New Year's Eve

This is the end of another year which means I haven't done as much as I wanted to do but did more than I expected to do.  It has been a tough year but I survived.  I was reading on facebook a story and they had this saying :

"I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright. 
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more. 
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive. 
I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger. 
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting. 
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess. 
I wish enough "Hello's" to get you through the final "Good-bye.."

With all that has happened at the end of the year, I thought it was a good way to end 2014.  I'll be here in 2015 so it's not my final good bye and I certainly hope not yours.  

Thank you to all who have read my ramblings of life and given me encouraging words to continue on.  I look forward to travelling through 2015 with you.

See you in 2015!!

FARTing next month!

What?  You don't know what I mean?  No I don't mean THAT kind of farting.  I mean
planning a FART (Fabric Acquisition Road Trip).  In my CQ-4-CBees group, this post came through.  I thought that I would re post it here.

So I while I dream of HIPS and FARTS and hope to a PhD by the time I go back to work.  THat might require me to pull out some PIGS though.  (grins).

BOM = Block of the Month
DSM = Domestic Sewing Machine
FART = Fabric Acquisition Road Trip
FOB = Fear of Binding
FQ = Fat Quarter
HIPS = Hundreds of Ideas Piling Skyward
HST = Half-Square Triangle
LAQ= Long Arm Quilter
LQS = Local Quilt Shop
MAQ = Mid-Arm Quilter
PhD = Projects half Done
PIGS = Projects in Grocery Sacks
SABLE = Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy
STASH = Special Treasures All Secretly Hidden
TGIF = Thank God It's Finished!
TOT = Tone-on-Tone
UFO = UnFinshed Object
WHIMM = Works Hidden In My Mind
WIP = Work In Progress
WISP = Work In Slow Progress
WOF = Width of Fabric
WOMBAT = Waste of Money, Batting, and Time
WOW = White On White

Next(?) project

It's been one week since I've been home from work and do you think that I have finished a project?  Of course not.  I have started different things but not completed them.

Here is the start of one of the projects.  It is the zipper quilt, or in this case a wall hanging, made out of various blue fabric from Ghana.

If I don't get anything else done before I go back to work, I want to get my snowflake wall hanging done.  That would be snowflake Hexie BOM.  I made mine larger so each month can be a different wall hanging.  I haven't put them all together (read that to be I only did January and February) so I hope to get the January one finished to be able to hang up in January.  It would only be a year late.  For me that's almost on time.  LOL.  Pictures to follow another day on that.  I have it spread out on the ironing board but I will take a picture when it's ready to be quilted.

Everybody have a good day/night.

May you have a safe and enjoyable holiday season

This will be a short post.  I just wanted to wish all my friends and followers a safe and joyous holiday season.  I am not going to be posting for a day or two but thought I'd share some nice holiday pictures I found on the web.  These came up on an image search so if anybody knows the originator of them or asks me to take them down I will.  In the meantime, may they bring a smile to  your face like they did mine.

So believe in whatever you want to believe in but no matter what...

Have a safe and wonderful holiday...

And when it is all over, sit back and have a warm drink....

Or take a nap...

and look forward to 2015.

Quilting with Mom - December 23, 2014

I told you before how mom would be kicking my butt saying to get crafting and don't let your time off work be unproductive.  That being said I figured I had better listen to her before she kicked my butt.

So with Ms. Edith sitting in the chair watching me, I managed to iron out my 2 1/2" strips and she is holding some for me.

This bear was made for my mom and I reclaimed it after she died.  Because she was made with so many pink flowers she was named Ms. Edith after my mom.

So I starched my fabric which I have never done that before.  The next time I use the start I probably should do it before I run it through the AccuQuilt GO!  It still worked out nicely.  These are the blue fabric that Lyndon brought back from Ghana for me.  I have a little more but I'm not using them this time.  I am thinking of doing a zipper quilt because I liked how that looked in a wall hanging in my office.

