Artful Homemade Quilts Have A Way

[koshergrl]

 

[freedombecki]

I really hate this being out of rep stuff.

I do too, and the day I was gone all day got me out until 7:30 p.m. or so. But I'll be on the road again in a while so when I don't post for a day, it will turn back around.

If you're on the road again, Sunshine, I hope it's in pursuit of happiness!

 

[freedombecki]

He was born just in time to be a Grandma's best Valentine ever!

 

[freedombecki]

Hi guys, good to see you and Becki the stuff you post is amazing as always.

I finished the cocoon and a hat for my friend but haven't taken pics yet. I was sick again over the weekend and the first half of this week (another virus lucky me) but happily I'm on the mend.

Though for a couple of days there I couldn't talk. I'm telling you, people were DEVASTATED! They missed my dulcet tones.

My next crochet projects are a mermaid outfit for the daughter of the director of my daughter's play (Little Mermaid) and a simple cardigan for my grandson...who I still haven't seen because we're sick. His older sissy is also sick and has to wear a mask at home around him, poor babies.

He was 8 lbs 1 oz, 21 inches long. Dark hair and I think dark eyes, very adorable but his mom is being secretive with him, darn her lol. She says he eats every hour, and they are pretty much hanging out in bed to allow little sister the run of the house. The hospital was essentially in lockdown due to a terrible viral outbreak when they had him, and the doctor was adamant that she keep him away from people for now. I sort of pooh-poohed it and ran it by my niece the DOCTOR (woo hoo! Love to say it!) who said absolutely, for the first month, she should keep him under lock and key.

She said this year's viruses are really, really bad, that they are mutating extremely quickly, that the vaccination hasn't been very effective because of that. She said the season started really early and is lasting long...and that for the first month babies will easily if not usually turn septic if they get it.

So the little family has barricaded themselves off from the world, getting used to baby brother and enjoying him by themselves, pretty much. My dil's sister lives there with them, so she is around to hang out a little with sissy, and dil says my son has been absolutely wonderful. He has always been wonderful with babies and children. Took us all by surprise because he swore he was never going to have any, haha. But when he met his baby sister, born when he was 17, he discovered he truly loved children.

The cocoon turned out really lovely, and the fabric of it feels amazing. I want one!

So much for the newborns-are-immune old wive's tale. *sigh*

Hope you get to see the little guy soon, koshergrl! It's good you are staying busy meanwhile.

 

[freedombecki]

Happy Valentine's Day, Everybody!​

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[Bloodrock44]

Oh my! Just look at that smile! Beautiful!

 

[freedombecki]

Happy President's Day!

This quilt block is named after Martha Washington and is called "Martha Washington Star":

And this is a Martha Washington Quilt:

 

[Sunshine]

Hi guys, good to see you and Becki the stuff you post is amazing as always.

I finished the cocoon and a hat for my friend but haven't taken pics yet. I was sick again over the weekend and the first half of this week (another virus lucky me) but happily I'm on the mend.

Though for a couple of days there I couldn't talk. I'm telling you, people were DEVASTATED! They missed my dulcet tones.

My next crochet projects are a mermaid outfit for the daughter of the director of my daughter's play (Little Mermaid) and a simple cardigan for my grandson...who I still haven't seen because we're sick. His older sissy is also sick and has to wear a mask at home around him, poor babies.

He was 8 lbs 1 oz, 21 inches long. Dark hair and I think dark eyes, very adorable but his mom is being secretive with him, darn her lol. She says he eats every hour, and they are pretty much hanging out in bed to allow little sister the run of the house. The hospital was essentially in lockdown due to a terrible viral outbreak when they had him, and the doctor was adamant that she keep him away from people for now. I sort of pooh-poohed it and ran it by my niece the DOCTOR (woo hoo! Love to say it!) who said absolutely, for the first month, she should keep him under lock and key.

She said this year's viruses are really, really bad, that they are mutating extremely quickly, that the vaccination hasn't been very effective because of that. She said the season started really early and is lasting long...and that for the first month babies will easily if not usually turn septic if they get it.

So the little family has barricaded themselves off from the world, getting used to baby brother and enjoying him by themselves, pretty much. My dil's sister lives there with them, so she is around to hang out a little with sissy, and dil says my son has been absolutely wonderful. He has always been wonderful with babies and children. Took us all by surprise because he swore he was never going to have any, haha. But when he met his baby sister, born when he was 17, he discovered he truly loved children.

The cocoon turned out really lovely, and the fabric of it feels amazing. I want one!

So much for the newborns-are-immune old wive's tale. *sigh*

Hope you get to see the little guy soon, koshergrl! It's good you are staying busy meanwhile.

