Quilts and Cats and Gifts from True Friends

Dear friends,

I was stunned a few days ago when our mail-gal drove up with a package for me from a dear friend who lives in north Texas--Debbie Burns, of Beulah Land Farmstead, who blogs as Farmer Woman.  When I opened it, I almost fell over. 

Look what she made and sent us for a housewarming gift!

Handmade wall-quilt, made by Debbie Burns

It's a little wall quilt she made using reproduction 1930's fabrics.  Now, HOW PERFECT is that, for the 1930's Two Sisters Cottage?  Couldn't be MORE perfect, if you ask me.  She explained that the appliques on the quilt are also symbolic.  There's the cat (no mystery there--LOL), the birdhouse represents our love for birds, and the two cardinals are the Two Sisters, former owners of the house.   We have a huge cardinal population here, and the property was decorated by numerous plastic and wooden cardinals when we bought it.  I love the way Debbie positioned the fabric so the pattern looks like cat eyes and nose!

The little butterflies are buttons, the cat has a heart button, and there are three little flower buttons on the bottom of the birdhouse base.

I absolutely LOVE these fabrics, and always have.  As a matter of fact, I own a quilt made by my great-grandmother that features original 1930's fabrics.  Look how perfect these are together!

New wall quilt with antique 1930 quilt

Of course, within a few minutes of taking the quilt out and placing it on the back of a chair, a cat appeared.  Luckily, it was Blanca the Perfect.  She assured me she would not touch the quilt, but only admired it from a distance.  And Blanca never lies.

Quilts attract cats, especially Blanca

Although Debbie told me I should hang the quilt outside as a banner, I told her that I would NOT do that.  It's going to be hung in the entry way, which is also my office.  I have a spot on the wall picked out especially for it--a place of honor, hanging above an antique oak chest that Rudy and I salvaged and refinished.  Against the blue wall in here, the colors in that quilt will POP!

Of course, there's a process that has to happen before I can hang it up.  First, I have to de-junk the top of the chest.  Then I have to find a dowel for hanging.  Then I have to find a nail.  LOL!  I assure you that I will have this hung up  pronto, and will post more pics then.

You can see a bit of the blue wall behind the chair.  This quilt will look perfect hanging up in here!

Oh, and by the way---I've never even met Debbie in person.  She's one of my dear friends on the Texas Homestead list that I've been moderating for years now (how I got that job is a story in itself).  We've talked online almost every day, though, and know each other pretty well.  She says I keep her sane, but the opposite is true.  She's always there with a supportive and inspirational message for us all, as well as tons of gardening and critter advice.  She's a special person, and I count her as one of the blessings of my life.

Thank you again, Debbie, for this amazing gift.  I'll cherish it always.

Oh, and readers, go check out Debbie's blog.  It's full of Texas homestead goodness!

Happy trails!

bobbi c.

Where have I been?

Dear friends,

I haven't abandoned this blog, not really.  But I've been a bit busy over on my writing blog.  My new mystery novel, Lone Star Death, was just released in e-book format for both the Kindle and the Nook. 

Yes, in between scraping paint, caulking and hanging wallboard, I write!  LOL.

Read all about it, here:

Bobbi Chukran Writing Blog

I hope to be able to get back to posting news of our house remodel soon.

Happy trails!

bobbi c.

Zest Fest 2012, Taylor Texas

Dear friends,

We spent this morning acting like locals.  Because after all, we are locals now.  First thing we did was visit the small Hutto Farmer's Market and scored some delicious fresh produce from the folks there---fresh cauliflower, tomatoes and cucumbers.  The first tomatoes are just now coming in and we can never resist them.  We bought from farms in Thrall and Taylor, and other than my own backyard garden, that's as local as it gets!

Then we came back home to Taylor and went downtown for their annual Zest Fest celebration.  I'll admit, it was a lot larger than I expected.  The entire downtown area was filled with music and crafts, local organizations like the Taylor Garden Club, Chamber of Commerce and the Blackland Quilt Guild had booths, and a classic car show got both Rudy's and my attention.  Here are a few photos I took along the way.  Forgive the quality of the pics, it was in the upper 90's, my camera was being a bit flakey and the crowd of people were often in the way.

 

Quilts flapped in the breeze, hung from a building.  Sorry I didn't get the names of the quiltmakers.

My favorites are always the brightly colored ones.

The quilts had many admirers, young and old.

Husband Rudy liked this one the best.  The quiltmaker used all floral fabrics on an otherwise simple pattern.

Blackland Quilt Guild is the local Taylor quilting group.

The Taylor Garden Club had a booth selling plants.

