Category: Summer

County Fair Table Topper

In a previous post, I wrote about resurrecting some old decorative art sketches to make pen and ink panels for a tri-stand quilt rack.  That post is here:

https://lillianscupboard.wordpress.com/2012/07/01/july-4th-parade-tri-stand-mini-quilts/

I thought I’d give another favorite sketch a try and made a panel for my larger mini-quilt rack using a design from 1996.  I thought it would be nice to do a crazy-quilt border using actual fair award ribbons.  Although I have a box full of county and state fair ribbons I‘ve won through the years, I didn’t want to cut those up.  Luckily, my daughter found a box of Montgomery County award ribbons (Dayton, Ohio) in an antique mall and I used some of those.

It’s rather ironic that I’m using ribbons from this fair because it was a major event that we attended all the time I was growing up in the 1930s-40s.  I even posted about their big Labor Day Fair here:

https://lillianscupboard.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/labor-day-in-the-1930s-40s/

I added strip borders and quilted in gold thread to match the lettering on the ribbons…

…and a sleeve, label and binding.

Back in 1996, I had made several wood projects with this design to sell in our craft mall booth.  It was like meeting an old friend again after all these years.

Click on pictures to enlarge.

It’s County Fair Time in my July Kitchen.

County fairs were the major source of summer entertainment throughout my childhood in the 1930-40s era and we went to as many fairs as we could manage on my father’s salary and his gas ration points during World War II.  My favorite part of the fair was sitting around the barn before and after the afternoon’s races, listening to all of the “horse talk” going on around me and just sniffing – a horse barn is still my favorite scent in the world.  Of course, a barn is always full of flies.  My mother used to say that my little sister, who was so anxious to get to the midway and rides, would sit on a folding chair in the barn area and constantly wriggle, scratch, complain, and whine, while every fly in the county landed on her.  Meanwhile, I sat very quietly, taking in all the sights, sounds and smells with not one fly near me.

In my childhood, the horses made up 90% of my interest in the fair, so all through my life, I’ve collected anything with a harness horse on it.  I have quite a few items in my kitchen:

Although I always loved the horses the most, I was also anxious to see the baking and canning displays, the animals, and the quilts.

My kitchen shelf has a large silver tray on top that was won by my father for a race in 1969, and there are two silver bowls plus a brass tray that I won in pie contests in the 1980s.

All of the family competed and won awards in our county fairs and the Ohio State Fair.

It’s fair time again and although we don’t compete any more, I have a small county fair to enjoy right here in my own kitchen.

Click on pictures to enlarge.

Beach and Surfing Wall Hanging


I had stitched up some curtain panels with a cute beach/surfing theme for my youngest daughter’s family room …

…and she thought it would be nice to use the scraps of fabric along with pictures of her kids on beach vacations to make a wall hanging.

I picked up a bunch of fat quarters with a tropical or beach theme and made up a 30×30 inch wall hanging for her.  My oldest daughter is expert at enhancing photos so I had some beautifully clear pictures printed on fabric to work with.  These are two of my favorites.

I fussy-cut the fabric to take advantage of the cute station wagon, surfboard, and ukulele designs and assembled everything with very simple sashing.

The piece without borders was just the right size for the space my daughter had reserved, so I just used a binding of 6 inch strips of all of the fat quarter fabrics which gave the piece a playful look.

The backing is made entirely of scraps.

The wall hanging is perfect in my daughter’s family room which includes some other cute  “beachy” decorations….

…plus an autographed program from a recent Cincinnati Beach Boys concert.

Click on photos to enlarge.

The Perfect Summer Supper

I was just telling my daughter yesterday that I don’t have much interest in food – nothing tastes really good to me.  We have nice meals here at home and eat out twice a week, but lately nothing seems to appeal to me.

Then, this afternoon, we visited two of our local farm markets (Loveland, Ohio) and came home to a simple supper with no recipes that was the best thing I’ve tasted in months:  Bi-Color corn on the cob (my favorite), a wonderful artisan bread with a tomato and parmesan topping, and my favorite Indiana Melon (canteloupe). The sunflowers just added to the beauty of the meal.

July 4th Parade Tri-Stand Mini-Quilts

In the 1990s, my oldest daughter and I had a booth in a large craft mall in Cincinnati.  My contributions were mainly decorative art painted on vintage wood pieces and enamelware.  We had the booth for over 4 years and I made and sold countless pieces with designs sometimes from pattern books but mostly from my own sketches.  I’m not painterly at all and just did my thing with pen and ink accentuated with acrylic painting.

Although I haven’t painted anything since 1998, I kept all of my sketches and designs and thought I might be able to incorporate some of them into pieces for wall hangings or my mini-quilt racks.  First, I scanned the sketch which was bigger than I wanted for this project ….

…and then, using a light box, I went over the basic elements of the sketch with pencil.  I then scanned this sketch, made it the size I wanted and printed it onto June Tailor Colorfast Fabric Sheets for Ink Jet Printers.

I left the paper backing on the printed panel and painted the design with acrylic paint thinned with water.  When the piece was dry, I went over it and added details with an ultra-fine point Sharpie pen.  Then, the piece was pressed to set the colors and the paper backing was removed.

These panels were combined with strips of fabric to make them the correct size for my Tri-Stand table topper.  I added batting, binding, a sleeve and a label to complete the panels.  I also added a patriotic button to each that I found half-price at Joann’s.

I was pleased with how the panels turned out and since I don’t intend to wash them, the colors should stay vibrant for a long time.  It made me happy to be able to use an old familiar sketch again and to be able to do a little painting.

This particular design was used for 5 different projects which were sold from our booth.

A New Park in my Neighborhood

There’s a new park in my neighborhood, dedicated over the Memorial Day weekend.  It’s called Home of the Brave Park and at the very center is a gorgeous memorial to our veterans.

The memorial sets in the middle of a large parcel of land that was home to a fireworks manufacturer since 1931.  The Rozzi family is famous in our area for spectacular shows and provided the fireworks for the first night game ever played in the major leagues – the Cincinnati Reds vs.  the Philadelphia Phillies at Crosley Field on May 24, 1935.  A couple of years ago, the company moved to another location and now their beautiful property is home to a great park that includes a children’s play area with a waterpark, picnic shelter, walking trails, baseball  and soccer fields, and lots of pretty flowers, bushes and trees.

It’s a five-minute drive from my home and I have a feeling the grandchildren are going to be spending a lot of time there this summer.