Hands on History

Yesterday, the Linn County Museum (you might remember my post about them that kicked off our whole museum a month thing) hosted their second annual Hands on History day. 

We started out with spinning and wool carding on the lawn of the Moyer House. I've been wanting to see the inside of that place for years, so as soon as I could pry the boys away from the wool (We've got fleece and a set of carders at home!) we went inside and they chatted with a man in the parlor who was demonstrating Victorian toys while I wandered into the kitchen and watched the butter churning.  

I've got more than one butter churn here at the house, but the woman doing the demonstration knew more about the history of butter than I would have thought possible. Did you know that it was originally used as a lamp oil and not for food? Now I've got to research that. 

One of the volunteers told us that there was an embalmer setting up in the park. What impression do we give off that lets strangers know we're going to drop everything and send us in that direction?

We must've stood there for at least half an hour hearing all about embalming during the Civil War and it was absolutely fascinating. He stayed in character, but not obnoxiously so, and went into a ton of historical detail without dwelling on the gross stuff.

I thought I took more pictures than I actually did. My two younger boys tried a cross cut saw, which had me holding my breath the entire time. I didn't think they were going to lose a limb, but I was definitely worried about the saw. They panned for gold and we got our picture taken with a hundred year old camera.

And we sort of tried to lean to dance. I love the image of my son in his zombie Shakespeare t shirt danging with a woman in a hoop skirt. He definitely caught on faster than I did!

There was a mule drawn wagon and a man riding around the streets on one of those old high-wheeled bicycles.

I'm so glad my husband let me know this was happening! We learned a lot of things that may lead to other things...or may not.  Either way, we all had fun and we're looking forward to next year.

More Arbitrary August

The random number generator was nicer to me this week. I got to work on Crocuses on the Windowsill, which I have lots of reasons for loving. The chart is clear, the colors are pretty, and I'm still obsessing over the idea of cross stitched still lifes. (I looked it up -- that's apparently the correct plural!)

I was nervous about Pyramid of Skulls but once I picked it up again and looked at the chart and grid lines it wasn't too had to figure out where I'd left off.

Peaceful Countryside is looking a lot better now that I've got a second shade of brown added to the hillside. This was originally someone else's kit and I'm trusting that she sorted the floss correctly. Hopefully that isn't a mistake!

The rabbit is definitely a "have to" choice. So much of this is backstitching and it's either one or two or three strands of black, so there's a whole lot of stopping and starting. It looks amazing, but I'm not sure I've got the patience for something with so much outlining and only three shades of gray stitches to show me where that outlining goes.

I'm having fun and making progress and that's the whole point of this thing. I'm also cheating and working on some projects I picked out myself, but the ones in this post were all chosen for me. 

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {8/23/19}

Let's Make Baby Quilts Linky Party Rules: 
Link directly to your post or specific Flickr photo. Your post can be about a baby quilt that's finished, or in progress, or you can be writing about what you have planned,  as long as it's about baby quilts. You're welcome to link to baby quilt posts that aren't brand new, but please don't submit the same post or picture more than once. I'd love it if you linked back to my site, either with a text link or the Let's Make Baby Quilts! button.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Row by Row Experience 2019 Wrap Up

There's still a week and a half left to visit shops and pick up patterns, but unless something unexpected happens I've made my last trip for the year. I think I made it to sixteen different shops not counting one that should have been open but wasn't.  

Yesterday it was my plan to head down to the shops in Eugene. I'd been wondering how on earth I was going to combine my collection of blocks into a quilt, then I saw this one hanging at Something To Crow About....

Isn't that amazing? I've got all of the patterns except for the one with the donuts and pie. Now I feel like there's hope I can combine my own random collection into something...that'll include the intricately appliqued crab from The Quilt Loft and the Roadkill Cafe from From Bolts to Blocks.
I'll worry about how to do that when/if I get some rows pieced.