Category: Applique

a 3D Quilt? No Way…

How cute is that? Nanette sent me this pattern a while ago to hopefully get me inspired to get quilting. I think it may have worked! If you aren’t familiar with Nanette’s blog, please take a look. I can only aspire/dream to do things as beautiful as she does. She is truly an amazing quilter.

I love this quilt, but I am a crazy dog lady. I had cut it out quite a while ago, so it was just a matter of sewing it together and getting it quilted. I think I may need to do another one in more girly colors. You never know when you might need one for a gift!.

This quilt was so easy to make. The hardest part was making sure that I did not quilt over the ears!

I put this really cute fleece backing on the back so it is super soft. I love putting fleece on the back of baby quilts. It can also be economical because it is usually 60 inches wide.

I quilted this with a plain old meander, but it seemed to be the right thing. It does not take away from the floppy dog ears.

The Recovery – So the surgery recovery is going. There are ups and downs. It is super frustrating for me because I feel it should be over. But that is just me. Good days and bad days. Some days I feel normal other days I feel like a bowl full of jello. SUper frustrating for me. And then there are the headaches. Ugh. I will get there, eventually.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

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It’s Spooky time!

Last weekend I got crazy and used my AccuCut to cut some pumpkins and bats! It turned out pretty cute! I have a giant AccuCut. I had it long before it was popular. Maybe 20 years? So, I have a friend that is a teacher and she brought it home from school one time and I decided I needed to give it a whirl with fabric. She was cutting out shapes for her bulletin board at school. I loved it and bought my own! She would borrow dies for me because the dies were expensive. Over time I collected some of my own. Honestly, I haven’t used it in forever.

I am pleased with the outcome. I was too lazy to put fusible backing on, so I just used a glue stick to hold them down. It worked pretty well, although I prefer fusible. I used a blanket stitch to go around the edges. The spider web fabric I have had forever, likely years. Still cute though.

So I did straight line quilting, which I did not think I was going to like after a couple of lines, but it turned out OK. I don’t mind it.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

And… I am back

Successful Neck Fusion.  I am already getting the feeling back in my arms and legs.  I was told it might take a while for my spinal cord to recover, but I already see an improvement.  I did spend one night in the hospital, which was the right thing, despite the fat that I did not want to.  But the first night was a bit rough.  Glad it is over. and I can get back to my life.

So, yes, I have already been sewing.  Not the easiest thing to do with my star wars brace, but it is my happy place.  Not a lot, but every little bit counts. Reusable Paper Towels –   Sounds weird, but at my house, dish towels are used every day multiple per day.  It is hard to have enough and have a place to store them.  Then there is the fact that I am a freak also.  We have 3 dogs so if the towel gets dropped on the floor I am done with it , and in the laundry it goes.  Also, if I don’t know where the towel has been and it is out on the counter, in the laundry it goes.  The five second rule does not apply to dish towels at my house. I am using the JoAnn Fabrics dimensions. I had the flannel and am using some old towels that were in really good shape. I looked at buying yardage of terry cloth, but it was expensive and I did not like the feel of most. Easier to buy Bath towels, or use what I had.

So, I am done with the quilting on the Easter Topper. I tried to get fancy, but am still somewhat limited. I need more practice. So, before my surgery I attempted to make bias binding for this piece. Epic fail. I don’t make bias binding often and had to look up how to do it. Still did it wrong and wasted some fabric. I was not clear of mind right before the surgery, so I should not have attempted. Lesson learned. Hoping I have enough of something that matches to give it another go.

This is my contraption that I must wear. Super Attractive. Basically keeps me from moving my neck. I get to take it off for sleep, which I am quite happy about. It does look like something from Star Wars and I am still trying to come up with a witty name for it. The worst part about this surgery was the wait time before. You are left with your own thoughts, which are far worse than ay surgery could be. I have so many sewing things planned, I am hoping I can get to work on all of them soon.

