Today we took the boys to the Maple Sugar Festival. This is one of their favorite festivals to go to. They enjoy riding the tractor-pulled wagon, seeing the animals and emptying buckets of sap. When we went to this festival last year we were all bundled up in our winter coats, hats, boots, mittens and scarves and we were knee-deep in snow. This year it was 62 degrees outside and we were all in tennis shoes and spring jackets!

We started out the morning with the pancake breakfast that they have at the festival. The food was so good and the syrup was made right there. They only gave you a small amount but it was pure maple syrup and we could hardly believe how sweet it was!  That little bit of syrup was more than enough for our pancakes.

The boys were quite excited to get over to the maple sugaring shack and get started. When we arrived there we still had a few minutes or so before the sap colleting began so we stopped by the outdoor fire where they were cooking some of the maple syrup. They were handing out samples of the sap that you could try so that you could see how it tastes before it became maple syrup. None of us liked it that much.

Matthew taste testing the sap

Inside they have a big furnace-like oven where they also cook the maple syrup. They are constantly feeding wood into this furnace. They have a big room that is just loaded with wood.

We also had a maple stir while we were waiting for the sap collecting to begin. If you have never had a maple stir you seriously have to try one. They are so good and sweet. You receive fresh hot maple syrup in a small bowl and are also given a stick (like a craft stick or tongue depresser stick) and you just stir and stir and stir the syrup. In a minute or two it starts to thicken up and it turns into maple sugar candy. The key to doing this, I believe, is that you need to do it while the syrup is still hot. Once it turns into candy it is usually still warm and it is so good!

A Maple Stir before it has been stirred

The bowl on the right contains the maple syrup before it has been stirred. The bowl on the left contains the maple syrup after it has been stirred and turned into candy

Once the horses were hitched up to the little sleigh containing the barrel for the sap we all went off into the woods. We went to the trees and took off the sap buckets and dumped the sap into the barrel and then we returned the buckets to the trees and covered them. The boys were just beside themselves with excitement. They were each able to do several buckets of sap. The workers are real good with the kids and they let them climb onto the sleigh so that they can actually reach the barrel and pour in the sap. They didn’t rush the kids at all. We were told that since the weather was so warm that the trees were producing a lot of sap. When we were done we treated ourselves to another maple stir!

Choosing our buckets of sap

Sap bucket

We had a very full bucket of sap

Checking the sap buckets

These are the horses that were pulling the sleigh with the barrel of sap. It's hard to see but there are two of them there

Gabriel emptying his sap bucket

One thing that I noticed while we were emptying the sap buckets was that there were a number of trees that looked to be sectioned off with a rope. When we were closer to the trees we saw that it was actually tubing. Instead of having a tap in those trees they had tubes connected to the trees and then those tubes were connected to a larger tube which, I’m assuming, emptied the sap somewhere. It was really neat to see the modern technology right along side of the trees with the sap buckets attached to them.

The trees tapped with tubing instead of using a tap and a bucket

An area of trees tapped with tubes

While we were there we also went into the arena area where they keep the animals in the winter months. There were so many baby animals to see. When we were there for Discovery Days last month there was a mama pig who was pregnant and today we were able to see all of the little pink piglets that had been born. They were really cute.

There were also a lot of baby lambs that had been born in the last month or two. We saw some that were only a few days old while others we were able to see how much they had grown since we saw them last month. They just look so cute and cuddly that you wish that you could just pick them up and cuddle with them.

Of course the boys also saw the barn cat that lives in the barn by the horses. It has got to be one of the biggest cats that I have ever seen. She is super friendly and always lets all of the kids pet her. You can find her in the barn or on the bleachers in the arena.

By the end of the day we were all full of sugar and very tuckered out. We had the windows in the car opened for a little while because the car was so warm from the sun. The boys enjoyed that since we haven’t been able to ride with the windows open since last summer. We had to take the boys’ shoes and socks off in the car because they were pretty muddy after collecting the sap so Matthew decided to air out his little foot by the open window.

Matthew and I both fell asleep on the way home but then the boys ended up being pretty wound up after we were home. We all had a very enjoyable day today. I love to create these kinds of family memories with Tom and the boys!

{This Moment}

{This Moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by: Soule Mama

If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.

I just signed up with Linky Followers which is a great new blogging tool. It’s very easy to sign up and the best part is that it’s FREE.

To help celebrate this great new blogging tool I am participating in a Linky Follower Party Hop.

RULES:
1. You MUST have the LINKY FOLLOWERS tool on your site to participate.
If you see that your link has been deleted you need to add the LINKY FOLLOWER tool to your site and then come back over and re-enter your link
{You can have both the LINKY FOLLOWERS & GFC on your site but you must have the LINKY FOLLOWERS tool to participate in this party hop.}

2. You MUST follow the person who has the party on their site as a thank you.

3. Just add your blog button to the LINKY PARTY below.

4.Then grab the BLOG HOP code
You will find the code right under the Linky Party where it says CLICK HERE TO ENTER–

just under that it says: WHAT IS A BLOG HOP? GET THE CODE HERE

Click on GET THE CODE HERE and enter it into a post on your site.

