print. Good size for Lady, our standard poodle.

The machine I have been using goes in for cleaning later this week- I know it needs it. Yes, I do clean out the bobbin area often but it’s the underneath mechanics that I am sure need a going over! My 2nd machine is up and running. With all the bandanas I need to still make, I can’t afford to be without. Maybe someday I will be able to get back to putting quilts together!

We did get out to Granger Dam on Saturday. A few more Dragonflies sat for pictures as well as a scissor-Tail Flycatcher. This is a male Variegated Meadowhawk

And of course the Scissor-tail Flycatcher. They will be leaving soon.

That does it for last week. Hope everyone has a good week.

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END OF SEPTEMBER

Just discovered I somehow deleted last weeks post! It’s there now. Good thing I have been copying to my old blog site! Not sure if I will keep this one going once it’s time for renewal. That is months away so have time to think about it.

We are still having some hot weather and the forecasted rain rarely comes. We did get 2 tenths on Wednesday. That was a far cry from what accu-weather said. According to our weather station that is all we have had in September. Not good.

We got out one morning. Not much flying. A nice drive though. And we tried a new place for lunch on Wednesday. We have so many new places opening up in the past 6 months. We need to try more of them.

Galen has been in the Rio Grande valley this past weekend. Gets home today. Over 200 pictures to go through and edit! I know what he will be doing over the next few days. I finished up the first batch of Halloween and Fall Dog bandanas for my friend’s 2 salons. Want to get the ones in the mail foe California by the end of the week.

More are in the works.

I managed to bind one of the quilts I got back the other week. Started to work on another one bit haven’t finished it yet. This one if I remember is a Merry Mayhem one day mystery quilt from several months ago. I really need to double to double check that.

You can see my Amaryllis. They have really started to grow again. Some of the bulbs are 4 years old. They stay out year round on the deck. If we get a heavy frost or the occasional freeze we cover them up. Only brought them inside the winter we had the really bad week of snow and ice and yes no electricity. Think 2021!!

That’s all for now. Just heard from Galen he should be home in another hour. Need to get busy! Hope everyone has a good week.

 OFFICIALLY FALL

I took a few months off from my blog. Been keeping busy with day to day activities. Sorting and getting rid of things. Enjoying our back yard watching the birds. The hummingbirds are migrating through, stopping at our 2 feeders. We did have a very big bird at them the other day. A Baltimore Oriole.!

We have been going out more again to see what is flying. Dragonflies have been scarce in the usual places. Not sure the reasoning. Not as many birds either. We were able to find the Wood Storks near Thrall the other week. So they are back.

The corn has been pretty well picked, although we did see some being picked this past weekend. Cotton is also being picked.

On one of the back roads we passed by a field that we had no idea what was planted. Got my plant app and grabbed a picture or 2 for I.D. Galen also took some close ups. Plant App said Sim Sim. Had to google that when we got home. Sesame!!!! The 3rd picture is of the seed pods. Sometime in October they mature are picked and opened to find a lot of little sesame seeds! I never thought about growing them!!!! Galen figured the field must be about 100 acres.

I did meet up with Osie to give her 4 quilts to quilt for me. Have then back and am now sewing on the bindings. Nice busy work when it’s too hot upstairs to get much done. Don’t have the AC turned down up there. When I can I work on dog bandanas for the 2 grooming salons I give them too! Have a system set up now. Each container for the 3 sizes I make more of most of the time. Have squares cut to size so now I can grab a front and back, stack them and cut 4 at a time. Get a bunch cut and near my machine. Sew a few whenever I have time. These are a few of the ones done and given to the shops. Now I am working on some for Halloween and Fall.

I have a lot of waste triangles cut from these that I have been keeping in a container. Not sure how I will use them. I did sort them to sizes one afternoon. Now those are bagged. Have been making bandanas for about 3 years so there is quite an assortment- holidays, bright colors, children’s prints. Whatever I thought would make cute ones!

Will try and do better about keeping up with my blog.

 poodlegirls  Daily Happenings, General Sewing, Life at home, Nature, Quilting, Travels