Almost a Big Mistake

I was on a roll with my sewing and it was a rainy day so on Tuesday I whipped up another purse using the Lazy Girl Runaround Bag pattern. This time I used leftover fabric from the purse I made this past spring, along with some blue I had bought in Lancaster, PA.

Front

Back

I really like the way this came out and I know I’ll get a lot of use out of it. The actual sewing only took about 45 minutes; most of the time is in the cutting out and fusing thin batting to pattern pieces.

We left the Elk’s lodge on Wednesday morning and headed west, using a combination of our trucker GPS and directions from the website of our destination in Columbus, OH. We have found that it’s best to follow those written directions. Until today, that is. When the written directions took us to a bridge that was lower than we could go.

Note that the sign says 12’ 9”. The sign lied. We are 12’ 8”, and I know that number is correct because we were measured when we had our weight checked at the Escapees Boot Camp.

Bob crept forward but stopped when we heard the antenna hit the underside of the bridge. He immediately backed up, then got out and unhooked the car, which was difficult because we were on a slight hill. Some bad words may have been uttered during this process. Meanwhile, traffic was backing up and going around us as the two lane road was suddenly a one lane road.

Bob backed the car into a handy parking lot right behind us, then backed the motorhome in and turned around. This time we followed the GPS and arrived at the campground without further problems. And here we shall be for the next few days. There appears to be a lot to see in this area so I’m looking forward to it.

I read once that you should do one thing every day that scares you, and today we faced one of our biggest fears. Coming upon a too-low bridge has always worried us and now we know we can handle it. But hopefully it will never happen again!

Kentuck Knob

Bob and I enjoy visiting homes built by Frank Lloyd Wright, and on Monday we visited Kentuck Knob in Stewart Twp, PA. The house was commissioned by I. N. And Bernadine Hagan, owners of a local dairy company, and was built in the Usonian (middle-income family homes) style.

The home is set on a mountain and nestles into the topography as if it was always there, which was the architect’s intent.

Walking up to the house we saw a series of lovely birdhouses.

Kentuck Knob is hexagonally shaped and features 800 tons of local sandstone from the property of a nearby neighbor, which was purchased for the princely sum of $1.

Our tour guide was very knowledgeable.

Here she is explaining how the openings in the roof covering the patio acts like a sundial. Each hour during the day another hexagonal sun spot appears.

The dining area as viewed from the patio.

The backyard features a lovely water feature. I found these next four photos on the Internet.

The prow of the house juts out like the bow of a ship.

The “public area” or living room features flagstone floors and built in seating.

The kitchen has stainless steel countertops and cooktops that fold up when not needed.

One of the three bedrooms in the home.

After our tour we walked over to see the view of the valley.

The Hagans planted many trees which ended up obscuring the view but acts as a windbreak. It was much colder at the top of the hill, with a strong wind. We hadn’t planned on it being so cold up here!

Wolf sculpture near the house. There are many beautiful sculptures on the grounds.

We recalled our visit to Fallingwater a couple of years ago.

The Hagans were friends with the the Kaufmanns, and were introduced to Frank Lloyd Weight through this friendship.

There are some Wright homes in Arizona and we’ll be visiting them sometime in the future.

Momma’s Got a Brand New Bag

Bob and I decided to have an at-home day on Sunday. So he got to work recharging the water softener and I drove over to Joann Fabrics to find a zipper for a sewing project. Have I mentioned just how nice people are around here? I met the nicest women at the fabric store. I also found fabric and some of the notions I’ll need for an upcoming project, and most were on sale. I do love a good sale!

About six weeks ago I won an online contest from Hawthorne Supply Company, an online fabric store that has a weekly drawing for fabric collections.

And a few days later, these appeared in my mailbox. Fifteen fat quarters. Such fun! I set aside six colors for a quilted purse to be made later, but out of the rest I selected two to make a Runaround Bag from Lazy Girl Designs. It was a quick and easy project. Now I need to make one for fall.

Front (left) and back

Pittsburgh, PA

When we stay at Elks lodges (I am an Elks member) it tends to be a little iffy. Sometimes we have a site that is hard to get into, or not level, or in a noisy parking lot. Sometimes, and this surprises me, the lodge does not seem particularly friendly. But the lodge we are staying at outside of Pittsburgh is full of the friendliest folk you can imagine. When the ground was too soggy for us to park on it without sinking, they moved us around and put us on a concrete pad with full hookups next to a barn on the property. They refused to let us pay for our first drinks at the bar when we went in to chat and say hello. We like it here!

On Saturday Bob and I went into Pittsburgh to visit the Andy Warhol Museum, one of four Carnegie Museums in Pittsburgh. There is a lot of road work going on in and around Pittsburgh so we got stuck in traffic that did not move for a long while and then dealt with detours over and over. Finally we made it to a parking garage, parked, and walked over the Roberto Clemente Bridge towards the Museum. We passed the Pirates stadium along the way.

Neither of us are Warhol fans per se, but we were interested in learning more about the life of this famous artist. And I found a lot to like about his art, at least. Click on the pics to embiggen.

There are seven floors of the museum and displays such as this one showed the timeline of Warhol’s life and career.

Here are some of my favorite images from the museum. I had no idea the breadth of styles that his work encompassed.

Still-life Flower, 1950s

Self-Portrait, 1964

Aretha Franklin, ca 1986

Sewn Photograph, 1976-1986, Gelatin prints sewn with thread

After wandering through the museum we walked across the Andy Warhol bridge, spotting a tour boat going under the Clemente bridge.

These bar-cars always make me smile. The passengers pedal furiously down the road cheering at passers by as music blasts.