Happy Sewing!

Happy Quilting!

Moving right along…

The Easter Table topper.

What do I like about this table topper – I like the shape. I always like interesting/different shapes. I love my decorated eggs and my colorful peeps.

What do I not like about this table topper – The thread I chose. I love variegated thread, not on this. When I look at the light teal and dark teal (flower looking pieces), they do not line up correctly. The pattern I used looked perfect, but I futzed with it for quite some time to get it to lay right and I still don’t like it. Since this piece is for my table I will have to tolerate the things I don’t like. I would have to make another and see if it came out better before I would give this to someone. Still sort of cute.

I don’t follow directions well – I am sure I am ot the only one. I was looking for something Easter and did not find a lot of patterns. I found this on the Bernina website. It had a lot of embroidery on it which I clearly had no intention of doing. I have two machines that do it and I never do. My 1st late husband and I had a commercial embroidery business, therefore I no longer want to do it and after having commercial machines, find doing it on a one needle sewing machine annoying. So, I basically used the pattern for the shape and the eggs and then went off and did my own thing.

Bambi – Christmas quilt – Off the design wall and being pin basted. I am using a blanket I got for Christmas on the back. It is super soft and very pretty. I think it will be best used on the back of this quilt. I may quilt this on my domestic since I currently have something on my longarm, that is begging to be done. I am finally doing things quilty.

News from the world of Lori – So Doctors have finally figured out what is wrong with me, hopefully. Apparently, my neck has severe arthritis to the point that I do not have spinal fluid surrounding my spinal cord in a decent sized area. So, on February 5th, I will get it fixed. There really is no option, I could wind up paralyzed if I choose not to do it. So, do it we will. Such is life. Yes, I am totally freaked out by it.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Happy New Year – What’s going on?

I decorated Easter Eggs!

/Sounds a little weird for the beginning of January, but all the same that is what I did last night. Of course, not the traditional ones, but more of the fabric ones that I will put on my Easter table topper(Nanette should recognize some of these fabrics)

I found a shape/style that I liked and of course I am going to put my own spin on it. I could never follow the directions. It was actually a topper of the Bernina site that had a bunch of machine embroidery on it. Not my thing, so, I am going to do my own thing. Along with al my decorated eggs will be some brightly colored peeps (fabric of course).

I had a nice long break from work, where I did very little of anything, other than some cleaning and organizing, which was needed. I did sew one top, which I will get to on a later post.

Christmas was nice. My daughter got me a Baby Yoda. Yes, I am a grown woman who still loves some toys. He sits right next to my build a bear Wookie (yes, I am a sci-fi nerd). I do love The Mandalorian. Baby Yoda coos when you squeeze his hand. I am easily entertained.

What’s Coming?

So many people are working on their plans for next year. I am not good with year long plans, so I will be planning sorter spurts. I also got this cool new tool, called a Rocketbook. I plan to show you all it does, as I am finding it quite a useful tool for planning.

UFO’s – Good God – There are so many, that I don’t know where to begin. There are the tops that are completed and need quilted. Will have to count those. Then, there are the projects that are in the piecing stages. They are all in various stages. I would guess there are at least 15 of these. Can you tell I have Quilting ADD? I get bored and have to move to something else for a while. Likely why I am decorating fabric eggs instead of working on a UFO. We are not even going to discuss the quilt on the long arm that has been on the long arm for months. It glares at me when I walk by.

Then there are the things I want to do. I have finally figured out a plan for memory quilts that will include my sister clothes as well as my parents. I will need to make 5 of these ( or 6 f I do one for myself). These take a lot of prep work. Many of the clothes are not woven so they need some interfacing. I spend an evening here or there cutting the clothes into usable pieces. It is really hard to cut into the clothes knowing who they belonged to. But, I keep thinking about my niece and nephew and carry on.

I even tried to figure out what I will be making for gifts for Christmas next year. I only make a few, so not super critical, but it would be nice to get them done in advance.

