Finally some decent weather and 37 baby quilts.

Ha

     After such a long cold winter we are finally enjoying some warm double digit temperatures however things are not well with our little family.  DS has been struggling with bi-polar disorder, not properly diagnosed, and it has spiralled out of control.  He has been highly delusional these past few days and it has gotten worse with a desire to commit suicide to stop all the thoughts and feelings.  We took him to the crisis centre twice and they sent him away.  We finally had to call the police to take him in and after a whole day of my DH sitting with him there they admitted him to hospital.  I pray with all my heart they can help him.  He is highly paranoid right now and the bizarre things he has been saying scare the hell out of me. He has a long way to go before he is well enough to go back to work if he still has a job.  We will worry about that later, he needs to get well first.

Since this blog is supposed to be about quilting I better include some of that in my post.  The Thelma Wynn project has ended for the year and we had the tea on the 15th of May.  I have posted a few pictures of the quilts I made/donated.  One day I will get the hang of adding pictures to my posts but since this iPad has a mind of its own I doubt I will ever get there.   Some I quilted and some were tied by one of the ladies in the group that does not sew but likes to help out.  I made 37 quilts this year, three bibs and several burp cloths.  I am tired so I packed all the leftover fabric away for now and quilted a customer quilt for a change.  

     Another of my longtime customers, that no longer drives, wants a couple of quilts done.  DH, the dog and I will do a road trip and pick them up.  The customer is in her late 80's and she lives in one of the lake communities so we don't mind the trip since it is a nice area to visit.

I am hoping our son is recovering by then so we can take time out and not have to worry about leaving him alone.

More pictures.

Happy stitching.

Winter's Song top is finally finished and on the longarm.

I finally finished appliquéing and piecing the wallhanging and have it on the machine.  I drew out some quilting ideas on the freezer paper pattern and then started quilting the sky.  It looks like crap so far.  I can't even look at it right now.  I am going to let it sit a day and see if I still hate it, if is, I will pick it out but only after I have quilted most of the rest of the top.  I think I need to quilt the sky a little tighter with smaller feather fronds as well. I am not even posting a picture of it because I am so disappointed and discussed.  

I have decided to make charity quilts with my Celtic Solstice blocks.  The quilt is way too bright for me and goes with nothing in this house so making them into children's quilts makes sense.  I also would have to make more parts to make it fit on one of our beds and I had no desire to buy more orange fabric or the will to sew any more of the parts.  I can split them into either four or five tops depending on whether I want to make squares or rectangles.  The pattern is out of whack if I make a sixteen block square but I think it would not matter to the baby receiving the quilt.  We will see.

Well DS brought his laundry over because they don't have machines in his building yet so I better go put his next load in.  How come I get the honours?  Once a Mom always a Mom.

Happy Stitching.

It is the middle of January already.

It is hard to believe that this is the middle of January already.  The temperature was to be around zero but we ended up having blizzard like conditions and of course DS was moving today.  His 

box spring ended up being airborne and his mattress got wet.  Hopefully everything will have dried out before he goes to bed.

I spent most of the day finishing up the appliqué on WInter's Song.  I have it all done except I have to fix something I fixed.  Not happy with my fix so back to the drawing board tomorrow.  Sashng and borders go on tomorrow as well.  Yeah!

I have all my blocks done for CS and I am looking forward to sewing them together.  Maybe on the weekend I can get to it.  I have to take my mother grocery shopping Friday morning and then I have a sit and stitch with some quilting buddies.  We haven't seen each other for awhile so I am looking forward to it.  We all decided to do CS and are all at various stages of completion so we are looking forward to seeing what we have done.

Photos tomorrow.

Happy stitching.

Another frigid January day.

Charlie and I are still curled up on the couch not wanting to get moving this freezing cold morning.  Anyway, DH and DS have both gone off to work so I do not have to be quiet.  I think some major vacuuming and cleaning should be done while I have a chance.  I also want to head out to Target to get those flannel sheets that are on sale, they also have some gift bags on sale for cheap so I will pick up some more if any are left.

I am taking a break from my Celtic Solstice quilt for a couple of days to get caught up with Winter's Song.  I may change up my setting because of the design that someone posted on Facebook.  It looks great but only if all of the oranges are as saturated a red orange colour as in the design.  I will play around with the blocks later on and make a plan.  I am not ready to quilt it right now anyway so I can wait and play.

Below is the EQ design for CS that I am in love with.  Enough of sitting around.  Time to get going.

Happy stitching

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

First post of the year.  Hopefully I will post a little more often in the future.

I spent most of the day squaring up my Celtic solstice mystery quilt units.  Bonnie Hunter posted the reveal as a surprise so I made up two of the blocks to see how they looked.  I may put it together like someone posted on fb instead of the Quiltville setting.  Someone else posted a great border treatment as well that I may steal.  My units are all in a storage bin waiting for me to get going on the top, hopefully I can work on it tomorrow.

I put all of the fabric away and sorted all the scraps into their bins as well.  I feel good now that the mess has been cleaned up.  I need to get back to the appliqué so that I can it ready and quilted for the quilt show this spring.  Better get busy.

I also want to make a list of UFO's that I want to complete this year.  I say it every year but I want to try to not buy any more fabric this year unless I need it for borders or backing to finish up a project.  this is the year of using up my scraps.  I like the wonky stars pattern that Bonnie is working on, that should use up a lot of 2 1/2 inch squares and scraps.  I also want to work on Tumalo Trail and get rid of those little squares.  Good luck to me.

Happy stitching

Good Minus 31 Celsius Sunday Morning.

Woke up early because I have been sleeping on the couch since Christmas Eve and my hip is protesting.  DS may have found an apartment and occupancy is immediate so hopefully I will have my bed back sooner than expected.  I am also going to buy new girly print sheets for my bed to celebrate.  I hope it sticks this time.

I am waiting to see if DH wants to brave the cold and go to church this morning.  If not I plan to go downstairs and work on CS.  Yesterday we had blizzard like conditions with wind chill warnings so I worked on CS for most of the day.  The colours of parts 3 and 4 can't help but cheer a person up.  

Here is a photo of what I have been up to.

 

I feel like doing something quiet right now, as it is 8:06 a.m., so I think I will cut out the pieces for clue 5 then I just can sit and sew when the mood strikes.  Oh boy is my sewing room a mess.

A photo of the mess on my cutting table.    My plan is to get all my scraps cut and sorted before I start any new projects.  I do need to finish Winter's Song for the quilt show and The Thelma Wynn project should be starting up again in the new year.  Busy, busy.

Back at it,

Happy stitching.

Working on clue #3 of the mystery.

Testing my new iPad to see if I can post pictures right to my blog entries.  Here goes.

These are bits and pieces of clue 3.

It will take some getting used to, I can tell right now, but how great is that to be able to post photos right away instead of pulling from camera downloads.  This is the best Christmas gift ever!!!!!

Clues 1 and 2 above waiting to be sewn into the quilt.  I should be finished clue 3 this afternoon, 100 of the squares are sewn into clue 5 and 100 are sewn into pinwheel blocks.  I need to start the four patches today or tomorrow, then I will start clue 5.  Yeah! I am catching up.

Better get back to it.

Happy stitching.