Looking Back 2013 - Part 2

Thanks for all your feedback from Part 1! It's so much fun looking back and even more so when others join in! So 13 quilts for the first half of 2013. On to the second half...

The quilt started the day the book arrived at my doorstep ~ "Dwell" from Simply Retro
The coolest machine quilting of the year ~ Big Star {get a closer look at the quilting here}
Winner for the best appliqué of the year {and only appliqué of the year} ~ Flowering Vine by Denyse Schmidt
The quilt that left me starstruck when Heather Bailey "liked" it on Instagram ~ Color Wheel for my budding artist granddaughter, Elyse
My Charm Pack quilt of the year ~ Nine-Patch/Snowball using "Happy Go Lucky"

My very first paper-pieced quilt {ever} ~ Lone Starburst in Field Study

My Garden Fence quilt of the year {my 3rd total} ~ also know as Garden Lattice from Simply Modern Christmas
Truly a winner ~ my St Louis Modern Quilt Guild Ohio Star challenge quilt

The most challenging quilt to design ~ Flying Geese, blocks made by my Redbird Bee friends

The quilt with the most Y-seams {like every single one} ~ Bangles from Hand Quilted With Love
The quilt made with the ruler designed by one of the funniest, nicest and most generous designers in the industry {oh, and talented too} ~ Tumbler aka Crumbler

The quilt that made me break my 2013 resolution not to join any quilt-alongs ~ Round and Round
The quilt made with fabric {Florence} bought on a whim ~ On A Whim
The top that sat the longest unquilted {maybe the whole year?} ~ Superstar from The Practical Guide to Patchwork
My mini of the year ~ Mini "Skirted" from Simply Modern Christmas

Thanks so much to all of you for traveling this road with me! You know I read many of your blogs and enjoy all of your comments. You truly are an inspiration to me and I appreciate your encouraging words. Thank you!

And I'm not done yet! My head has been spinning with new quilts and ideas for 2014. I'll be back soon to share some of those. Until then Happy New Year and I can't tell you how much I look forward to hanging out with you here again next year!

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Looking Back 2013 ~ Part 1

Tis the season. The time to look back and reflect on the past year. Here are my quilts from 2013~

The largest single block of the year at 61" x 63" ~ Courthouse Steps
The cuddliest quilt ~ AMH Flannel Hexagons, backed in voile with no batting
The "friendliest" quilt for 2013 ~ my Redbird Bee quilt

The quilt that's been repeated the most ~ Starburst
The biggest stretch of a traditional design ~ oversize Trip Off the World
The most excited I was about a fabric line this year ~ Dilly Dally in Flea Market Fancy

The quilt that made me smile the most ~ Big Hugs Little Kisses for my new baby grandson, Sam
My biggest {permanent} goof of the year ~ Candy Necklace

My biggest stash buster for 2013 ~ modern Log Cabin
My favorite quilt to make {by far} ~ Marcelle Medallion

The quilt whose fabrics have been in my stash the longest ~ Hourglass with pieces from every Amy Butler collection

The most unplanned quilt ~ Nine Block Sampler designed and created one block at a time
The biggest Starburst ~ I added extra rows for a lap size quilt!

I'll be back in a day or two to finish up the year!!

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Some thoughts and a GIVEAWAY.

I am not sure what is going on, but I am not inspired much to blog.  That's the simple and unvarnished truth.
It could be that I am not feeling so well, thanks to the Alleve I was prescribed after my last surgery.
I stopped it after a month, but I now have severe spontaneous reflux to the level of my clavicle......so the report said.  My daughter's theory is that if it did such a job on my stomach, maybe it simultaneously did a job on the bone growth in my head.

I got myself off Prilosec back in 2010, and now it looks like I will be taking it, or something like it, again.  Disturbing.  I am hoping this time to take it only to 'heal' my stomach, and not as a long term solution.
It is just one more thing on the list of things I must learn to deal with.  And I know that there is always someone with a worse scenario to deal with than mine.  I would never have imagined that I would have all these medical issues in my 60's...........I saw myself as very healthy and active, and figured I was good for a lot longer than that.  Ha!   Imagine that.
Life is so full of surprises.

It has been said, not to my face, but in an email, that I have been "obsessed" with the monster headache.  While that comment hurt me more than I can say, it also made me angry.
I wanted to reply that it is impossible to ignore a metal stake in the middle of your forehead.
For TWO YEARS +.  No matter how hard I have tried to live my life around it, to be productive and engaged, there is no way I could have ignored that.  I have acted "as if" many, many many days...too many to remember.....just because I didn't want to give in and be an invalid.  I have done the best that I could come up with.  Some days weren't so hard, others were a real struggle.

