by Karen on January 27, 2012
in quilts
Before I left to stay with my mother for two days I noticed up by the driveway as I was leaving Wednesday morning that one of the daffodils was about to open – sure enough when I got home the daffodil was open! I do not remember ever having a blossom so early in the – spring – winter – spring – I think the plants are confused as to what season it is and so I’m I!
My first flower of 2012 
and there are a lot more buds up there and closer to the house – spring is coming early – of course we might get a snow yet or some really cold weather – but that flower sure looks welcoming to me.
Anyway I am home – mom is doing great, she is getting around really well for someone who is wheelchair confined all the time. Well enough that I thought I could come home. Of course I know she was having some of the family drop in to see her this afternoon and evening and more tomorrow – people checking up on her. Remarkable how fast recovery is from surgery now days even for the elderly. We never did get the pathology report back this week so hopefully that will be early next week so she will know for sure what is going on.
This morning when I was out grocery shopping for mom before I left I ran into Rogers to the quilt shop there to see if I could match up more fabric for Joseph’s Coat – I need to find a pinkish/red/purple if that makes any sense. The shop is the Rabbits Lair and they just do not carry many almost solids and I don’t believe any batiks at all. I found the 3rd fabric from the left which helps carry out the flow of colors very well I think. And that was just about the only purchase – 1 yard!
But while at mom’s I almost lost my stick on metal thimble that I use for applique and hand piecing and seeing as they had one on their notions wall I decided to get a spare seeing as I wouldn’t have to pay shipping and handling. What a big spender I am I really and truly am trying to stick to my 2012 policy of using what I have and only buy if needed. It sure was hard though when seeing all the beautiful jelly rolls and charm packages – books, rulers – oh my could go on and on and that is a small quilt shop! I think I mentioned this shop last month or the month before – they also have yarn – it used to be half the shop was yarn, half fabric. They moved the yarn out to it’s own store – I misunderstood last time and said the store would be next door – it is is around the block but still in the cobblestone area for anyone who happens to be going in that direction. I don’t remember the name for it.
I got very little piecing done. I had planned on it while sitting and talking with mom, but between all the housework I did and little sleep at night I just didn’t get around to it! I’m sure I will get busy this week after I get a good nights sleep tonight – I hope!
by Karen on January 27, 2012
in quilts
Last night I was reading well wishes to mom from the computer – she was absolutely blown away to be getting well wishes from people all over the United States and from as far away as England, Spain, Australia and other countries around the world. She is not very computer literate but as I compared it to pen pals from around the world she understands it. She said to tell everyone thank you for the well wishes and also to tell everyone she is feeling much better and and is amazed at people that don’t know her to send best wishes.
Thanks everyone!
by Karen on January 26, 2012
in quilts
LOL – not what I would like to do! It was house cleaning day at my mom’s apartment – this was my friend today!
And this:
I did get a little quilting done last night though on the Farmer’s Wife, – but not a lot – it was just too warm as I thought it might be. Mom keeps her heat at 74 degrees because she gets very chilly as a lot of older people do – I keep mine at 68 – I brought t-shirts that I wear in warm weather instead of my usual long sleeve shirts that I normally wear at this time of year!
For a change I really and truly do not intend to put a lot of quilting in this quilt – there will be enough just not excessive!! I might put one line around the inside edges of the white blocks – not sure – we will see.
Tonight now that all the house work is done I will work on the Joseph’s Coat pieces instead of the quilt – I already moved that back out to the car so it was out of my way. Tomorrow I head back home after doing grocery shopping for mom. She is feeling much better and is getting on as normal now. Pathology should be back tomorrow or Monday I guess.
by Karen on January 24, 2012
in quilts
I thought today just for fun I would play with machine quilting – which we all know is not my specialty 
so what did I do – I dropped the feed dogs and thought I would see what I could do. I set my speed setting on my Janome Platinum 720 to a fairly slow speed and gave it a whirl – expert I am not!!
This is the stencil flower that I will be using on the Farmers Wife blank blocks although those blocks are little smaller than this and I think it will just be the flower not the leaves. I have all different sizes of stitches on this! I could not control it well.
A little more of a close up – you can see my wild uneven stitches here. All I know about machine quilting is a little bit that I have picked up from books really – last year I went over to CJ’s house and doodled with her long arm for fun – but we all know that is different than using your domestic machine. I was following laser dots that time.
LOL, the back is a real mess!
I thought I would give it one more try before I gave up for the afternoon. I actually did better on stitch length control.