They only inherit the immunity the mother has and then it is short lived. I have spent the last 2 months running from the flu. It called in the cards on this disease and could call them all in permanently. I avoid crowds, shop at odd hours, stay away from places where there are a lot of children, refuse to go to the doctor's office. I was 2 days late ordering the last refill of metformin and the doctor refused to fill it unless I come in. I let him know that I have 3 months left of everything else. and will not come to the office during flu season, and if he insists that I do so, I just won't take the metformin. My blood sugar has never been over 200. I'll just suck it up until flu season is over. So he refilled it. Now I have an ear that is driving me nuts. I think it was shower water in Gulf Shores that started it. The outer part of the ear canal seems to be swelling a bit. If it was the inner part, I would be in excruciating pain. I'm caring for that myself as well. NO primary care doctor's visit until flu season is over. Have to see the PH doctor in March, but that place is usually fairly safe. And they take a lot of precautions. They put out pens for you to sign paperwork that have been gas sterilized and when one has been used, it is placed in a separate receptacle.

 

[freedombecki]

Two quilts were finished this past week while I was totally offline. One may have been mentioned earlier, the other not. But they're both done, and another one started.

Here's the one that may have been mentioned since last October (not sure when I started the embroidered butterfly forever project, which is to the last square half done at this point):

It started as a result of an Ebay purchase of 3 squares I didn't know what to do with, so decided to get them out of the way first! Little did I know the butterfly embroideries would become all-consuming of little minutes of every day here and there. So thanks to someone's wonderful embroidery whose estate these came from that landed in my lap for a song compared to the intricate work that was done by her:

 

[freedombecki]

I may or may not have posted at least one of these pictures earlier, but that was several months ago. It's now folded in the complete file, stacked with the blarney stone border quilt that will be posted next.

 

[freedombecki]

Some call this strip arrangement "Chinese Coins." The quilt that inspired it called the same type "ladder." Since I made this for either children or wheelchair occupants (it measures ~42x56 inches), I chose the name "ladder" because a lot of my scraps have child themes, considering I live to make quilts for the local Charity Bees closet. They give to the abused-persons shelter, the Hugs Baby project, several local senior care facilities, wounded warriors, sell some for the five college scholarships they gave out last year. They do the quilting, and I make more than they can quilt, I think sometimes, but try to do an award-winning small quilt to the best of my propensities with color combinations from 23 years of running my own quilt store and being the community guru for people who were not confident about color choices. I did my best to do solid-gold advice on color wheel issues people relied on me for, to take or reject experienced advice. Oddly, some people asked for advice who simply didn't want it to satisfy the urge in themselves to trump authority. I let it go because I do that without being overtly crass enough to pretend I need help with knowing what I like. I did learn my lesson, though, by putting askees through a series of questions:

(1) Who is the planned recipient of the quilt you are putting weeks of your life into? What is (his, her, their, or your) favorite color?

(2) Is there a particular color scheme in the room in which this quilt will be used? If so, bring a paint or wallpaper sample with you if you want a perfect match.

(3) Can you live with the choice you are making to endure weeks of working with this color schema?

(4) Is your recipient or are your recipients introverts or extroverts? (Yes, it really makes a difference).

If I particularly liked the choices they made, I'd say, "Can I come over to your house to play in your sewing room?" That always got a laugh, which truly promotes people to finish what they start, especially if I asked to see the finished product. It also insured a constant stream of people bringing exquisite masterpieces back, since I worked so many hours I didn't get to go to museums and do stuff I really like to do, which is to see other artists' work on a regular basis.

So, Blarney is fun! Here's a quilt I had a couple of days of inner debate on how to finish the outside border, not liking the fabrics I'd visualized while making the quilt for some reason. Then the other day I woke up thinking "Oh, my goodness, it's going to be March soon, and I haven't done much in the way of green, and this quilt is all blarney anyway, so I'll add the green stone border I cut out for a quilt that got too big too fast, so it was set aside:

 

[freedombecki]

This includes some of the choice ladder areas on the green Blarney Stone Ladder quilt:

Edit: the embroidery on the solid brown on the 3rd scan is a green "Irish Eyes" eye.

 

[freedombecki]

Even more Blarney:

 

[freedombecki]

My family is coming next week to help me make financial decisions for my husband, whose dementia is causing him so many issues, and with fibromyalgia, I have problems with utilizing physical things that used to come so easily since I was definitely in the upper echelons of physical fitness for my age, and now have difficulty with climbing a staircase. I may get pretty sparse here next week, which will not be like getting knocked offline by a lightning bolt, then staying offline because of my credit card was used to buy prescriptions at target, so my bank cancelled everyone's number who had a card that was used there, although it was not a Target card at all.

We have a big job to do of going over stuff, but at least I got my husband to voluntarily give back his car keys. He would go to get dinner and show up 4 hours later having used half a tank of gas by driving half way to Dallas after getting dinner and snacks only for himself, and having to come back home to change his pants.