In between, I work on my charity items, pillow cases and dog beds. I have about 5 dog beds filled with scraps ready, but I wanted to make Dog food Bags to put each one in (pictures later). They don’t take a lot of time, it is just a matter of doing it.

Need to update my blog in general. Have not done that in quite a while. Slacker, I am.

Hoping that I get better at blogging and reading everyone’s blogs. You would think with covid I would have all the time in the world to do it, but nope. Seem to spend a lot of time aimlessly staring into the abyss. Need to stop that.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe Holiday season!

So, I have been very on and off with everything. It could be the “covid” brain. Unlikely.

ALERT Boring information below.

I have Rheumatoid Arthritis. I rarely talk about it. I like to pretend it is not part of my life because some how in my head I feel it lets me cope better. It has worked for a few ears with little things on and off as issues. I take super expensive medication that I am thankful I can afford.

About two months ago I started having what they call a “flare”. I had read about it, but dismissed it as people being whiners. You have something live with it move along. Well, it totally knocked me on my ass. My knees (which have both been replaced) felt like someone was pounding on them with hammers. My hands began to get numb starting at my finger tips. I have this stupid stress fracture in my foot. I had an elbow that would not straighten and the ruptured disks in my back were singing ( a totally rude song). I was so tired battling pain (pretending it did not exist) that I was exhausted 10 minutes after I got out of bed. My daughter informed me that I was mean and grouchy.

I had an MRI of my head to make sure my feeling tired and stupid was not actually related to a problems in my head. I was given some drugs for my back that made me feel like I was melting from the inside out. Three different ones before I said “no more” on that one. So, the rheumatologist added another RA drug to my cocktail and I had a little improvement. Not a lot, but the exhaustion now gave me 20 minutes before I needed a nap after doing anything. Went to a different doctor about my back who did not throw pills at me, which I was grateful for. She suggested a change in diet, avoiding all things white (white sugar, white flour, processed anything). There are many people with RA that suggest that some foods trigger RA or make symptoms worse. OK, worth a shot. So I cut out all sugar only whole wheat and no processed foods (this was the easy one since we had done a way with most of them a long time ago). The rheumatologist also upped the dosage on my new RA drug.

So where are we today… Better, not great. I still have a boot on my foot. I need an MRI and Christmas is right around the corner. I am no longer exhausted to the point I can barely function. I am still not myself and am concerned that I may never make it back to where I was. I now have a stool in the kitchen to sit on while I cook if I need to rest and while working (thank God form home), I don’t often leave my desk. I stayed up til midnight last weekend and we almost had a party. It was monumental. I am trying to break up larger tasks into smaller pieces (gift wrapping ugh). Before the holidays, Kevin and I always go shopping for last minute stuff for the kids. Last weekend we managed to do that. I did pay for it the next day, but it was worth it to feel normal.

Sewing/quilting is a challenge. Had several conversations at home and with dear Nanette, Lynn and Kevin. The consensus was just go do something. It doesn’t matter what it is, go do it. Ten minutes my make you feel better mentally and you would be surprised how 10 minutes here and there can help you accomplish things.

I did start doing that. It made a difference. I am less grouchy (only a little according to my daughter). It helped me finish the Christmas gift for my neighbor. It is surprising what you can accomplish with ten minutes here and there.

I am on vacation over the holidays. Honda shuts down. I am hoping to do some sewing and organizing. I have plans to do some memory quilts in 2021. It is jut very hard to cut into my parents and sisters cloths. Every time I look at the couple of Dad’s shirts, I start to cry. I know in the end the quilts will be appreciated. I even have plans to make one for myself. I have a long list of many things to accomplish this year, so I have to get much better.

The chickens – My neighbor loves chickens. I am hoping that she loves this for her table. It is cute and whimsical. I will say. that at the points were a giant pain in the butt. Not the 90 degree ones, but the other ones at the intersection of the red fabric. Such a struggle. They are not perfect. It’s still cute though.