Ack.
I am letting that go.  I have to.

We are getting ready to trek south to warmer climates, and I can't wait.  We are driving, because I would not ever put Roy in the belly of an airplane.  And I wouldn't go without him.
Roy and I  are planning on walking and walking and walking in glorious sunshine.  And I am hoping that my head likes the better weather.

My kids are all coming to spend time in the sun with us, and that will make it the best vacay ever.

But first, while I am still in the frigid northeast, I think we need to have a New Year's giveaway.

"What will it be, Mimi?"

 It will be a cotton dish towel, I just took a bunch off the AVL.  You can pick any one you want off my web site.

All you have to do is comment with one thing that you have learned in 2013, and one thing you want to do in 2014.  Easy right?
I will draw the winner on New Year's Day.

For me???
1. In 2013,  I have learned that while sometimes I feel overwhelmed, I can ALWAYS do one day at a time.
2.  In 2014, I am going to make a bucket list for the year, and then I am going to mark it off as I do the things I want to do.  I am not going to let my headache stop me.

Sounds good, Mimi.

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A little looking back.

"Iced in" here in northeast New York.  I do not dare go out the door.  I know if I fell my head would gravitate to the pavement first.
Murphy's Law.
So I am baking my annual huge batch of Greek Honey cookies, and the house smells 'loverly'.  I will then distribute them QUICKLY because otherwise, I will eat way too many.  They are so addictive.

The GOOD NEWS for the WEEK............Next is home!!!!!
He must have gotten himself snowed in someplace, and didn't want to plow through the deep snow.
He was gone for several days, and L and I both worried that the fox had gotten him.
But nope, he's back, loud and lovable as ever.

What a relief.




I finally took the finished products off the AVL, just because I knew what  hemming job I had facing me, and figured it might be smarter to break it up.  So I hemmed 24 towels and 6 table runners, and put them on my web site.  Now I'll finish the rest of the warp.

I am still not sick of this pattern.  It quite mesmerizes me while I am weaving.
Not a bad thing.

I love the 8/2 unmercerized cotton, they make hefty, thirsty towels.  But I also love the feel of the Cottolin, which is a cotton/linen blend, so I think I am going to do some towels in that next time around.

I just read The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan.  It was hard to put down.  A good read that definitely pulls you into another world for a space of time.  Also not a bad thing.

Maybe it's the time of year, or the circumstances of this particular year, but I find myself meditative, contemplative, reminiscent......... more than usual.
Maybe it's getting older.  Thinking of times past, people gone, parts of my life that only exist in my mind and heart, and sometimes, in my dreams.
Ah.  How life changes over the years.  It is good, I think, that you don't really know that, when you're young.  No matter how much someone may tell you, you don't really get it until you are older, and so much of your life is history.
And maybe it's because there is a lot more history to remember, than there is future to anticipate.
It's just the way it is.

My mother wrote in a diary faithfully, from 1969 to just a couple of months before she died.
I used to joke with her, that no one would ever read them.
Not so funny now, not at all.
I've read them through 1975.
On one hand, it helps me to remember the way my mother was, in her forties, and fifties......instead of in her eighties, like I knew her at the end of her life.
She was a gardener extraordinaire, and a seamstress.  She was a doting mother of one: me.  And she adored her granddaughters from the minute they were born.
She was a huge part of our lives, for so long.
And reading them, also reminds me of my own life, and how things were back then.  So different.
Names, places, events, things that I had forgotten, were suddenly right before my eyes again.

But I will never understand, really, my mother's style of writing.
It certainly does not resemble mine.
She talked of meals and bowling and gardening and dishes and ironing and "puttering" and a myriad of daily things.   If I had a dollar for every time she said she made tea, I would be a rich woman.
It is hard to read, because you have to plow through all the trivia.   In fact, if you weren't there, and you didn't know what really happened, you could never guess from her diaries.  You would think that this woman just had a boring life of a bunch of repetitive things.
You wouldn't know about her joys.
Or her sorrows.
Or her doubts.
None of that.
She referred to troublesome, sad, disruptive, painful, and even wonderful events, with one liners.
And never how she felt about any of it.
And the real disturbing things.........she left those out completely.  I could read a reference to going here or there, and know what was unspoken, but other than that, her life reads like a monologue of days.
There were times, reading it, when I was stunned.  I wanted to yell at her, WHAT?   You didn't even mention what happened???  You didn't even say how we cried???  How we hurt??  How angry you were???  How our lives were impacted???
No, nothing.
I wish now that I had read them while she was alive.  One at a time.  I could have gone in to her room, and asked her, "Mom, how did this really make you feel?"
And strangely enough, she would have told me.
But she wouldn't write it down.
Wow.
I guess the part that really gets to me, is that she wasn't a 'flat' person.  She was very passionate about what she loved, and what she didn't.  But apparently, there was something that did not allow it to flow from her pen.  For reasons, now, that I will never really know.