It's not easy to break a co-dependency, but I have to get over it that my Knight in shining armor doesn't have a silver chalice to pursue any more, but has gone to pot which he can't find any more either.

My love for him will never die, though. He always managed to pick me up when I was down, and you just can't forget the best-looking man you ever saw in your life being kind to someone so plain as me. *sigh*

 

[Sunshine]

My family is coming next week to help me make financial decisions for my husband, whose dementia is causing him so many issues, and with fibromyalgia, I have problems with utilizing physical things that used to come so easily since I was definitely in the upper echelons of physical fitness for my age, and now have difficulty with climbing a staircase. I may get pretty sparse here next week, which will not be like getting knocked offline by a lightning bolt, then staying offline because of my credit card was used to buy prescriptions at target, so my bank cancelled everyone's number who had a card that was used there, although it was not a Target card at all.

We have a big job to do of going over stuff, but at least I got my husband to voluntarily give back his car keys. He would go to get dinner and show up 4 hours later having used half a tank of gas by driving half way to Denver after getting dinner and snacks only for himself, and having to come back home to change his pants.

It's not easy to break a co-dependency, but I have to get over it that my Knight in shining armor doesn't have a silver chalice to pursue any more, but has gone to pot which he can't find any more either.

My love for him will never die, though. He always managed to pick me up when I was down, and you just can't forget the best-looking man you ever saw in your life being kind to someone so plain as me. *sigh*

Just be sure that those decisions are in YOUR best interest.

 

[freedombecki]

My family is coming next week to help me make financial decisions for my husband, whose dementia is causing him so many issues, and with fibromyalgia, I have problems with utilizing physical things that used to come so easily since I was definitely in the upper echelons of physical fitness for my age, and now have difficulty with climbing a staircase. I may get pretty sparse here next week, which will not be like getting knocked offline by a lightning bolt, then staying offline because of my credit card was used to buy prescriptions at target, so my bank cancelled everyone's number who had a card that was used there, although it was not a Target card at all.

We have a big job to do of going over stuff, but at least I got my husband to voluntarily give back his car keys. He would go to get dinner and show up 4 hours later having used half a tank of gas by driving half way to Denver after getting dinner and snacks only for himself, and having to come back home to change his pants.

It's not easy to break a co-dependency, but I have to get over it that my Knight in shining armor doesn't have a silver chalice to pursue any more, but has gone to pot which he can't find any more either.

My love for him will never die, though. He always managed to pick me up when I was down, and you just can't forget the best-looking man you ever saw in your life being kind to someone so plain as me. *sigh*

Just be sure that those decisions are in YOUR best interest.

If he is well-taken care of, that's my best interest, Sunshine. When I visited the nursing home a couple of months back, images of sad elderly people stuck in my mind. He deserves better than that. We have to work things out as a family that is divided by thousands of miles since one went southeast and one went southwest. We're half way in between the two.
After his last mini trip, he gave up his car keys for good. It's possible he did it on purpose, because he is smart, and it's possible he didn't because he has a human affliction. I'm not an expert in these matters, but now that I've accepted his issues, I'm a lot less angry about his lot in life and am determined to try to do as well as I can keeping him at home just as long as I can still trick him into doing whatever it is he doesn't want to do which seems to be nearly everything lately. My sure fire motivator is to tickle his feet. He will do anything to avoid that. I can't see a nurse threatening to tickle an uncooperative patient's feet if he doesn't get up, and getting him to rise and shine when he is feeling stubborn. I know he is happy when he comes inside from walking around the farmland and the pretty little lake on the property. The sun he gets from taking the dog for a little walk out there does him a world of good. For two days he quit being stubborn. I'm trying to remember what I did or said or didn't do or didn't say that got his day off to a good start.

 

[freedombecki]

Today's scan of green and beige log cabin quilts:

Thinking beiges and greens on log cabin quilt, but more even, whereas this cutie just below is uneven log cabin, which takes 1/3 more time than regular log cabins, plus the maker did a wonderful job. I've done a few uneven ones, but have tried to be a good time manager with getting as many decent-looking but fast quilts done for charity-giving. OK, I sewed avocado green centers to strips of beige (32 different pieces) to make 192 squares, which will make boucoup small hugs or larger quilts.

This quilt is someone else's too, but shows a lot of different fabrics and has a rather pleasing value ratio:

My goodness, this uneven log cabin one has neato quilting on it:

 

[freedombecki]

Wonder if I can find a green and beige quilt in my immediate archives. BBL

Back!

These also are museum collection quilts, and I did not make them.

 

[freedombecki]

Last night, I worked up, but apparently failed to post the squares I made.

Here is a partial yesterday's progress on the quilt, which took several hours:

 

[freedombecki]

And most of the rest of yesterday's work: