Have to get back to it.

My DH and I went to Fargo for a few days shopping and re-charging.  He really needed to get away from his phone and laptop.  We stopped in Mayville on the way and I found some ground snow fabric for my Winter's Song quilt.  We found most of the bargains at Walmart of all places.  Target, Kohl's and Gordman's were a disappointment this time around.  I did find some fabric at the Hobby Lobby that was not too bad and I went to a quilt shop in Grand Forks on the way home.  I found some more fabrics for my Blue Ridge Beauty that I intend to start as a leader/ender this winter.  My DH was the most successful in finding clothes on sale.  I just came home with t-shirts.  We spent enough and the car was full but it seems like there is nothing to show for it.  We did buy a small cheap microwave for our DS. 

I was happy to get home and see my dog and play with my fabric.  I washed all of it and ironed it and it is ready to be put away.  I did not wash the 1 1/2 inch strips that I bought in a bag for $6.00.  There was around two yards of fabric in that bag.  Good deal, nice neutrals for a yet unknown project down the road. 

I am so looking forward to retiring.  I just have a few quilts left to do for customers and then I am free, so I better get at it.  First I have to measure the floor downstairs because puzzlemats are on sale at Walmart.  We had to throw the old ones out because of the water backup.

Happy Quilting.

Another Hot Summer Day

Just taking a break from quilting a customer quilt.  I love the two quilts she has done from a book called Stratavarious quilts.  I am going to order the book and make a smaller version of my favourite.  It has a strippy back ground and then huge appliques and thread work to enhance the piecing.  Love it.

My DH is on his way home from a work thing in Vancouver so the dog and I will pick him up at the airport just after 6:00 p.m.  I have had a busy couple of days organizing and doing laundry while I had the house to myself.  The dog broke a dew claw so we have been careful not to over do it until it heals.  It has been way to hot to walk and I am too lazy to walk at 6:00 a.m.  The dog is still in bed at that time anyway.  He gives me a 'hey do not disturb' grunt when I get up at that time and he is still in bed. 

I have finally finished piecing the body of my Orca Bay quilt.  I have to decide on the inner sashing fabric and then I will piece and attach the border blocks.  I need to measure it on the new bed before I decide if I am finished or it needs another border.  It looks great, very striking.  I looked at completed ones on the website and was drawn to ones with coloured sashing and not just a white strip. 

We are going to Fargo in a couple of weeks so I am going to hit the quilt shops hard.  I need fabrics to finish up a couple of UFOs so I will be armed with samples and yardages.  We are looking forward to the trip as we have not got away together for several years.  We have a dog sitter so we are happy.  I had to get a rush passport renewal since mine expired in March.  Crap.

I am so happy that I have decided to retire from customer quilting.  I still have a few customers that want things done before I am finished and I keep saying yes to more.  Will I ever learn to say no.  I am going to take my time because I hate deadlines and pressure.

Our son moved to his own place a couple of weeks ago and is slowly settling in.  It was good for him, he has calmed his heavy drinking down as well as it was taking a toll on him and I am glad he made the decision on his own.  We have been very worried about him.  He took his separation badly even though he was glad of it in a way.  There are always unexpected changes around the corner.

I had really good news from both the Gyn and Family Drs.  I do not have any cancer cells, but a kidney stone and a couple of gallbladder stones.  The kidney cyst will be monitered every six months to see if it goes away on its own or grows, but it is really nothing to worry about.

I better get back to work.

Happy stitching.

How life changes in a matter of hours

My husband answered his phone and the next thing I know he says our DIL is coming over with her parents and she is pregnant and she is leaving our son with us and having an abortion.  She had him come to our house on the pretext of having supper here and blindsided him with all of this.  My husband took him back to the hospital in case of a relapse and he stayed for a few days to get himself together.  He is with us for now but wants his space and is looking for an apartment.  She wants to keep the house and I am sure that she and her family will screw our son over royally.  My heart is breaking over this but what can one do.  I think my son is happy it is over.  She was too demanding and controlling and he could not take it and drank to blot things out.  I hope it works out all right for him and he does not go into an alcoholic tailspin.  I can only pray we can all heal from this.

On the quilty side, I am almost finished the never ending quilting on the holly hock quilt and have done a little bit of stitching pieces for my Orca Bay.  I have been to tired and sad to work for any length of time.  I cannot give anything right now to anything.

I pray we heal and soon.

Haven't posted for awhile

I haven't posted for awhile because there has been so much going on and I have not accomplished any quilting.  A customer quilt is taking forever because I am so up in the air about things right now and can't keep it together for more than a few minutes.

DS was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in April because he had a major breakdown.  I have been on pins and needles about him ever since.  He is on medication now and he seems to be coping but it is rough on his marriage and that is troubling us as well.  I hope he can manage to straighten things out and work things out with his wife.  They have been together for 14 years so it will not be easy.  Thank goodness they don't have children yet.

My health has been not the greatest.  I had an ultra sound April 25th and they found a large mass in my uterus.  I then had a D&C on May 16th and have not stopped spotting since.  I even had a three day period, two days after.  My own doctor's office then called to tell me that during that same ultra sound they found a cyst on one of my kidneys so I am waiting for a CT scan appointment to look into that.  I am more than worried.  I have wasted most of the week worrying about crap, having a major headache and taking my mother to the eye specialist so I am backed up again.  I wasted today as well working on my own stuff and not getting very far with that.  