The classic car show also caught our eye.  I love classic cars, especially the Chevys.  I've been a Chevy girl from the get-go. :-)

 After wandering around for an hour or so, I scored a grape shaved ice (we used to call them snow cones---when did they quit putting them in cones?  LOL), and we followed our ears to the live music.  We got quite a surprise when we arrived at the stage.  A young girl with a gorgeous, strong voice was belting out some contemporary songs.  Turns out, she's Courtney Ging, the very talented 16-year old daughter of our beloved plumber and wife, Wayne and Cara Ging.  Her performance deserves a blog post of its own, so stay tuned!

We also checked out the marquee to see what's coming next at our restored Howard Theatre in downtown Taylor.  YES!  Dark Shadows is coming next week, and Rudy and I already have a date for the first showing.  We haven't had a chance to see a show there yet, and  I'm looking forward to it.

Hope you've enjoyed this little picture of our new friendly, vibrant community!  The temperature eventually reached 96-degrees today.  Crazy.  But that didn't stop the Taylorites (as we're called, I found out) from getting out, having fun, and celebrating small town Texas.

Happy trails on Cinco de Mayo!

bobbi c.

Just a few random photos for Cinco de Mayo!

I realized I have hundreds of photos that I haven't "processed" or gone through, all taken over the last two months.  It's going to take me some time to do that.  As much as I love my digital camera, I long for the days when I had a stack of paper photos to flip through, organize, sort, etc.  But I do not miss all the scanning that was required.  Anyway, Feliz Cinco de Mayo, everyone, and enjoy the pics!

Side yard, with new Texas persimmon.  The mystery plant in the left flower bed turned out to be milkweed.

A very odd green rose.  Can't decide whether I love it, or hate it.

The pallet veggie garden grows, with tons of peppers and eggplants.  Trellis added to clothesline post holds a baby grapevine.

New raised beds--my "So Easy it's Stupid" method :-)

One of the few natives on the property when we bought it, a red salvia blooms

The backyard by the porch garden, with salvias, iris and other natives.

More later!

Happy trails from Taylor, Texas!

bobbi c.

Before and After Photos

Dear friends,

I'm trying a new feature using Photobucket to show Before and After pics of the cottage.  Not sure how this will work yet, so I've only added a few photos to start with.  Comments would be appreciated.  In the meantime, enjoy the slideshow (to the right of the posts, in the sidebar).

Since the tags don't seem to show up in slideshow mode, I hope you can tell which are the Befores, and which are the Afters.  LOL!

Happy Trails!

bobbi c.

Nine months later....

We have moved into our new and improved Two Sisters Cottage, just a little over nine months after closing on the deal. It's been a trip, for sure, a huge learning experience and a dream fulfilled. Yes, parts of it were nightmarish, but I'm so glad we did it.

I'm still unpacking and will be for quite some time. I have been taking photos, and will share them as soon as possible.

Thanks for all your kind comments and support; I really appreciate it!

Happy trails,

bobbi c.

Regrets?

I hope I don't live to regret telling Husband it's OK to put a lot of the old metal stuff from the cottage out on the curb for the recyclers to pick up. Piles of venetian blinds from 1960 are mixed with old stove pipe, old gutters, old galvanized plumbing pipe that came out from under the house, aluminum trim from bathroom walls, around the tub and kitchen sink, etc. We've already recycled much of it, but it still accumulated in the little cottage out back. Now that we're planning on moving in on Monday, we need a place to stash our six cats while the movers bring in the furniture. So the metal stash had to go!

One especially hard thing to give away is the original sink from the kitchen--an odd sized 12 x 30" cast iron monster that weighs a ton--and is rusted plumb through. I fancied making a small garden pond out of it, or using it in the greenhouse. Nah, that would never happen. For one thing, it's just too heavy--then there's the rust. Still, I feel a bit sad about not keeping it. It's a part of the history of this house.

The old cast iron sink as it was when we bought the house

I have to remind myself that never did we plan on doing a period restoration. Still, the sink is one of the things I noticed when I first set foot in the house, and the only thing I remembered weeks later when we came by to take a second look. I even asked Rudy "Now, which house was it that had the old sink?" I think it stirred some deeply buried memory of my great-grandmother's old house in Handley, Texas. I only visited there once, but still remember her 1930's era kitchen and a sink very similar to this one.

Metal is a hot commodity these days, and I know some wandering recycler will consider himself (or herself) lucky to drive by and see the "Free" sign sitting by the pile. There are many people now around here who feed their families from the money they get through recycling. I have to remember that when I get wistful about an old rusty sink that weighs a ton.

Happy trails!

bobbi c.