Category: Life

Started this one at least 20 years ago

And just like that another quilt top is completed.

I am trying to complete some of those half-finished projects. Pretty sure this one was started 20+ years ago.

While I remember that it was BOM, I have no memory of hand-sewing these blocks together. None whatsoever. It was during a rather dark time in my life, when I have fairly large missing time blocks for various reasons.

Pretty sure this BOM was from Jo Ann fabrics. I believe dead husband #1 bought me them as gifts (Don’t be shocked, I deal with my “situation” with humor). I didn’t have them all and remember buying the rest of them on clearance, including the setting kit. Odd that I can remember all those details, but not hand sewing them.

While it does not look bad, I would say that it is not really my style. It is very traditional, which is not my usual path. Don’t get me wrong, I like it, I just can’t imagine wanting to make that quilt now. I tend to be unable to follow directions, and always veer off the intended path in some way.

I am preparing for a retreat later in March and starting to look for projects to take along and this was starting at me, begging to be completed.

Every box I opened revealed some other “Chinese Spy Balloon”, oh wait I mean UFO.

At this point, I would imagine 20+ half-done projects. One of them I will take to the retreat with me. It was one of those “Cake Mix” patterns by Moda. It is scrappy so we will see how it turns out. I do not have the original photo of what it is supposed to look like, so I will be winging that.

Yep, I have a dog batting box, just for them. Ruger seems to enjoy spending quality time with Mom.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

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Yep, I look like Frankenstein

So, I had the chance last month to donate some dog beds to one of my favorite Dog Charities, Hospets. They make having a pet as a Senior much easier. I think I may have had 11 this time. All are totally washable and have zippered covers. I also sent some bandana collar covers. I hope they can sell them for some additional funds.

Why do I look like Frankenstein? Well, on October 10th I had to have neck (spinal) surgery again. It was sort of a sudden thing. At the end of September, I received date of late October, and then then they decided to do it sooner rather than later. I had some fairly severe spinal compression and it appeared that I may be losing spinal fluid (turns out I wasn’t, phew). Good thing I did not have much time to think about it. I might have chickened out. I spent a few days at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. Good times. I am home recovering. So far so good. It seems that a few things (problems) may have been resolved. Fingers crossed. Tomorrow I go to have my staples removed. This has been the longest I have been out of work since the birth f my daughter. It feels weird. So they shaved some of my hair off and I have a line of staples down the back f my neck. Hair grows back. I am itchy now, so looking forward to the removal of those staples.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

What a week!

I completed this table runner last weekend, but not get to photograph it until today. One f the many table runners that I made while recovering from my neck surgery. The Getting them quilted as time allows. Pretty simple design, but the fabrics don’t look too bad together. e prints were all part of

The prints were all part of the same line of fabrics from many moons ago. Simple straight-line quilting and a black cotton back.

Well, this is the week that my daughter left for school. Dropped her off yesterday. My feelings are very odd. I was so sad to see her go, yet happy for her to have this experience. I had a wonderful time in college and want her to have the time of her life.

At the moment she is having a difficult time adjusting. It is new. She is nervous. Doing my best to alleviate her feelings, while still having my own.

Last weekend we went to Niagra Falls for a long weekend. We had a blast. I am so glad we went.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Look… I finished something

It truly is a bittersweet miracle. I started this quilt for my daughter several years ago when she was an actual bookworm. Now I think she reads a lot…on her phone.

There are so many fancy bookcase quilts. Mine is not that fancy. But, I did include the titles of many of the books that she read.

Not all the books have titles on them, but I would guess that about half of them do. Haley wanted to take this quilt to college, so I had to get it quilted. She will be leaving next week. I did not think that I would like it, but when she held it up, I did think it was sort of cute.

I chose not to put a regular label on this quilt and instead quilted messages into the quilt. She noticed a couple, but there is a ton of messages in the quilt. I can’t wait until she finds “Moka smells like chocolate”. Haley has always said “Moka smells” and my response has been “She smells like Chocolate”. She is a chocolate lab.

Haley picked out the fabric for the back of this quilt. She chose Harry Potter themed newsprint. Seemed like a good choice for the back of a library quilt.

I can’t imagine her not being here. It will be the most difficult thing for me. I won’t be there to protect her. But, I raised a strong smart young woman. I need to remember that as I wipe away my tears. My baby has grown up and I don’t like it. She has been my purpose. My reason for being here.

Moka says Hi. She has a habit of sitting on people’s heads when you lay down. Haley was not impressed.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Rescue a furry friend

I need no more hobbies…OK maybe one…

As if I have nothing else to do….Prime Day strikes and I feel the need to try Diamond painting. Why? It was prime Day. I only spent $3 (on this). My little sister Kellie always liked to do diamond painting. So, why not. In my mind, I could complete this, put some quilting around it and hang on the door for Valentine’s Day. Makes sense, right?