I am anxious to getting back to just quilty things as well as trying to get some gardening done.  The weather has been crappy these last couple of weeks so that has been on hold.

Off to walk the dog.

Happy stitiching.

MPQ Quilt Show

I took a flying visit to the MPQ quilt show.  I quickly had a look at the vendors and only bought four fat quarters of neutrals for my Orca Bay.  I am not interested in starting any new projects so buying fabric for the sake of buying fabric does not interest me right now.  I had a quick look at the quilts.  There was nothing shown done by me so that goes to show that nobody likes my work and is embarrassed to show it.  I apologize to everyone that I have quilted a quilt for.  Some of the quilts done by some of the long time quilters are not that great and I think some of the stuff I have done is better but that just might be my jealousy speaking.  One of my customers had two quilts done by Green Fairy Quilts in the states.  The work is very nice.  I wish I had a stitch regulated machine to be able to do some of that detail work.  My machine is too jumpy to do that type of work.  Anyway, I have come to the definite decision to stop taking quilts for hire and only do my own from now on.  I can no longer take the pressure and the humiliation.

I forgot to take my camera with me but there was really nothing that I cared to take pictures of.  I also felt and got the brush off from some of the quilters in my satellite group.  I am going to quit.  They don't like me so why carry on.  I know this sounds like a pity party but I have no one to tell so the blog gets to listen.  I am happy using up my scraps and making quilts for the family and for charity, I don't need anything else.  I picked up a brochure from Quilts of Valour and I am going to start to make some quilts for that cause.  I can sort through Kay's fabric to find stuff that is not feminine and they said a maple leaf theme works well.  I have a lot of my own fabric that can go to the cause.  I am sure that I can figure something out.

Anyway, that is my two cents worth of nonsense for the day.

Happy stitching.

Very warm day today and spent it in the basement.

The temperature got up to 24 degrees today and it is March 19th.  We normally have tons of snow left, slowly melting at this time of year and it is much much cooler.  Not complaining.  I can take it.  It has been overcast for most of the day and we were to have a thunderstorm but it hasn't happened yet.  The dog will be thrilled if it does.

I have been downstairs working on Shirley's quilts and have tamed my fears of doing the feather meander type of quilting I have been doing.  It has gone better than expected but I am beat right now.  I hope to be able to finish it all tomorrow.  I can then bury the threads and give them back.  Yeah!!!  I can then quickly quilt the quilt for the silent auction.  I bought the fabric for the border and binding last week and finished sewing it on and making the binding on Saturday.  I also did the final border on my Crabapple wallhanging so that is ready to quilt when I have time.

I will finish the last batik quilt for the customer that lives out of town and her daughter will pick it up in April.

I can then dedicate time to quilting Sandra's lovely hollyhock applique quilt.  I pretty much know what I will quilt on it.  I am going to love doing that quilt.

I finally went to a MPQ meeting on Saturday and re-joined.  There were three women who had met Bonnie Hunter in Sarasota this winter and they told their stories and showed off some of the Quiltville quilts they have made.  It was great to see a completed RRCB and Orca Bay.  That inspired me to start working on my Orca Bay again.  I finished cutting the black triangles that I needed and I have started to sew some more of the red strip pieced squares.  I still have a lot of work to do on them and I am hoping to just use up all of the red fabric that I have instead of buying more.  I am sure I can squeeze them out.  What a blessing to have received those "scraps" from Rita.  I have used a lot of the blacks that she passed on to me and scrounged some red strips from the 1 1/2" pile that she gave me.  I am close to being able to start piecing the blocks.  Yeah.  Still a lot of construction left.

Time to finish making supper.

Happy stitiching.

Holy Snow Day Batman.

It has been snowing non-stop since last night and boy has the snow accumulated.  It starting to really blow with 50 - 60 km winds this afternoon.  My DH snow blew the walks and driveway but will have to do them again because it has drifted in again.  The dog and I just got back from a walk around the park and the path has really drifted in.  Good exercise any.  I am in my pajamas at 4:30 already because my pants are soaked and I didn't want to put on my jeans.  I am not going anywhere tonight anyway.

I tried to work on my customer quilt but I could not stand at the machine for long today.  Hopefully my gift will have settled down a lot by tomorrow.  I hope my doctor can do something for me.  This is getting old fast at 55.

Anyway,  I did sit at my work desk and started to sort some of the fabric that Rita gave me.  What a lovely selection.  I am sure there is enough there for me to finish my Orca Bay quilt and enough blue and beige squares to get a start on a Blue Ridge Mountain quilt.  The squares are 2 1/2 inches and the pattern calls for 2 inch squares so I will have some trimming to do but I don't care.  I may change up the pattern and use 2 1/2 inch squares and see how that works.  There are larger HST's in it that would have to then finish at 4 inches and that might look large.  I will have to do a mock up or see if there is a sample using those sizes to see if it looks too big and unwieldy.  I think it should be ok.  Maybe I will. Why not.

Well I should go feed his Lordship and start our supper.

Happy stitching