I was channeling my inner-Gail (my sister, an avid walker) as I suggested we leave the car in the parking garage and walk to a fabric store only about a mile and a half away. “Loom” is a shop on Penn Ave filled with interesting fabrics and notions. I picked up a couple of bargains before walking over to Kaya restaurant where we had a scrumptious lunch. The vegan paella was exquisite and we sat outside on the patio. This was the view from our table.

We decided to give our blisters a break and took a taxi back to the parking garage.

All in all, a very satisfying day.

A Day in the Repair Shop

As I wrote yesterday, Bob had performed some diagnostics on our coach to see why our “check engine” light was on, and the codes seemed to indicate a problem with the DEF system. So on Wednesday we left Lancaster County and drove 35 miles to the Cummins Repair Shop in Harrisburg. Arriving at a little after 8:00 am, we spent the day in the waiting room (Auggie, too) while the techs worked on the issue. We were the only ones there for most of the time, spent the day reading and relaxing, and I even got a nap in.

As it turned out, the diagnostics were correct. We had a failed NOx sensor, also known as a nitrous oxide sensor, which is part of the DEF system. The sensor was replaced, the exhaust system was recharged, and by 3:30 we were on our way. We had reservations in Rockwood, PA, but after just a few minutes on the road we realized we’d soon be hitting rush hour traffic and Rockwood was several hours away. I found a campground a lot closer with a site for us and reserved it. The CG in Rockwood was understanding about the situation and didn’t even charge us for the missed night, although we were prepared to pay.

So we spent the night in the town of Burnt Cabins, PA, and in the morning we headed on to Rockwood. The weather was beautiful, the ride was peaceful and we passed some lovely scenery.

We’ll be leaving Friday morning for a site outside of Pittsburgh, and may stay there for a few days if we like the spot. If not, we’ll move to Columbus, OH sooner than we planned.

Lancaster, PA

Lancaster is a very unique area and we like it enough that this is our third visit here this year. Because as much fun as we had on our two GrandCamp week’s here, there was no time to see what we wanted to see.

On Sunday, as I mentioned yesterday, we drove here from South Jersey. On the way, can you guess what happened? Our “check engine” light came on, 18 miles from our destination. Fortunately the engine temperature did not rise so we made it to our destination without problems. Bob ran a diagnostic on the coach and the code that popped up indicated an issue with the DEF system. He found a Cummins repair only 25 miles away so that’s where we’ll be bright and early Wednesday morning.

In the meantime we had two whole days to enjoy the area. Our campground is located where many Amish buggies pass. We fell asleep to the clip clop sound of the horses as they drive home.

On Monday we drove to Kitchen Kettle Village in the town of Bird-in-Hand and walked around the area. There are lots of little shops to explore and places to eat here. While most of them are about as far from whole-food-plant-based as they can be, we found a pretzel place that made whole wheat pretzels and would hold the butter. Yum!

This town has an abundance of yarn shops and fabric stores. Every town should be this well-stocked.

On Tuesday Bob and I drove over to Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum in Lancaster. I was hoping to see some of their collection of tape looms that they are famous for. When we checked in, however, we were told that the Textile Building was only open on Thursday this week. Major disappointment! I told the man at the ticket counter that we were from Texas and had to leave tomorrow, and wasn’t there someone who could show us some tape looms? The fellow was so nice; he found a docent to take us over there and let us in. She explained what she knew about the equipment and it was fascinating.

Afterwards, Bob got into a good discussion with the museum’s gunsmith and I learned some things about muskets and early American rifles. Very interesting! We loved walking around and seeing the historic buildings in the village.

At the gift shop we found several tape looms for sale, made by a local woodcrafter.

None of them were as nice as the one Bob made me several years ago.

We stopped for Chinese food on our way back, and also visited a local weaving shop where I found some old issues of the Prairie Wool Companion, a great magazine published in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Tomorrow I’ll have news on our visit to the Cummins repair shop.

Summer Catch-Up

This has been a very busy summer filled with family happenings. My daughter, Emily, and her family (husband Anthony, daughter’s Quinn and Eve, and son Silas) sold their house and moved to Idaho where Anthony’s parents and some of his siblings live.

It was hard for us to see them go but understand that families need to go where they want to live. Fortunately in this day and age people can stay in touch so easily.

Bob and I have spent much of the last few weeks touching base with family and friends in NJ, enjoying our annual visits. We love you all.

Between helping with the move, hanging out with kids and grandkids, and visiting, I have managed to complete a few projects.

Using my Red PVC Loom and a Miniature Backstrap Heddle from HandyWoman I wove a five pattern thread Baltic pickup band.

This one was woven with #10 crochet cotton but I may do a narrower one using 10/2 cotton and include more patterns. I ran out of warp on this one. There are a lot of patterns one can weave using only 5 pattern threads!

I cross stitched a picture that reminds me of the trips we have made to Saguaro National Park.

This was a kit I purchased in Tucson when I was with my friend, Linda, so it has special meaning. I also purchased another kit in a similar theme that I will stitch up next summer. Years ago I worked at a cross stitch shop in Leominster, MA (I believe it has closed, unfortunately) and stitched up a lot of store samples. It felt good to pick up the needles again. When both pieces are finished and blocked I’ll get them matted and framed to hang in our little winter home in Mesa, AZ.

Daughter Kristen has inherited my love of stitching and has become an amazing cross stitcher. I made her several project bags to hold her WIPs.

We are on the move! Bob and I left Sunday afternoon for our trip west, and my next blog will give you more details, so stay tuned.