I wish everyone the best Holiday season possible!

I will try to do better in 2021.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

80 Blocks done

So, I have been working on these blocks a little at a time for quite some time. I used to refer to it as the “I am mad quilt”, mostly because this was a quilt where I could just sit down for a long period of time and work on. So, when I got frustrated I would often sit down and sew for a while.

All the blocks need trimmed, and then we will put them all together. I do have a few duplicates, but not many.

I hope you are all staying safe. I am still working, but am expecting some sort of Announcement soon regarding work from home. The kids are out of school, and were bored the same day. All the kids birthdays are next week, so no going to dinner. I was taking Haley and her friend to Niagra Falls for the weekend, but we will have to change that. She will be sixteen and I am already co cerned about what I will do when she leaves me.

Happy sewing, happy quilting, stay safe

I finished something….and I can not get my act together

I finished the dinosaur quilt.  Well, that is easy when you get laid off and have no job. 20180917_133908 Right before the holidays.  Yeah.  Ugh.  Oh please, let me add some more crappy ass news (sorry for that).  My favorite uncle died on Thanksgiving day.  He was the last bit of my Mom that I had.  He had the best sense of humor.  He loved to tease my Mom (when she was still here), which us kids found hysterical.  He lived in Germany (that is where my other was from).  I loved when he called me.  He always made me laugh and it reminded me of Mom.  I will miss him dearly.

The picture is my Uncle Uwe, my dear sweet sister Kellie and my cousin Holger (who is coming to visit in August.  Very excited about that).  It is a great photo.  Holger and Kellie were about a year apart.  He came to live with my parents for a year and went to High School as a teenager with Kellie.

So, while job hunting, I am sewing, which is sort of good.  Helps to keep my mind of my super crappy life.

About the Dinosaur quilt (rant over)

It came out cute.  I really like it.  No fancy quilting, just meandering, which seemed to work fine for this quilt.  I pieced the back, which came out pretty good.  I find this adds personality to the quilt and takes way less fabrics.  I can use up random one yard pieces that I have.

I feel guilty for not reading everyone’s blog, I need to get back to that.  it is one of my happy places.  I really love to see what everyone is doing.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Treasure your loved ones.

 

I’m still here … Hand quilt along and other stuff

I have missed you all.  Just have not been myself for a host of issues.

I have managed to do some sewing.  It helps me think and sort of work things out.  I finished my dinosaur quilt top.  It came out nicely.  It is for Kevin’s sister.  Her baby theme is dinosaurs.  I think it will be cure for a boy.

watermark_2018-11-18-13-10-04.jpgFor my Hand Quilt Along, I have finally picked back up my dog bone dresser scarf.  It is nearly finished.  I added the last dog bone, so hope to have it finished soon.  This is the lat one in the set of 4.  Please visit all the wonderful ladies in the Hand Quilt Along and check out what they have been up to.

Kathy, Margaret, Kerry, Emma, Tracy, Deb, Connie, Susan,  Nanette, Sassy , Edith, Sharon, Karrin, and Gretchen
Happy Sewing
Happy Quilting
Treasure your Family

A little more progress…

So These are my jars for the fall quilt along.  At least I got something done.  I am still one behind.  The final one came out this past Tuesday.  I am hoping this weekend that I can get the rest of them done…just to get them done.  I have embarked on yet a another project to go along with the 15 others.  I need to make a dinosaur baby quilt.  I have the fabric and have begun some of the cutting.  It has a bunch of , so I better get moving.

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I had been saving this photo to send to my sister when she felt better.  I found it hysterical and very true.  I hate that I can never send it to her.  I remember sitting in the hospital and showing it to Matt (her husband) and he said “Man, I sure hope you get to send it to her”.  I never thought in a million years that I would not have my chance.  sigh…..

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Love the ones you are with….like there is no tomorrow.