Chilly Sunday, Sadness, and Soup

It's difficult to be my perky self this morning. For the third time, a niece has ben taken from our family. First there was Diane, then Rachel and now Carol. These intelligent, beautiful and talented young women were far to young to go through the horrible ravishings of cancer. They fought a seemingly endless battle very bravely. Carol is in the photo, on the right. This picture was taken three or four years ago at an anniversary celebration in Minnesota. I remember changing Carol's diapers and a teenage crisis - she wanted a beautiful tan for the prom but stayed under a sunlamp too long! I'm remembering her father's pet name for getting a rise out of her, Carol the Barrell. We hate to lose our loved ones but are thankful they no longer suffer.


My latest project is from a new book I got last week. The block has several different names, in the book, Scraps and Shirttails, Bonnie Hunter of quiltville.com calls it Milky Way and has designed a quilt she named Swing Your Partner. I have made 16 blocks, using plaids from my stash and the background fabric are leftovers from other projects. Next step is to find something for sashing strips and borders. I'm not sure there is enough of any one color and I may have to go fabric shopping!

The photos below are of two of my antique quilts, found in antique shops in Madison, IN and we don't know the history behind them. Both quilts are scrappy looking and use muslin for the alternate solid blocks and backings. Both are heavily hand quilted. When held up to the light you can see the dark flecks from the cotton batting. Both quilts are on display and are becoming quite fragile. They may have to be put to rest in a safe place. The Churn Dash blocks measure approximately 5 1/2" now and I imagine they were 6" before the heavy quilting and many washings.

This second quilt, a Butterfly quilt is very fragile and I am thinking I need to draft a block pattern and make it from today's fabrics. The block is rectangular, measuring 8 1/2" x 9 1/2".

This quilt was a gift from my daughter Tracy about ten years ago. I wonder if my quilts will someday be as treasured the way I do these!

And now the SOUP of the Week: Vegetable Beef

No picture but if you sniff really hard, you may be able to smell it. One pot of soup equals three meals and three meals equals about three hours of stitching time!

Chet is waiting to be served - so till next time. . . .

Just Me

Sunny Sunday

Oh, it's so pretty out today - crisp but still nice. I only stepped outside to take a few pictures and there is a bit of a breeze. It seems that when I moved to get a good shot, the wind blew the piece in the other direction. I think I'm going to have to sneak over and use one of my neighbor's fences as a backdrop for my outdoor photos!

Contrary to what some of you may belive - - I really do cook. The picture is of the "makins' for a pot of chicken noodle vegetable soup. The chicken is in the pot and stewing away. Can you smell the Rosemary and Bay Leaf? And don't forget the onions! Hopefully this pot will yield three meals for us. (I try to eke as much sewing time out of a pot of soup as possible!)

Spoke with Tracy Friday night, she's moved her belongings into her house in Hattiesburg but is still working in Slidell, LA. She did find a job in Hattiesburg and will start there in two weeks.

Haven't seen our local two sons in two weeks - Had supper out at Marks and Nate brought over fudge from Metamora. Did you know you can slide that creamy fudge into 1/4" slices and have it last a week? The Wisconsin son and his family are always so busy. I imagine they are enjoying the home up on the Lake; it must be beautiful up there now.

From my sewing corner - - I made the miniature Churn Dash piece last week. I caved and bought some fabric online. Lovely fabric, it feels like silk. the photo doesn't do the colors justice. It measures about 18 x 20" and is machine quilted.

The "lone" block is from a book I got in the mail yesterday. I just had to try it quickly this morning, and like it so have dug out my tub of plaid fabrics and background bits and pieces and will continue to make more blocks. Chet will be watching the Colts win over the Packers footgall game this afternoon, so he'll never miss me.





And now the ladies from the chat room will get a sneak peek at what I did with the red strips we traded a few weeks ago. The sailboat fabric is for the back of the quilt. Carolyn, my longarm quilter gal will be wearing sunglasses when she works on this - cuz it's REALLY REALLY RED! And of course there are leftovers of the reds so I made a small quilt like this.

Time to run - football previews are on and it's "taxing" to my ears. Wishing everyone a good week.

Sunny Indiana

Lovely weather, not at all like autumn - but the leaves are turning and more and more crops are being harvested! Nate & Mark are taking advantage of the weather and riding their bikes whenever possible. Lawn mowing has slowed down but Chet goes out and pets and polishes his riding mower a couple of times a week.

