Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[freedombecki]

31, 32, 33

 

[koshergrl]

I love those!!!

 

[freedombecki]

I love those!!!

Thanks, koshergrl. There's a book on recycling pillowcases I noticed on Amazon on my last visit. It was on one of those pages that you can look inside for a table-of-contents read and a couple of pictures, usually on craft books. I never inherited any of my mother's lovely pillowcases, and after she passed, my father's new wife is said to have taken them to the dump or something.

Like your stuff, hers was always wonderful. *sigh* But hey, I got the best part. I got the memories of a perfect mother who showed her children unconditional love at all times. And her handwork will always be locked in my memory where love is. That's enough for me. I got to hold her hand when I was little and look up to her.

Well, finally got my husband diagnosed today. He has glucose intolerance. We will learn a new way of eating food at restaurants. No bread, no potatoes, no sweets, no pasta, just meat and green or yellow veggies, until his tests come out better. Hopefully he will lose the 60 pounds he's gained in the last 5 years. He also has to walk twice a day. Since he doesn't always do what he sets out to do, I will have to walk with him every step of the way. That's why I'm going early to bed tonight. I'm sorry to not be able to spend all night repping people I owe, but I'm dog tired, and can't gnaw any more bones today.

This is the first neutral I've done on the Butterflies. I've been working on it for 3 days off and on, mostly off, but little by little does they trick, they say...
/Head falling into keyboard with eyes wide shut...

 

[freedombecki]

We travelled to LaGrange, Texas, today, and visited the lovely Texas State Quilt Museum that was established 2 years ago, to my great joy when I discovered it online the other day. The quilts made by the Texas ladies were just as pretty as the ones by "Internationally known quilters" in another area of the museum. All were gorgeous, zany, and some were just plain fun. There was even a quilt made by Illinois quilter Jane Sassaman, and here it is:

Texas Quilt Museum Houston Quilts

If you live near LaGrange, here's the map in LaGrange's downtown area, the museum being at 140 W Colorado St, La Grange · (979) 968-3104:



Texas Quilt Museum Houston Quilts

 

[koshergrl]

I finally finished the purple hat. It looks nothing like the tutorial hahha...and the boy is goofing off in it:

Double yarn makes it very sturdy...this is not a hat for the lighthearted. It is more like head sculpture...

 

[koshergrl]

Today I crocheted my first pair of booties:

 

[freedombecki]

Today I crocheted my first pair of booties:

Those are cute and the hats are adorable! Congratulations on the booties! I must've made 100 pairs of house slippers for us in years past, but somehow, after the business got to going in full swing, I quit making them. Now, we need some more, but crocheting takes a lot of time like the embroidery does. I'm glad I have a lot of squares, but I'm going to finish the butterfly quilt if it's the last thing I do. I've been working on it, and haven't completed a quilt since starting it several months ago, it seems, with other training squares in between. The only sane way to do it is just to stick with the design printed on the material, and let it go at that. I learned that the hard way from doing the nosegay cross stitch squares and the child quilt squares that were unfinished. All those have to be made into quilts, but the butterfly quilt is next, and there are still 3 to do. It's better than the first day, when I was looking at 12 blank butterfly squares with only the washable ink on them. I'm now working on a blue one.

Here's the brown one. I have to finish the leaves around the last flower done, I just conveniently forgot to remember it or something.

Scan 1 the almost finished brown butterfly
Scan 2 a picture of a Karner's blue endangered butterfly I'm thinking about using the color for on the blue block I'm working right now...
Scan 3 the blue butterfly worked on after I thought I'd finished the brown square, but still have 4 leaves to do. We should have a smile with a little rain cloud above his head. Oh, well!

I have to take my little muscle relaxant pills or they act really strange at night.

May God bring peace to this world and make us a better people.

~ Love to all, and good night. Thanks so much to those who support the work by dropping in to say hi. As you can tell, we don't just talk about quilts here, we love all hand crafts.

As if there weren't enough to do, pretty soon it will be time to plant flower and then vegetable seeds. We've been back to Texas over 4 years now, going on 5, and I'm getting an almanac this year to cope with when to plant stuff. I think I have enough Coreopsis seeds to plant 12 acres.

And this year, I bought thousands of poppy seeds, but all of them would fill the tiniest bag you ever saw in your life. they are itsy! I have to go.

Good night!

 

[freedombecki]

The family bid farewell to my eldest brother today in Corpus Christi at his funeral. My husband's issues require almost constant attention, and our trip to visit him last week did not go well due to health issues. It never occurred to me this could possibly happen.