A close up
The back side – hmm – tension wasn’t right! Oh well, just practice – haven’t a clue if I would try to do anything like this on one of my quilts but maybe more straight line stitching instead – easier and neater in the long run for me!! How do you guys do this!! LOL, I might have to stick with what I do best.
Now back to my specialty – hand quilting on Star Crazy this evening. I didn’t rinse out the blue lines when I took this photo. I will be behind my tentative schedule for getting this quilt done with all the running I have been doing to my moms – but I will still try to get it done by April – we will see!!
Very little quilting was done yesterday as I was out of town for a good portion of the day. I want to thank everyone for the well wishes sent to me for my mother who is in the hospital. So here is an update for those of you who have placed concerned and left questions – there were too many to answer individually. My 87 year old mom had a hysterectomy yesterday as she is battling cancer yet again in her life. The doctor feels it was at stage one and confined to the uterus but we will not know until all of the pathology comes back later in the week. The surgeon uses more modern tiny cuts than years past and recovery is fast for most people. It goes slower though as you age and have more problems getting around. Most stay in the hospital one night – the doctor originally said one night for mom but after seeing her this morning I think they will decide to keep her in one more day at least. I will go back tomorrow or the next day depending on when she goes home so that I can help her the first couple of days. I live a little more than two hours away though so I can’t be there every day I have other siblings near her that are in and out now.
It was a very long day yesterday – started at 3:30 AM and I got home close to 5:30 PM in order to unwind and relax I got a little quilting done on Star Crazy and then went to bed by 9:30 – how I made it to then is beyond me! I took my kindle to bed with me to read awhile before falling asleep and I think I only read two pages when I said to heck with this and shut the light off! Then of course I woke up with a splitting headache at 6 AM.
I got this section done on the weekend.
Most of this was on the weekend and the straight lines last night.
Today I have a list of chores I need to get busy with and I would love to get in a little exercise as it helps me to relax. I should find out later today from my sister what day mom will be getting out of the hospital but most likely won’t know until sometime tomorrow if I will be driving back on Wednesday or Thursday.
Now I guess I better get the day rolling!
In the past month or so I have had about 4 or 5 new readers – one just yesterday – ask me where did I get the pattern for the “Looking Through the Fence” quilt. I thought seeing as I am out of town today I would schedule a post that tells about this quilt and maybe some others this week.
I made this quilt last fall, I hand pieced it in September and October of 2011 while we were traveling in our little motorhome. This is really a very easy quilt to piece. I would say confident beginner? I was told that the individual block that makes up this quilt is called “Kansas Troubles” there are different blocks though that go by that name – not all the same one either 
Looking Through the Fence is my name for the quilt as it reminded me of a lattice fence.
I saw the pattern for the pillow at the Moda Bake Shop web site. If you click on that link it leads you to a post on pillows for the couch. There are 5 pillows lined up on the couch – the pattern for this one is the 2nd from the arm of the couch. If you scroll down throughout the list of instructions you will see how easily it is made. If you want pillow size follow the directions for it – if you want to make a quilt just keep on making those blocks until you have enough!!
Now if you go back to the top of the Moda Bake Shop site and click on the header or just click on my link again – it takes you back to home – which would be the latest date that the web site has been updated. They have wonderful patterns – free – with instructions telling you how to construct the quilts.
I made several of my smaller quilts last year from this web site. They have patterns for beginners and on up. I love making the beginner patterns even if I am not a beginner! They are fun and easy to do. Use a lot of white or black with wild prints or plain old pastels and you have lovely looking modern quilts.
Another I made from that web site is this one, Geese in the Park – the link to it is here. This is made up of large flying geese units and you just turn them this way and that to get this arrangement.
I am in no way connected to the Moda Bake Shop and they are not a sponsor of my blog – I have no sponsors – it’s just me I am just a very satisfied customer!!
I got to thinking yesterday about the fact that I will be at my mom’s about 2 days this week. I had to get sewing stuff ready for the week – I won’t bring any sewing for the day that she is in the hospital, too many people around and talking so much! We will be in and out anyhow and Mike and I will only be there part of the day. But for the two days at her apartment I had intended to just bring the Farmer’s Wife to quilt – then I remembered how warm she keeps it there. It might be too hot to quilt – I will bring it and if I get too warm I can set it aside and work on Joseph’s Coat.
So I spent several hours in between doing laundry cutting out and pinning the next row yesterday. Another red added-
Looking down at the row added.
When looking at the new color added to the last color it looks orangey to me, because it is by the carpet? I don’t know so I brought two pieces in to the dinning area table and the contrast between the colors is better in here I think.
