Fab Grandma Times 4

I am proud to announce that I am going to be a Fab Grandma again. My son and his lovely new wife, Seth and Sarah, are expecting a new baby probably in September. We are all so excited about this good news. Michael, the big brother, said to me “I told my parents I want to help with the baby when it gets here.” I told him it would be his job to teach his new brother or sister what not to do so he or she won’t get into trouble. He liked that. I have started a crocheted afghan for the cute little him or her. When I was in the store buying the yarn, it looked pale lavender, but at home it looks more pink. Oh well, so much for trying to remain neutral! He will just have to deal with it.

I also have started a baby quilt for the new little person. All I have accomplished on that so far is to sketch it out and decide that I want to make it in yellows and purples. It will be in the pinwheels pattern, with a striped border. I am planning to go to Douglasville next weekend and Emily and I can go to the fabric store and pick out some fabrics to go with the ones I already have. So far, I have some yellow that was used in Aunt Becky’s quilt (which I have not finished yet but plan to this summer) and Spencer’s big boy quilt; some yellow scraps that were left over from a dress I made for my granddaughter Sarah when she was little; some purple from Becca’s quilt (also not finished yet but I promise it will be this year!); and two purples left over from Sarah’s big girl quilt that I made for her sixth birthday. So, as you can see, this project already has some family history. I am eager to begin working on this but I can’t start cutting the fabric until I have all of it, so it will have to wait another week or so. But I can show you the sketch of it, hope you like it.

Last night while I was trying to draw this out, I was having a hard time doing it because the squares are on point. So, I drew them all out in a large square, colored them, cut them out, then taped them all back together in the pattern I wanted them to be in. Now, the reason I have to do all that is because I don’t have a pattern for this quilt to go by, and I cannot visualize it unless I am looking at it. Now that I have my drawing, all I have to do is count the squares so I will know how many to cut of each one. Sometimes even if I have a pattern I do this because I can’t imagine the pattern in MY colors when I look at it in the pattern makers colors. It helps me to see the squares in the quilt in the colors I am using.

But Jim was sitting across the table from me laughing at me. He couldn’t believe I would cut up all those little pieces of paper just to tape them all back together again. “Well,” I said, “isn’t that what you do when you make a quilt? Don’t you cut up pieces of fabric just to sew them back together again?” Men! They just don’t get it.

Snow Day Pictures

The roadside in Smithgall Woods

Stopping by the wood on a snowy day.The lodge at Smithgall Woods
Smith Lake at Unicoi State Park
Our trailer from the top of the hill. It is hard to see it in all that white.Duke's Creek where it crosses the road at Smithgall Woods.

Caution! Cross At Your Own Risk

The bridge over Duke's Creek

The checkin office for the campground at Unicoi State Park

We woke up on Thursday to 8 inches of snow! The weather guys on the Atlanta TV stations had all talked around it like the worst of the weather would be down to the south of us in Gainesville and Atlanta, but no, here is was up here in the mountains. Jim did not think we would get snow, if anything we were thinking it would be a cold drizzling rain. We were very surprised to have this much of the white stuff! The first picture here of our picnic table is to illustrate just how much of it we got.
This picture is of Jim standing under the awning, which is full of snow. It took him most of the afternoon to get it all off of the awning. Next time they start talking about snow, he will roll it up before we go to bed.




Here is a picture of the road into our section of the campground here at Unicoi State Park on Thursday morning. The park ranger made his rounds early, about as soon as the sun came up, to make sure there were no trees down in any of the roads. The next day, on Friday, they came by with a snowplow and scraped the road, because it did not melt off.



We had to go to Cleveland to get propane on Friday, so we drove around to see if we could find some "scenic" sights. We have driven past Smithgall Woods for years, never turning in to see it. Smithgall Woods is a Georgia State park site that was donated by the Smithgall family to preserve the natural forest area and Duke's Creek. It is absolutely beautiful. I got several beautiful shots there, but this one is, well, unique. I think it would be too cold to use this outhouse, but isn't it cute?