Well, fortunately I have a couple of friends whose kindness has touched me lately, and I spent time working on the butterfly. It rained all day, so there was no going out to check on yellow butterflies. I'm grateful my brother was released from his heinous suffering, though, about 7 years after his Alzheimer's was diagnosed. And my visit to his hospice room last week let me know how bad his suffering was. He fought it to the end.

This is far from finished. Love is blue, I guess:

I also found a rather beautiful applique quilt someone made at Bing! search engine, so added a picture and detail picture.

 

[koshergrl]

God loves you, Becki, and so do I. My heart goes out to you and your family, even though it is a release for your brother, it is still a sad release.

I am dealing with a big old abcessed tooth; my dentist appointment is tomorrow..I hope that the antbiotics will have kicked in by then, because I'm a mess today...the swelling has increased steadily throughout the day, along my jawline, down my neck...my ear sounds fuzzy, and I have a terrible headache as well. I called the office and they said just keep doing what I'm doing...and told me that they do deal with abcesses in the office (I was afraid I'd go in and be told "oh we can't do this here, you'll have to make an appointment somewhere else with an oral surgeon") HOWEVER she did tell me that they aren't able to numb when they drain abcesses.

I'm like HUH? what the HECK? What's that all about?

She said sometimes, so let's hope this isn't one of those times. Oh well, millions of people down through the ages have survived dentistry, I guess I can make a decent showing, too. (That's also what I tell myself about dying. If so and so can do it, then by golly, so can I!)

But my thoughts are with you, Becki. Hope you are able to get some rest now, and gather your strength back to you.

 

[freedombecki]

Thanks, Allie. Freezing rain, toothache, and an achy-breaky heart here, but I'm okay. In less than 2 weeks February will be here, and it looks like we'll have a warmer day Feb. 1 by looking at the 10-day forecast. Think I will turn in for the night.

I sure hope all goes well with your dental appointment tomorrow, so will put you on my prayer list for total healing and restoration to a pain-free set of choppers in the future. <hugs>

~ becki

 

[koshergrl]

Thanks, I look forward to being on the mend tomorrow!

 

[freedombecki]

Wow! A blanket of snow is covering the edges of the pond and the whole yard! We almost never get snow this far south in Texas, but we got an abundance last night, and it's freezing. Oh, wait, I see drips coming off the orange trumpet vine I let grow outside my 2nd-story window for the sweet hummingbirds of warmer weather. *sigh*

Hope koshergrl's dental procedure goes well and brings her relief today. My toothache seems to be on haitus for the moment.

Bundle up everyone who got Old Man Winter's real fury up north, and hope everyone goes a little slower on the road and avoids any auto mishaps. Sometimes if you drive safely, others see it and remember to lighten up on the accelerator, too. I've seen it time and time again. Cars will pass you up when you are driving safe, realize they're going too fast, get in the slow land and drive like pros.

You can save lives just by letting the world go by. It makes drivers going too fast smarter. Courtesy truly works.

Well, I have a butterfly that needs rehooping and working. It's still on the scanner. I just tuckered out too quickly last night, that's all, and I was wrong about my brother's funeral. I called to check on my sister, and her husband told me the funeral is today, not yesterday. I still have a man on my hands who needs my loving care for the duration. I'm not sure how many years that will be, but I will do my best to give a man who dedicated his healthy years to other as good of care at home as long as I can still do it. He deserves all that I can give and more.

 

[freedombecki]

Worked a little more on the butterfly project, but didn't get the frame around the square or any flowers done yet.

The seed stitch was borrowed from an idea I found in a couple of hardback books I bought on ebay last year. When you need good, unused books, a good time to buy is toward the end of the year when booksellers are clearing their shelves due to taxes. I guess that's how I got several $30 books for a clearance price of $1 to $5. I try to keep my expenditures on books to a minimum, but end of year is a really good time to buy. I even picked up a rare book on blue and white oriental counted cross stitch that has a pattern perfect for putting into my silly little postage stamps, and will be a good size for a child's crib quilt. It will likely be most scrappy, but is a butterfly done in squares.

Here's the progress so far on blue butterfly with seed stitch for coloration to upper wings:
(Oh, yes, and if you click on the thumbnail you can see the light blue seed stitch application in a closed area better.)

 

[koshergrl]

Oooh...that's fancy!!!!!

I'm making another hat, lol. This one is for a co-worker/friend who picked up my prescription for me the other day. I'm trying to work through a lot of weird yarn I have stashed around from unfinished projects....

