Lincoln Home and Museum

Our third day of vacation we visited Lincoln's home in Springfield. The 3-4 block area around it has all been restored to period style and is a very interesting stop. Thankfully, several of the houses were air conditioned in a very unhistorical manner!

The Lincoln home. Below:Volunteer character actors, sweltering in the shade.


A neighbor's house. The umbrella helped keep our cool. Below: The interpretive center had information and a gift shop. Waiting in the shade for the tour to start.


After seeing Lincoln's home, we went to the Lincoln Museum.

The museum had an authentic log cabin very similar to the one Lincoln lived in as a boy.

W. enjoyed meeting John Wilkes Booth, having tea with the Generals, and passing the time with Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass. Below: There were two excellent shows at the museum. The second one made Friend Nancy and I get goosebumps at the end. (In a good way.)

Here is our whole group in front of the White House with the Lincolns.

Orchid

The orchid is going "nuts" again. It has about 26 flowers on it right now.

Needle Book

M. designed and made a needle book for her friend Ann's birthday. A needle book is for storing your needles and supplies when doing handwork sewing.

The finished size was about 4 1/2 x 6 1/2". She embroidered felt flowers for the front.

She added a little pocket to tuck things into. For the birthday, she printed out and added a friendship poem from the internet.

One page is for needles and pins. She sewed pairs of pretty buttons on the opposite page to store thread on. This was her own innovation. This was the center page and was sewn through all layers to attach the pages to the cover.

On the last page she sewed a pocket to hold a darling little pair of sewing scissors. She added a matching ribbon to tie them in so they did not drop out when the book was used.

To attach the scissors ribbon, we just ran the ribbon through two little slits and glued it in the back.

We decided to make the backs of the covers into pockets by cutting them slightly shorter than the fronts. She did a blanket stitch around them before assembling the needle book.

And here is the needle book all wrapped and ready to gift.

Lincoln Downtown

After seeing Lincoln's tomb, we headed uptown for supper. We found lots of statues and got an on-the-street eating recommendation that really panned out. Yum!

After supper we made a quick trip to the Lincoln Memorial Garden. It was a beautiful evening without TOO many mosquitoes. The trails were fun and the views beautiful.

Our full group (less the photog) and our all-time favorite picture from the whole trip (out of about 800 shots!) The quote on the bench speaks to this picture.

Lincoln's Tomb

We spent our first and second tour days in Springfield, IL. Our first stop was Lincoln's grave. The cemetery was beautiful.





The tomb itself is quite impressive.





There is a tradition of touching the nose on this bust of Lincoln. Over time it has been worn to a shine. Later when we went to the Lincoln museum, there was a picture of this same bust on a painted wall map. So many people had rubbed that nose that the paint was gone on it too! People are funny.

This grille was on a door at the back of the memorial tomb.

M. and Friend N.

Vacation!

This last week we went on a family vacation. The girls are good travelers.

We saw plenty of flooding at the beginning of the trip. The water came right up to the interstate, and we had to detour.


We actually enjoyed the detour--the scenery was so much more interesting. Saw some beautiful country as we followed our G. friend's van down highways and byways. (Click on pictures to enlarge.)

Cutsie Birds

I have been embroidering some patterns from http://www.wendigratz.blogspot.com/ (shiny happy world). She has some darling projects. I used several of her birds to make a bird family on a cotton dish towel. I also stitched a simple border around the edge. I get these towels at Hobby Lobby for about $7 per two. I added a few little do-dads to some of the birds. It seemed like they all should have a few french knots. Aren't they cute?