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Oh my gosh, it's hot and humid in the South! I sure hope that isn't a taste of what we have in store for us all summer.
Let's see, what's been happening lately? Just finished working till school starts again in August. I love working for a school district! Been trying to get my dad's house ready to sell and settle all the other details of his estate so that we can finalize all that. It was going along pretty well until all that came to a screeching halt about 2 weeks ago when my healthy, athletic, physically fit, rarely sick husband had a "warning episode" on the tennis court. The result of one heart cath, several EKG's and blood tests: triple bypass open heart surgery! Anyone who knows my husband has been in total shock over this as he is usually thought of as the healthiest person our friends and family know. That just goes to show you how hidden problems with our health can be. Fortunately, the surgery was very successful and he is recuperating nicely at home taken care of by ME! The timing couldn't have been better since school had just gotten out for the summer so I'm free to do what is most important right now. It has been a blessing to be able to sit and talk about anything we want to, read books, take naps, and now walks without having to hurry to finish because we have to be someplace. We'll be celebrating our 27th wedding anniversary Friday quietly here at home, which is what we usually do anyway, but it will have a special meaning to us this year as we are so thankful to have the opportunity to have many more anniversaries.
I don't know if you'd call it a craze, but there's been an interest lately in using vintage sheets to make quilts. Michelle made a darling one using the Stacked Coins pattern, Sarah used plain (but very pretty) 10" square blocks, and Elizabeth designed hers using nine-patch blocks. I love the look of all of them but my daughter chose the one made by Elizabeth for me to use to make a duvet cover for her new house in California. Elizabeth has a very good tutorial on her blog (Oh, Fransson) that I followed to piece the top just as if I was making a quilt like hers. However, instead of using batting and quilting it, I added a vintage flat sheet for the back, added buttons and buttonholes across the top to close the cover, and made 2 pillow shams. I absolutely love the look and how it turned out. I can't wait for my daughter to get it sometime next week. She loves all things vintage, so this should please her very much.
Since I didn't have much in the way of vintage sheets in my stash, I found that I could order sets of assorted fat quarters on ETSY. I used Kona Cotton in White for the sashings and think that it was a good choice as it's sturdy and a good fabric to anchor all the mixtures of sheet fabrics used. I read on Elizabeth's blog that she hosted a vintage sheet fat quarter swap with 72 swappers...how I wish I had been reading her blog in 2008 so that I could have joined in on that!
I see that April 13, 2009 was the date of my last blogging effort. 10 months ago, actually. I could have gone through an entire pregnancy and birth in that time if I had been so inclined and physically able. Thankfully, I was neither.
We did have a wedding to celebrate in May. My son married a beautiful young woman last May. My youngest son was a groomsman, my daughter a bridesmaid, my oldest son was the violin soloist throughout the ceremony, and my grandson was the ring bearer for his dad. It was a beautiful wedding, despite the rain and tornado warning an hour before the ceremony was to begin. This is the One Block Wonder that I made for their wedding present:
The picture was taken at my guild's quilt show in October and my grandson is standing in front of the quilt. There's someone else's quilt hanging on the other side and the back of it is showing below my quilt. It had a heat shaped label on it and the colors were similar so it kind of looks like it was part of my quilt but it wasn't.
The main reason, though, that I took a break was to help care for my father whose health was declining due to lung cancer and other health problems. My sisters and I were able to take care of him at his home as his illness made him progressively weaker. He died at his home in November at the age of 79. He was a proud father of 7 children, grandfather to 18, and great-grandfather to 4. We all have memories of him and my mother that we will cherish forever.
Taking a hiatus from posting on my blog certainly doesn't mean that I haven't been following what others have been up to and reading about so many great projects people have been doing all over the world. There are so many ideas that I want to try. Most will have to wait because I'm dedicating this year to finishing up what I already have started. So, I have my list of UFOs that I will be diligently working on. I'll update my list on the sidebar soon although it won't look much differently than what I've had on there for a long time!
Spring break has arrived and I'm loving every minute of it so far. Even doing the laundry and cleaning the house isn't so bad since I know that I don't have to go to work for a week!
This is the time of year that I sew costumes for the high school that my daughter and son attended. It's a magnet school for, among other areas, Performing Arts. My daughter was in the Vocal Magnet and Drama Magnet programs and my son was in the Tech Theater program. Since I can sew, I helped all the years they attended and since then get a call every spring asking if I'll help them out. This year, they're doing "Aida, the Musical". I'm making 5 belly dancer costumes. Saturday I met with the costume mistress and got the fabric, trims, and patterns and have cut out some of the pieces. This is the first time in a few years that I'm happy with what I have to sew because I have a pattern to work from. Most of the time, it seems that they give me something to take apart or remake into a new costume. Last year I had to take apart tuxedos to use them a patterns to make the jackets shown here.
So, when I get a regular pattern to follow, I'm thrilled. I hope to have a good start on them by the end of the week.
My daughter asked if I'd make a duvet cover for her before I got busy with the costumes so I made that today. I've had the fabric since she was home for Christmas but haven't felt like sewing it up. It only took a couple of hours once I got started and now all I have to do is sew the buttons on tonight while I watch TV with my husband.
I'm very behind in making a quilt for my son and his bride-to-be. They're getting married May 2 and I've been procrastinating like crazy. Now I'm down to the wire which is typical for me. I've decided to make a One Bock Wonder and will go tomorrow to buy the fabric. I made one about a year and a half ago and had a lot of fun with that technique which is basically a Stack and Whack block. I'll post my progress as I go along. I'll have this one professionally quilted on a long arm by someone I know that does beautiful work.
I did finish a UFO in February but am just now posting about it. This is another one that my mom had started and I finished for her. My mom had collected Mary Englebreit fabrics for a long time, in fact, she had some of ME's first fabric from Daisy Kingdom in light blue with pink flowers. It sure has a different look from the black, red, and yellow that we see now. So, when my mom saw a ME crazy quilt in a quilting magazine about 5-6 years ago, she went to town using all her fabrics and decorative stitches on her new sewing machine to make it. She finished piecing the blocks and sewing them together and asked if I'd choose fabric and put borders on for her. I did and sandwiched the quilt with flannel and that's as far as she got before her health starting quickly failing. So, 4 years after she died I finished it and it's going to be given to one of my sisters. I think that it's adorable.
I started Bonnie Hunter's (www.quiltville.com) New Year's Eve Mystery "Double Delight" last month and have been busy cutting a gazillion pieces and sewing little nine patches. All I bought were 5 or 6 fat quarters in blues and the rest is coming from my stash. Yay! Spring break is in another week so I hope to be able to finish putting the top together then. I think that I'm going to love this one.
I think that I see a pattern emerging here of posting once a month. Need to try to do better about that.