With using the AccuQuilt GO! 2 1/2" strip die, it didn't take long to have my fabric cut.  Then I just had to cut them into the 5" segments.  The dark blue will be used for the zipper instead of black.

Next was off to the sewing machine to sew the 2 1/2" blocks to the rectangles.  I decided to just chain piece everything and only do six rectangles of each color in order to get an idea of how I wanted to lay it all out.

Snip snip and back to the ironing board.  Now they are all laid out for me to play with the layout later.

I'll talk to everybody later.  Time to run some errands.  I hope everybody has a great day.  Anybody who is travelling for the holidays please be safe.

Let the Vacation Begin!

That's right.  I'm on vacation!  I am taking Monday and Tuesday off so technically I don't have to be back at work until January 5th.  Not bad right?

With the news that I'm vacation, my brain started to think of what it wants to do.  It sounds like I'll have a lot of time to work on stuff but everybody knows that it will go fast.

I have a project that I'd like to start on.  It came from The Quilt Pattern Magazine December's issue.  It's called The Well Wishers.  This would be for a present (I think).

I think that tomorrow I might start the search for my fabric.  It is official now.  While typing this post I was on the phone and will now make this up and know who I will give it too.  Don't you love how it  things seem to come together?  The red in this needs to be a particular shade so my friend is going to send me a swatch so I can try to match it.  I think I might do the border in red then so it will stand out a bit more.  I haven't the foggiest on how I'll want to quilt it though.  I'll keep you informed.

I have some other things that I will want to work on so I think this weekend I will start to make my list of what I want to do.

Why was I going to start this weekend?  Yes it is because it's the weekend but also because between Lyndon giving me my Christmas present and the donations that were given to me from work, I have a $100 visa gift card that I can use.  Here's one of the best parts.  They even wrote on the card that I'm to use it for myself.  hehehe.  I love my work!

Rest in Peace Edith E. (Chamberlain) Bromeland

Mother went on her greatest journey yesterday.  We took her off any support that the hospital had her on and she passed on before 7 a.m. yesterday.  I was so glad that Kerm and I had a good week earlier with her, giving her birthday presents.  Then last Sunday Kerm and I said our good byes to her.  It was the start of my final good bye to her.

I only worked half a day yesterday and spent the rest of the day talking about mom to my niece in law Jessica.  Perhaps a lot of people don't understand my grieving process.  I grieved for mother but we had such a good and long time together that to many it was a short period.  It is hard to explain my relationship with mother.  Father died when I was 10.  For most of my memories it is mother and I standing against the world.  She was my friend, my mentor...my mother.

I do not grieve, even though tears are falling as I type this, because we lived.  I learned valuable lessons from her.  I have countless stories about her.  Everything from hitch hiking to Wisconsin to see something (can't remember what) to being a managing editor for a small local newspaper.  She loved to watch Tarzan movies and Westerns (Zane Grey was her favorite author) as well as pulp mysteries.  When my fiance' left me I turned to her.  She held me when I cried over him but shortly thereafter my tears turned to laughter as she came up with suitable punishments.  To her suitable punishments came out of Tarzan native tortures or Indian tortures.  Later on she would name him Slimebucket, a name that still sticks today.  We went to museums, on vacations, shopping, did crafts and cooking together.  How can one grieve knowing that she lived such a huge life.  It was full.  It had it's ups and downs but it was full and I do not believe she regretted much.

Perhaps that was her last lesson to me.  Do not regret those who have passed on before you for it was their turn.  I haven't lived as much as she had so I still have things to do.  She would not want me to spend days on end grieving.  She would kick me in my butt and say so what else are you doing?  Is your apartment clean (no) and have you finished those projects yet?  Ummm.  that would be another "no".

So what can I do.  She was our Matriarch and just because she isn't here in person doesn't me she isn't guiding me yet.  I guess that means I had better stop this post and start to clean up or something.

Before I go, I'd like to thank everybody who listened to me talk about mom and who offered their condolences.  My office gave me this living  plant today.  Thought I'd better post a picture of it before I kill it off.  I don't have a green thumb.