                                 My mother with my daughter, Morgan.

And I guess I am just the opposite.  NO FILTER, I've been  accused of having.
I'm just me, and I'm out there, pretty much exposed for much of the time.
And the people who love me, well, they just do.  And the people that don't, well, they don't.
And they don't have to read my blatherings.

 I'm pretty sure though, that if my daughters ever go back to read my blog, to see how I felt about
something or other, it won't be a mystery.   They'll know.
And that's not a bad thing either.

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Fresh

I have one more quilt to share for 2013! This is Fresh from the book Simply Retro...

The color palette came from an Art Gallery collection called Reminisce and per usual I added some stash fabrics. I so love the colors and the scrappiness.

Whoops! I cut too many triangles and they ended up in a strip on the back with the floral from Reminisce and the hexagon print from Simply Style.

I had this one longarm quilted and the quilting is perfect - just beautiful. There are feathers in the star points and a curvy geometric pattern in the white. A really nice density... creating a lovely drape.

Last night we got to sleep under it. And we woke up refreshed and happy. So I guess it's a working quilt!

As we head into the holiday week, I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. I hope your week is filled with friends, family, presents, good food and many blessings. As always thank you for visiting my little space on the web. I'll be back after Christmas with a 2013 wrap-up and plans for the new year. All the best!!

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Beep, beep.

 Tonight I was hemming the 25 towels and the 7 table runners that just came off the AVL, when I got a text message from a dear friend.
 This is what it said:
"Beep Beep Beep....This is an alert alarm.....Your blog needs updating, your minions are crying out for an eyeful"........

And she's right......I have been a slacker, for sure.

It's not the headache......that's just the usual, and I can handle it.

I am just not all that excited about this whole Christmas season.  I'm missing my mother.  I'm sadder than I've been in a long time.  I feel a little lost.  And that's the truth. 
And on top of it, Next has been missing for several days.  Not good.  Not good at all.

The good news is that I spent some quality time with my youngest daughter, and my youngest grand.

A picture is worth 1000 words, right?

God, how I love my family.

And Christmas means I will get to see them all.


Help, Mimi, help!!!!
Vicious Roy!

New at the studio.  Adirondack Bark Rugs.

I love the earthy colors, and they are super durable.  Just put them on my web site.

There are also 40 new monkeys on there for Christmas, in some fabulous new colors.

And that's it for flagrant marketing.


Right now there is a pint of Ben and Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream with MY NAME on it.

I'm sad, I'm not dead. :)

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Round and Round

I'm finding Instagram quite addictive. It's just so simple to connect with other quilters, see what they're working on and share ideas. The problem is that it makes you want to make every beautiful quilt that you see! The Round and Round quilt-along was a perfect example.

I was intrigued by this pattern and wanted to try it when it was first released. One of those sitting in the back of your mind {along with many others}. When Camille announced she was hosting a quilt-along, I was in. I chose a background other than my usual white - a minty, aqua-y, blue/green solid from Moda Bella called Breeze. I really love this color...

For the quilting, I tried concentric circles for the first time. I've done swirls before, but wanted to try this look where the swirls look like they're sitting on top of one another. Armed with Angela Walter's book by my side, I gave it a go. Definitely time-consuming, but very doable!

The backing is that nice blue/green dot from Scrumptious and I love how the Metro Circles in navy set off the quilt as binding.

I thought this would be my final finish for 2013, but I should get one more binding on. So hopefully one more before heading into the list for 2014. {And maybe a little wrap-up post of all my quilts from 2013?}...

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Superstar

My second to last quilt finish for the year! This quilt is Superstar, pattern in The Practical Guide to Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartman.

I can't even remember when I started this one. I've been working on it here and there for the past year I'm sure. Then it sat as a top for months. I really couldn't come up with a way to quilt it.

And some things just need to evolve. The one block with the gray background... that was a spur of the moment addition. Oh, and the green too. Added that in when I made the last 3 blocks.

As it turned out the quilting couldn't have been easier! I used my walking foot and sewed organic {not straight} lines. Man, did that go quick! And finally the perfect diagonal stripe binding.

One more coming for sure... and I may eek in one more binding. We'll see!

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