5. Then you follow other bloggers–(as many as you want)
–leave each one of the blogs that you follow a comment letting them know you are following them and ask them to follow you back.
If you want to add the BLOG HOP to your own site you will get lots of new followers–(see rule #2)

I found this great book at the library, More Softies Only A Mother Could Love by Jess Redman and Meg Leder, and it has some really cute softies in it. I decided to try the Maise softie pattern. Since this was my first softie doll I wanted to choose something that looked a bit more simple. Maise looked like a basic pattern so I decided to give it a try and I just loved it. She turned out so cute and was simple to make.

I ended up being able to use fabric that I had in my stash so I didn’t even need to purchase any supplies. I cut everything out and was ready to go.

I embroidered the face onto the felt before I started to sew so I didn’t need to stop to do that later. The sewing was very simple. I just had to sew the upper and lower body parts together and stitch a piece of rick-rack over the seam. The arms and legs were very tiny for turning once I sewed them. After I stuffed the arms and legs I just basted them to the right side of the front piece of the doll. I then placed the back piece, right side down, on top of the front piece and stitched them together leaving an opening for turning.

While stitching the front and back pieces together the arms and legs are picked up in the seam. I had no problem with the legs but for some reason my arms did not get completely picked up in the seam. I had to redo that portion of the doll a couple of times. I think it’s just one of those things that you have to practice. The top of the dolls legs were straight whereas the arms were on an angle because they followed the rounded sides of the doll’s body. I think that I just wasn’t careful enough when I basted the arms to the body and I don’t think that the raw edges were quite even.

When I was satisfied with the way the arms looked I used some stuffing that I had in my stash and then hand stitched the seam closed.

I was very happy with how my first softie turned out. She is very cute and matches my sewing room so I have her sitting on my desk. It was nice to make something that had such a simple pattern but let you use a variety of fabrics and techniques. I will definately be making more of these softies!

I have had this fabric sitting in my stash for awhile now and I have been thinking of using it to make a valence for my sewing room but I just wasn’t sure if that’s what I wanted to do with it.   There probably was not enough fabric for a valence and I was really wanting to use this fabric already so I turned to my favorite accessory…the bag. I have a thing for bags and I really don’t think that anybody could ever have too many bags, purses, totes, knitting bags, etc. so I pulled out my book, Pretty Little Purses and Pouches by Lark Books, and decided on the Dotted Bliss pattern.

Here is the fabric that I used for this project. I choose a vintage-looking mother/daughter print and a soft pink/white print for the outside of the purse and a blue/white print for the inside.

This purse is made with a front and a back piece that is joined by attaching them to the side strap that goes all the way around the purse.

Once the outside is sewn together the lining comes next. The first time I made this purse, a year or so ago, I didn’t pay attention to the fact that there were no pockets on the lining. I knew that if I ever made this pattern again that I would add some pockets to it so that’s what I did this time.  I simply cut two rectangle pieces out of the fabric that I had left from the lining.

I started the pocket by folding over the top edge of the pocket, right sides together, about an inch or so and pressing.

Then I pressed the bottom edge of the folded piece up 1/4″ followed by stitching the short sides of the pocket along the folded piece only . Once I stitched the sides of the folded piece I turned the top of the pocket right side out. I apologize for not having a picture of this step. Apparently I forgot to take it. Below is a picture of the top of the pocket folded over and the 1/4″ folded up.

Once I turned the pocket I placed the pocket on the ironing board, right side down, folded over the edges of the remaining fabric and pressed them in place and secured with pins. I stitched along the sides of the pocket to stitch the side seams down and I also stitched across the bottom of the flap of the pocket making sure that I caught up the 1/4″ that I had previously pressed down.

Once the pocket was completed I pinned it to the right side of the lining, both lining and pocket right sides are facing up.

I attached the pocket to the lining by sewing along the two sides and the bottom of the pocket. I also stitched a line up the center of the pocket to form two smaller pockets. On the other piece of lining I stitched off-center up the pocket so that one half of the pocket was wider than the other half. I then sewed the two sides of the lining, right sides together.

The next step was to attach the band. The directions in the book were good but it was just a very difficult step. I had trouble with it after I folded the band in half and had to slip it over the top of the purse. I ended up using a lot of pins to keep everything in place and the fabric still puckered on me a bit when I was sewing the band in place.

Once the band was finally sewn into place I just had to attach the handles and the bow.

Other than adding my own pocket to the pattern, the pattern itself was easy to understand. The hardest part for me was attaching that top band. My pockets turned out well too. They are a bit difficult to see in the pictures because the pockets and the lining are the same fabric.

In the end I think that the bag turned out pretty cute!

{This Moment}

{This Moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by: Soule Mama

If you’re inspired to do the same, leave a link to your ‘moment’ in the comments for all to find and see.