I pin segments together and stack on the sandpaper board covered in felt. I start at the bottom of the quilt and work my way up. Then when I piece as I finish I stack from the top of the quilt to the bottom. Then start putting that row together. This really helps to keep things organized and sew the correct pieces together.
I don’t know if any of you remember that when first started this quilt I knew I wouldn’t have enough of my background fabric – the right hand side of the photo. I ordered more but they didn’t have the same color so I ordered a different light green which turned out much darker than I wanted it to be. I bleached it, and didn’t quite care for it so then I tea dyed it! 
then it was kind of peachy – but I wasn’t going to try anymore. I figured that if the quilt had graduated colors than the background could too. In this row I am starting to use the fabric on the left for the background and you can’t even see it when it is laid out on the carpet – weird.
I finally found one lighting source in the house where I could see the difference on the quilt but I figured if I hadn’t had to try so hard it was not going to be so noticeable of a difference in color that it wasn’t going to matter in this quilt.
I’m sure y’all are getting sick of Joseph’s Coat (yes I am keeping that name for the quilt for now) – but I really have not worked on much else recently. I got a lot of circles prepped last night and this morning and last evening I sat for about 2 hours stitching! I have 14 more circles to prep for this section of the quilt top that is done – that feels great!! After I get those attached I will get back to work on more rows so there will be changes coming up.
This is the only area left that needs circles on it.
Overall view.
I think I will get the remaining circles done this weekend, next week is kind of up in the air on what I will get done. My mom is having surgery on Monday and will be in the hospital for a night or two then home. I will be there on Monday and then maybe on Wednesday and Thursday. We are kind of playing it by ear right now as to how much care she will need after surgery. She might surprise us all and be just fine. If she needs me to stay with her for a day or two day I intend to bring the Farmer’s Wife quilt with me to work on. I have it ready and it is easier than bringing a bunch of pieces. I can quilt in between helping her out a little.
I hope you all have a great weekend!
by Karen on January 20, 2012
in quilts
This group is usually a very small gathering as it was this morning. Only 4 of us today! Sometimes we have up to 8 but usually 4 or 5. Very created though. Two of the ladies were working on a project for the quilt guild – which I am not a member of right now. It was interesting watching them working on these blocks. I am not sure what they will be turned into – a quilt for the group for some purpose or will they end up being each person’s UFO? Which is one reason I am never interested in doing blocks for a group to try something out because chances are they get tossed when you get home into a box or bin and you never look at it again!
But this is what they were working – portraits of themselves – although it did not look like either one of them – I don’t really think it is intended to either.
June’s supplies:
Janet’s:
More stuff:
June’s portrait:
And a little more – let’s get her dressed!
Janet’s
And a little bit more!
They had patterns for hair and glasses ect. June is fusing and Janet is using spray adhesive. I am not sure how these will be quilted and finished – I’ll post more as I see it.
Me – prepping more circles! I think I got about 25 circles prepped and ready to press here at home. I didn’t bring much with me this morning.
What are you working on this Friday? I thought to work outside again this afternoon, but it is chilly, damp and gloomy outside today – only 41 degrees. I think I will wait for a sunny day!! I got the house part way cleaned up, I’m taking a break and then?
by Karen on January 19, 2012
in quilts
I’m not sure when I had daffodil buds this early – but we noticed yesterday that the plants that line up in front of the property were up out of the ground. Today I went along the ditches to pick up trash and got a 13 gallon bag full and – would you believe I found a tire complete with a rim tossed into our trees!! That was a first, I have never found a tire before. People I am not a land fill.
Iris’s and daffodils and ground cover that stays out all year round.
daffodils
and a dandelion!
As you can see my yard needs to be cleaned up still and the beds cleaned out – but you know even though we have had a mild winter so far winter is not over. We might just get snow in February like we did last year – I seem to recall 2 or 3 snowfalls that accumulated about a foot of snow total in one or two weeks. I think the flower beds can wait until March before I clean them up. I am using this mild weather though for some clean up of brush. I am cleaning up an area of the far side of the front yard in the tree line. We get so many small trees and thorny things growing that you can barely walk through areas. I want to get a lot of that cut and cleaned up so that this spring I can use the riding lawnmower in it to keep it from growing back.
Starting today I decided that I need to count that in my exercise routine and try to work out there for an hour a day at minimum in good weather to get it taken care of – well I stick to it – I hope so.
Tomorrow is quilt group morning. Small group. I think I will wait to start the Farmer’s Wife quilt though another couple days and give my fingers a complete week of healing time and then back to work quilting. Tomorrow I have more circles that need prepping and plan on getting more ready.
