Mostly About Ruthie

Ruthie continues to progress slowly but surely. She's still very tiny...we have to remind ourselves to  treat her more like her age and less like a much younger child.

Early in the summer, she declared she needed a bike. We looked at them while at the store and she found one she liked. I was working on a quilting job that would pay for it, so she had to wait. I also needed to make sure this wasn't a passing fancy.

She talked of little else for a couple of days and then every few days thereafter. One day we had this exchange:

Ruthie: I want to come!
Me: Come where?
Ruthie: To da store.
Me: You want to go to the store with me?
Ruthie: YES!
Me: Why are we going to the store?
Ruthie: To buy dat BIKE!

She saved her allowance and I quilted and, this week, we were able to buy her bike.

Her first attempt was disappointing for her, she was on it for less than a minute and couldn't get the hang of pedaling forward. She went crying to her room and I was afraid that she would be too upset to try again.

I was wrong. A few more attempts later in the day had her riding two doors down and back, me walking along side and guiding the handlebars, her (mostly) pedaling forward with a lot of encouragement and occasionally with me pushing her feet the right direction.

The next day she rode all the way around our block, with very few mis-pedals but me still mostly guiding the handlebars to keep her going straight.

Yesterday, she went all the way around the block with very little help, even speeding up a few times so that I had to walk briskly to keep up with her.

I never thought she'd be riding this well in only 2 days, and she is SO proud!

We're finding that Ruthie responds really well to the computer. She has figured out how to navigate through games, is learning letters, numbers, and colors and is identifying more and more words.

My sister-in-law is a retired speech therapist and spent 30 years coordinating special education programs. When she was in for the wedding in May, she had her iPad with her that had a series of apps developed for kids like Ruthie.

She won't often "perform" for people, but was too intrigued by the iPad not to try it when offered. She loved it and with loads of educational apps to choose from and work our way through, this will likely be a bulk of her school program in the coming years. The pay from my current quilting job is going in Ruthie's iPad fund and we're hoping to be able to get it by years end at the latest.

 

 

I've been spending nearly as much time knitting as quilting these days. My favorite things are socks and shawls and I have quite a collection of both. Here is my sock drawer, I almost always have a pair going on the needles. They are easy to bring along and easy enough to work while chatting, but interesting enough to not get boring.



My first craft was knitting, so it's been good to get back to this. I used to make a lot of my sweaters and am hoping to get back to that. I'll have to figure out how to make all different sizes to fit my growing family, homemade sweaters will make great Christmas gifts if I can get them sized correctly!

Most days I quilt/sew during the day and knit in the evening and today will be no exception. Once this client quilt is done, I have a cover up quilt that is more than half finished and will be next in the hoop....that is, if I don't have a wedding color top made and ready by then. More on those next time!

Happy Quilting!
Sue

Current Projects

I'm not as good at multi-tasking as I used to be. The good part of that is I see projects finished more quickly because I only work on one or two at a time for the most part. I've been quilting in the daytime and knitting in the evening.

My current quilting project is a "work quilt"... I was referred by another woman I quilt for regularly and this is now the second quilt that I've been working on for this client. She has several tops made by her mother, they were all made in the 40s and in need of some repair. She's been doing the repairs and bringing them to me for quilting.

 

 

Weddings have been a big part of our thought process the last few years. I posted about Rebekah's wedding in August of 2010. Last year, Rachel got married and she and her husband live in Atlanta where he's attending Georgia Tech, pursuing a Master's in Mechanical Engineering.

 

 

 

Rebekah did Rachel's hair, along with all the bridesmaids, Ruthie, and Marshall's Mom that day. She worked from 9:30am until pictures started at 3:00.

 

Ruthie loves getting dressed up and fussed over, she could hardly wait to put on her dress.





 

And now it's time for me to get back to work. I have a couple more hours of quilting today, this evening I'll knit. One great thing about scheduling my time this way is I'm developing a nice quilting callous without ripping my finger to shreds!

Happy Quilting!
Sue



Believe it or not.....

I'm back.

I've been kicking around trying to get this going again and decided that I have the time and would really enjoy a record of what I have going on around here.

I could write for days and days, so much has happened since my last posting. TWO of my children have gotten married since then, one last summer and one Memorial Day weekend.

We now number 11, from left to right Jonathan, Rachel, her husband Marshall, Kayla, Joshua, my husband, Mike, me, Rebekah's husband Brian, Ruthie, Rebekah, and Lucas.

My tendency is to write so much that I put off updating because it takes so long each time, I'm attempting to turn over a new blogging leaf and write shorter posts more often with updates incorporated along with the daily activities, we'll see how that goes!

With 3 of the kids out of the house and Jonathan working full time, involved in church activities, and going to the local college I have a lot more time than I used to. I quilt during the day and have rekindled my love for knitting and most evenings put down the quilting between and pick up the knitting needles.

No post is complete without a Ruthie picture and the next will show some of what I've been working on.

Or two.

Happy Quilting!

Sue