I know nothing about how this works. Looks pretty simple, but trying to figure out how these tiny things stick to the canvas….. I will figure it out or watch a youtube video.

I really did control myself on Prime Day. There were sewing items and Fabric.com deals. I had things in my cart a zillion times, but managed to come to my senses. Good thing because Connecting threads had a 20 fat quarter pack for $14 yesterday. I could not, in good conscience, let that go. I did not. Awaiting its arrival. Funny, I actually bought that same fat quarter pack for a project a while back for $45.

Hope all your projects are moving forward. I’ll let you know how the diamond painting goes…..

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Happy Diamond Painting?

So much time has passed…

So much time has passed since I last wrote a blog post. I really have no good excuse. Sometimes life just gets in the way. My daughter graduated with her Associate’s Degree and then graduated from High school, then the party. There has been a lot going on.

Sewing/quilting has always been part of my relaxation effort and it totally went by the wayside. It wasn’t that I did nothing…. I still collected patterns and fabric (LOL). But completed ver little.

I am hoping that life will slow down a bit for me now and I can get back to the things I love to do. I find that a little time in the sewing room does do a lot for me.

I attempted to make my first bag!. You know one with a zipper and everything. It is far from perfect, but I think I will try it again.

It has lots of issues, but I still don’t hate it. Pretty fabric. I did learn a lot, which is good. The instructions were not easy to follow, but I did watch a couple of videos that cleared a lot up for me. It takes three fat quarters, which is nice. For whatever reason, I also decided to do a lot of quilting. Not sure I would do that much quilting on the next one. Pretty sure all that quilting took me 5 times longer than assembling the bag.

My daughter will head off to Bowling Green in August. I will be left behind to figure out what to do with my life. She has been and is my life. For so long it has been her and I against the world. I knew this day would come, yet I still find myself totally unprepared. We do everything together and that will change. While I am her parent first, she truly is the most wonderful person in my life. After all, “I made her in my lady oven”.

I hope to find myself expressing myself more often in blog posts, so you may hear from me more as I navigate my way through the next phase of my life.

Happy Sewing

Happy quilting

A Quilting Reset

So, I had a conversation with “Special K” (significant other, life partner, manfriend, whatever you call him) about my general attitude. I just don’t feel myself. “I don’t even go in my sewing room anymore”, I said. His response, “Maybe that is the problem”. GENIUS!. Honestly have not found my balance since Kevin was in the hospital. I find myself spending more time with him, instead of going off by myself and doing my thing. Likely a mistake.

So, how does one reset? They go to a quilting retreat. Yep, our local guild is going on a retreat, organized by my partner in crime (Lynn) and I. Leaving this afternoon and coming back on Sunday. Hoping this put me back in the habit. I think it will.

So what have I done? Not much. I did make a few dog bandanas (picture). It was something quick and easy.

Snibble modeling on the left. Ruger modeling on the right. Two of my favorite Puppers!

So, we had an ice storm. The trees were beautiful. It actually stayed for a couple days. I am hoping the retreat helps me fix things. I threw a bunch of projects in a bag and off I go. Fingers crossed.

Maybe some crazy retreat photos to come!

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

And Just like that…it’s nearly Christmas

Good thing I finished those placemats.

They came out OK. It does make my dining room look festive. My Santa chair covers also help. The stuffed dogs? Well, Raising Cains chickens sells them every year. I recently got 2 new ones (Charlie Brown and Snoopy). Proceeds go to help dogs. My daughter thought they needed to be in the photo. They are always yellow labs in a costume. Super-Cute.

The placemats came out ok. After I made a couple, I was unhappy with my thread choice. It was a pretty red/green twist. It just looks dark to me. Fortunately, my lines are pretty straight so it does not look that bad. I wish I had used thread that matched the background fabric. Next time.

So, I sent my Plaid Challenge Quilt to my brother-in-law. He had a rough year, so I thought it might make him happy and he does have to live with my sister. LOL. They sent me this picture last night of it over thier love seat.

I do love it when I see one of my quilts in use or displayed.

Everyone at my house is not feeling well. Not horrible illness, just enough to annoy you. Makes it difficult to get things done for the holidays. We have been avoiding everyone because it certainly could be the “Rona”. My daughter and I lost smell and taste. I am about 10 days in so on the back side. It just felt like a crappy head cold.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Merry Christmas

Happy New Year

What the Heck am I doing?