Ah - my Sunday Routine - time to blog. It's a challenge to come up with a few pictures and something to say about them - I hope the non quilters & knitters will bear with me. (I'd put a smiling face here if I knew how!) It's been rather a quiet week - except for one day, this week. A friend was going to Columbus and invited me to go along. She had a couple of specific things to shop for and we hit Hobby Lobby first and found one of the items. Then we decided to go to the other side of town and visit a quilt shop and have lunch. (No, I didn't buy a thing at either place.) We had a lovely quiche, a bowl of fruit and a Coke for our lunch. We got into the van and planned to go back into town and stop at the store she needed to go to. Alas and alack! The van started but would not shift out of neutral! She tried several times to get it to shift, turned the steering wheel because this had happened before and she didn't have the wheels "straight". But it didn't work this time. Fortunately she has an AAA membership and made a call. The phone conversation was frustrating because it was difficult for her to understand the operator. We had to wait about half an hour for a tow truck to come. The driver walked up to the van and said "I guess you need air or gas." We said no and again explained the situation. He tried shifting the van, no luck - then he turned the steering wheel to straighten the tires and still nothing. So the options were to be towed to the shop and have them look at it or be towed back to Greensburg. She opted to be towed to Greensburg and have her mechanic take a look. Well, after some effort, we managed to crawl up into the cab of the tow truck and we were on our way home! And darn it, I didn't have my camera with me or I'd be sharing a picture of the handsome driver and the shiny tow truck. Ah - my life is just one adventure after another! I'm glad I have friends who help keep my life interesting. When I last checked with her, a diagnosis hadn't been given!

Remember the picture of the red quilt blocks I posted last week? Well - that top is ready to go to the longarm quilter. All I can say at this point is that "It's a lot of red"! Eight of us from the chat room exchanged five fabric strips = 40 different red fabrics + I dug into my reds bin and pulled out quite a few more. I'm guessing I have over 50 different red fabrics in that quilt top.

After struggling with Big Red, I decided to do something small. The School House blocks and the Churn Dash blocks are 4 1/2" unfinished size.

One of the gals in the chat room has taken up knitting and sent a picture of her granddaughter in the cutest ruffled hat. It just made my fingers itch so I dug out my yarn bag and found some baby yarn and needles. Paged through a few pattern books and found a new (to me) pattern and decided I must do that. So here it is - it's got a pointy top - but I didn't get it in the picture. I have enough yarn to make a couple more hats - next time I will pay more attention so the pattern is correct - the lacy eyelets are suppose to be in line. But I was watching a bit on TV about Deborah Winger - such a pretty lady - she has a new movie coming out soon.

The Packer Gold scarf was "on the needles" for quite a while so I finished it last night. It looks like it's got worms - but those little wiggles are part of the yarn. Believe me, they are!
I think all my kids and grandkids are fine - only heard from J.D. He calls me while walking from class to his apartment, or while waiting for the bus. He is enjoying college so much and I'm glad. He has a friend who is a graduate student, from Saudi Arabia. Told me his name but can't remember it right now. This fella teaches on of his classes. J.D. is looking forward to coming home for Thanksgiving and having a lot of good food!

Till next time - - keep in touch and stay well.

Hearing & Seeing Things

Lovely day in Indiana today - couldn't ask for more lovely weather! I did manage to get out info the fresh air today - had some errands to do. Wal-Mart stop was one of them - the store has been remodeled recently and I just can't find a thing and the help isn't too helpful either. But I rewarded myself with an Arby's Super Sandwich - the one where the sauce runs down your arms and the sides of your mouth! Chet was at a pitch-in at church so didn't have to be concerned about feeding him!

HEARING THINGS! This afternoon I was paging though a magazine and thought I heard Christmas music - looked out and the music was coming from the ice cream truck! Hard to connect the two!

SEEING RED

I think I mentioned last week that eight of the chat room gals were having a reds strip swap - the strips are here and I've begun to stitch. That's a lot of red - right? Imagine 40 strips of fabric and none are identical - I think there will be some bright quilts to come from the swap!

I also finished up the Boxed Squares throw size quilt last week - I quilted it on my sewing machine - used curvy, wavy lines, 3" to 4" apart. I suspect there are enough solid fabrics in that bin to make another one of these!

Mark invited us out to his house yesterday afternoon. He made a pork loin with potatos, red and green peppers and onions - all wrapped in foil and baked. It was very tasty! In his back yard he has a project in progress. This is/was a 1973 Motorhome. He has torn off the "home" section and is planning to build a hot tub on the flatbed area. He'd done research online and found a few conversions - how about a boat converted into a hot tub! My first thought was of Mark's Uncle Wally and Pa Joe and their "creativity"! I will keep you posted on this venture!

J.D. phoned the other night - he was so happy - he "aced" a Finite Math test! Second highest grade in the class! We're so proud of him and confident that he will continue to do well - he's a good kid - or young man, I should say - he's 22 now. Working on an assembly line in a factory, slinging hamburgers and roofing one summer, he's learned that an education is top priority!

Till next week - be safe and well