Mom, my over achiever

Mother always told me to strive to do your best and be an over achiever.  I think she still believes that because the update on her injuries totally show that she is an over achiever.

The results from the Orthopedic Specialist looking at her are the following:

Between both legs - 5 breaks
a Urinary Tract Infection
an upper respiratory infection
and is having problems swallowing

The swallowing they aren't worried too much about right now because they expect it to go down by tonight once the meds start to kick in.  If not they still have the option of a feeding tube etc in order to keep up her nutritional needs.

So she is back in the hospital for a couple of days.  Her legs are immobilized and they are working on getting rid of her infections.  In all honesty some of this is not knew news.  Every time she is in the hospital she has a urinary tract infection.  She doesn't like her cranberry juice and the elderly are prone to that type of infection any way.  We also knew that she an something wrong with her chest area since she was coughing more.  She usually has coughing problems so that wasn't a surprise.  The breaks were why I am saying she is still an over achiever!

With my cold I can't see her but I know she isn't in too much pain.  They aren't giving her a lot of pain meds and according to my brother it normally isn't bothering her except when they have to turn her over.  That always bothered her any way because of her deteriorating spine.

All said and done, it could have been a lot worse and she's still around and fighting.  I'm so glad that we had a delightful Sunday with her.

With this cold I haven't felt too much like sewing but I did pull out a small pattern last night and tried to remember how to do Paper Piecing.  I messed it up enough that I'm not going to show you but it was a learning experience and helped me get familiarize with how to do it again.  I'm not good at it (don't I always say that?) but I'm still going to try to do a small wall hanging or perhaps a mini wall hanging this month.  I'll keep you updated on that.

I hope everybody stays well and stays safe.

December 10th - Happy 95th Birthday Mom

I know this is a day early but I wanted to get it posted before I forgot where I put the pictures.  LOL.

This is the season for strange and bad things to happen so I am thankful that mother is still with us.  Last week my boss lost his mother and a co-worker (a young man who helped out our IT guru) died. A online quilting friend lost her husband recently and many more are sick.  Even I have a cold which seems so trivial compared to all of that.  I'm writing this on December 9th so I can get it posted a little early and not worry about it.

I woke up this morning (the 9th) with a phone call from my brother Kerm.  That is never a good sign.  He said that mother had slipped out of her wheel chair trying to pick up an empty plastic cup.  The nurses didn't think she had hurt herself and watched her for most of the night.  By morning on the 9th, her leg had started to swell so they sent her to the hospital.  The nursing home is close to the hospital so it didn't take them long to get there and by noon they were sending her back to the nursing home.  She has an in line fracture (broken leg) which they immobilized so there wasn't a reason to keep her at the hospital.

I am so glad that I managed to get her birthday present done and delivered on Sunday because she looked so dang cute when she saw what it was.  (Drum roll please)

Here is mother looking at the birthday cupcake table runner that I did.  She liked the two larger ones on each end because she could see them easily.

Then she found out that she was to get something else.  I had to help her unwrap it but since it was only tissue paper it didn't take her long to figure out what to pull on to reveal the prsent.

Ta DA!  She's been wanting a larger watch but Kerm didn't want to get her one in case it got stolen or she lost it.  I happened to find this deal at Walmart where the watch and a separate bracelet were only $10.  It had a lot of bling.  I  don't think she can see the numbers but she could see the bling and that is what mattered.

Artificial diamonds looks so shiny so she was very happy to see all the shiny.  :)

This is the watch.   The bracelet next to it is something that Kerm brought for her.  It looks like tiny Christmas lights and when you fasten it around your wrist it lights up.  MORE pretty lights!

Here is the bracelet that came with the watch.  As you can see.  Bling was the name of the game on Sunday.

So she had a good Sunday and even though she slipped out of her wheel chair (we don't blame the nurses, mother is tricky) she is back at the home where they can pamper her and she'll be able to tell me ALL about it when I get over this cold.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Quilts from Quiltmaker's 100 Block Magazine

Oh my!  I made a mistake and picked up a quilting magazine the other day.  Quilts from Quiltmaker's 100 Block Magazine.  Of course I held fast and furious to my rule of not buying a magazine unless there were three patterns that I wanted to make.  It's a pretty good rule.  It's saved me lots of money in magazines.  Not so this time.  It's worth getting.  Here is what will be the start of my 2015 wishlist.  Perhaps I should just say it's the start of my 2015 UFO (unfinished projects) list.

I am in love with this one. 

More of my traditional pattern that I like.

A nice mixture of HST and my applique.  I should be able to do this one.

I have a friend who is into photography.  This might be good as a present.

If I ever do this one it would be good to hang in my office.

This one appeals to me but I can't make my mind which colorway I like better.

This one or the previous one.  I kind of like the previous one because it's  bit more modern and I want to do a modern quilt.

This came from the Fall 2014 edition of the magazine and should have only been displayed until November 17, 2014.  I lucked out (so I had to buy it, right?) that it was still there.  Plus it has a bonus of 5 table runner patterns. 

Hexie Day

Didn't do much today.  Think I'm just feeling lazy.  I did get a nice surprise in the mail.  The November Hexie BOM material.

I'm not sure if I'll go and stitch them together this weekend but at least while I"m watching MasterChef Junior, I can get them basted onto the card board.  I really like the cardboard that I got this time.

The fabric is a bit more orange than shown but it was hard to adjust to get it right.  Then I have two browns for the stem.

Perhaps this will get me going again on basting the fabric over the template.  I am way behind on them.

What are you working on?

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope all my friends who celebrate Thanksgiving are having a good day.  I went over to my nephew's and had a loud but good Thanksgiving.  Now it's time for me to upload some pictures. Forgive an old Aunt for doing this but he's about my only family (besides my brother and mom).

Jason and Jess (his wife) had the place partially decorated for Christmas which set the mood for the holiday.

Jason even had his utensils all set out for when the food got cooked.

So while Jason is busy cooking in the kitchen...

The kids were showing me around and waiting for the other guests to arrive.

Yes that lump is my great niece.

Soon the other guests arrived.

And then Jessica and the kids helped entertain the guests.

Tori wasn't there (Oldest of the children) since she was at the McDonald's Thanksgiving Day Parade with the DeKalb High School.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EoInEpQGpE

The DeKalb High School band is in the orange flags.  Here are a couple of pix of Tori.

I hope you had a great day also.

Weekend Excitement!

No not the quilting kind of excitement but almost as good.  I finally have transportation again.  Meet Ruby.

She is replacing Rhea who passed away in the summer.  Of course I have to name all my cars and when I saw Ruby I knew that I was getting her.  Of course my choices were limited due to bad credit that I'm still working on but I managed to drive her home Friday night.  She is a 2006 PT Cruiser so I upgraded by 5 years (which is nice).  She was nice and clean on the inside and very few scratches or peeled paint.  I hope that she'll last longer then the 3 year loan I have for her.  LOL.

I didn't get much done since I was playing with Ruby but hope to settle down again this week.  I found myself just driving her with no destination in mind.  That was a bad thing so finally drove her to the laundry mat.  YAY!  I didn't have to ask for a ride!

Well back to your normally scheduled Monday of events.  LOL.

Weekend Progress

Well I managed to make some progress this weekend.

It started out where I caught up on my Civil War BOM that I had done.  How long ago was that now?  The last (I think) block is:

I need to sew them together yet and then figure out the border etc but at least they are eventually getting done.

Then I picked back up my redwork.  I ran out of my perle cotton and had to order more.  It didn't take long to get here and soon I was finishing it up.  I finally managed to get all of my six blocks done for the exchange.  Of course it makes me look so fast getting them done but three of the six blocks I am recycling.  I did the Baltimore Album style blocks last year but never used these three.  Now I can send them off in this Christmas Block Exchange.  The other three blocks are all new.

I really like the Noel redwork block.

What do you think?