 

[freedombecki]

Thanks, Koshergrl. Just trying to practice some of what the book is teaching. I'd like to do a series of basic projects with each of their suggested stitches. It's so much fun.

You're really going to town on those hats and accessories! I bet the girls love them!

 

[freedombecki]

In the wee hours of the morning, I got up and completed the last leaf group on the brown butterfly and the first two sets on the blue butterfly square plus two adjacent flower sets. If I have time leftover after planting the pansies I bought at home depot last week, and clearing a spot for other flower seeds to plant next week after all freezing cold is gone, I will try to embroider the last 2 flower sets on the blue butterfly square, which will complete it. Hopefully that will be the only blue on this so far sunny Monday morning.

Hope everyone has a super week!

Love to all,

becki

 

[freedombecki]

Well, mowing the duration of the morning away and moving more piles of wood from the fence piles that should have been removed by the fencer but weren't didn't get the block done, but I worked on part of another flower set on butterfly blue.

I want to thank those who drop in here with an encouraging word. It means a lot and keeps me going. When the butterflies are all done, and there are only two more blocks, it will take a couple of days to figure a plan to complete a small quilt top. The squares are only 9 inches now and will be smaller yet when takeup for sets and sashings has been done. If it just comforts a small child in a shelter or a senior who experiences loneliness in a nursing home with a touch of God's love, or is sold to give a college student the opportunity to buy a book for a class that helps him or her learn what must be known to launch a career, I will be so happy. It's taken so long I could have made two dozen really nice cotton quilts, but I just wanted to have the joy of making something half as pretty as koshergrl's pillowcases she shared last year or a quarter as masterful as Sunshine's truly pretty cross stitch quilt top, and it's been so much fun doing something a little off my little beaten rut of piecing log cabin tops I'm so addicted to.

Hope everyone has a great evening and sleeps well. I am experiencing a little caffeine-withdrawal headache from yesterday, when I flat forgot to drink a cup of coffee in the morning. That triggered an all-day nap. The coffee wakes me up from the sleep induced by the muscle relaxant, and Sunday afternoon, well, I had a true day of rest, to put it mildly.

A prayer for peace, patience, prosperity, and prudence in the world of the future.

~ Love,

becki

 

[BDBoop]

Well, mowing the duration of the morning away and moving more piles of wood from the fence piles that should have been removed by the fencer but weren't didn't get the block done, but I worked on part of another flower set on butterfly blue.

I want to thank those who drop in here with an encouraging word. It means a lot and keeps me going. When the butterflies are all done, and there are only two more blocks, it will take a couple of days to figure a plan to complete a small quilt top. The squares are only 9 inches now and will be smaller yet when takeup for sets and sashings has been done. If it just comforts a small child in a shelter or a senior who experiences loneliness in a nursing home with a touch of God's love, or is sold to give a college student the opportunity to buy a book for a class that helps him or her learn what must be known to launch a career, I will be so happy. It's taken so long I could have made two dozen really nice cotton quilts, but I just wanted to have the joy of making something half as pretty as koshergrl's pillowcases she shared last year or a quarter as masterful as Sunshine's truly pretty cross stitch quilt top, and it's been so much fun doing something a little off my little beaten rut of piecing log cabin tops I'm so addicted to.

Hope everyone has a great evening and sleeps well. I am experiencing a little caffeine-withdrawal headache from yesterday, when I flat forgot to drink a cup of coffee in the morning. That triggered an all-day nap. The coffee wakes me up from the sleep induced by the muscle relaxant, and Sunday afternoon, well, I had a true day of rest, to put it mildly.

A prayer for peace, patience, prosperity, and prudence in the world of the future.

~ Love,

becki

I'm sorry, I didn't realize we were a motor on your behalf. Keep posting! Even if I don't post, I'm still enjoying.

 

[Gracie]

We travelled to LaGrange, Texas, today, and visited the lovely Texas State Quilt Museum that was established 2 years ago, to my great joy when I discovered it online the other day. The quilts made by the Texas ladies were just as pretty as the ones by "Internationally known quilters" in another area of the museum. All were gorgeous, zany, and some were just plain fun. There was even a quilt made by Illinois quilter Jane Sassaman, and here it is:

Texas Quilt Museum Houston Quilts

If you live near LaGrange, here's the map in LaGrange's downtown area, the museum being at 140 W Colorado St, La Grange · (979) 968-3104:



Texas Quilt Museum Houston Quilts

Oh wow. I LOVE that!

 

[BDBoop]

[MENTION=42649]Gracie[/MENTION] - the main quilt for Gallery III reminds me of you.

Hard to grab it, had to find the gallery and then save.