Good question. I sometimes wonder what I am doing. I quilted, on my domestic, my scrabble dog wall hanging. I needed something to do that would take me a bit of uninterupted time. Sometimes when I have a lot on my mind (or just anxiety in general), I want to work on something that requires my undivided attention. This has been basted and staring at me for quite a few weeks. I figured it would take me 1-1.5 hours after I got set up to complete the quilting. I was not far off the mark.

I did find, that since I don’t really quilt much on my domestic machine, except straight line, that I now suck at free motion quilting on it. It is possible that it is because iut requires strenght (shoulders, I think) that I don’t have and may never have. I used my dog boine ruler. Not sure why they are called rulers, they don’t actually measure anything. I did take a photo of one of the better-looking areas (LOL).

Anxiety, who me?

Haha. Crazy anxiety. That’s me. I am a worrier by nature., I think I got that from my mother. She was a worrier. So anxiety is just an added bonus.

What causes me to be insane? Well, last week on Wednesday, I woke up unable to walk. Awesome. The absolute most severe pain I have ever felt, everytime I put my right leg down. Words can not describe this pain. Thinking my post (artificail knee) had finally come loose after 25 years, I had my daughter drive me to the ER. Nope, knee not loose. Not much we can help you with, go to your ortho. Six weeks wait. Try someone local. Eww, not what I usually want to do, living outside the city. The local doctors in the rural world have always scared me. But, they agreed to see me that day. I was pleasantly surprised. Young Doc, who told me that my pain was likely coming from my hip (even though it did not hurt). Told me the answer was to shoot up the aggravated knee with medication and then come back on Friday and have the same thing done to my hip. It worked! However, now, I can add hip arthritits and all the goodies that come with that to my crappy resume. I also now keep crutches by the door of the bedroom in case it happens again. This is one of the many reasons I am half crazy. What lovely thing will I wake up with tomorrow? If this is getting old, I have a strong understanding of why people fight it.

Fun Coming!

Fun is needed. Going on a mini-retreat in Amish country in Ohio, with my quilting partner in crime Lynn and maybe one other person (hopefully Sharon comes because she seems like she would be fun). We are staying at a historic hotel. Not only is it a retreat center, but they have ghost hunts. LOL. It is has Victorian Era Decor and past presidents have stayed there (Grover Cleveland). Hotel Millersburg is in the heart of Ohio Amish Country (AKA lots of quilt shops). Photos to come….

So, I am collecting up my projects that I will work on and looking forward to the great escape.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

A little bit of work….

So, I managed to get the quilt for my Aunt on the long arm. I am about 2/3rds finished. I have to do a bit and walk away and come back to it. Too much standing kills me. I am getting there. Before, I just could not do it. Now I can do some. I’ll take it. I am using my heart ruler and curly q’s. Initially when I started, It would not sew. Screwed around for an hour did some research and figured out I put my new needle in backwards. Duh.

Quilt Police – So, I saw this photo on Facebook and had a good laugh. I am super critical of myself, always. The quilt police would have a hay day with binding like that. Given the true purpose of this quilt, that should never matter. It was made to keep someone warm and I am sure it did a fabulous job at it.

I follow a lot of groups on Facebook and Instagram, mostly for the pictures of quilts. I am sometimes shocked and appalled at things people say to fellow quilters. “Never ever by fabric at JoAnne’s or Wal-Mart. It is horrible quality”. There are quilters out there that can not afford to buy $12-$15 per yard fabric. Our ancestors, including my grandmother, used old coats, clothes, and feed sacks. Quilts were very often made out of repurposed items.

I was once told that the Kona that JoAnn’s was not the same Kona sold at quilt shops. Honestly, not true. I have bought some at both. Each raveled equally as bad. They felt the same. I do not believe the thread count was different. So, yep I used my 60% off Coupon to buy a large piece of Kona at JoAnn’s over the weekend.

I have also purchased Michael Miller fabrics at Wal-Mart. You just have to look.

Someone is wearing a quilt – I did not watch the met gala, but did see photos of this person wearing a quilt. Thought it was amusing. Turns out that this quilt was actually made by someone’s mother. The photo on the right is of it on a bed at their home. It wound up at a thrift shop and was purchased by a designer to make this…..whatever it is called.

The designer did end up contacting the lady who’s mother made the quilt once it came to light. She just wanted everyone to know that her mother made the quilt that this gentleman wore (rapper I think…can’t remember his name).

So, you never know where a quilt that you make might end up! Who would have thought the red carpet……

Senior Moment – Literally. No, not me (although I have plenty). My daughter is a senior this year., Hard to believe. We had Senior Photo’s taken recently. I cried the night before so I would not do it during the photo shoot. Our Photographer took 350 Photos. Crazy. Pretty sure I had one pose when I was a Senior and that was it. I do like the one with the waterfall, but I have not seen them all yet. That looks like my girl the most.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting