live and learn

Next weekend we will be going up to Minnesota to see my aunt Betty. She recently moved into the Care Center. She has Alzheimer's.
She isn't even that old.... mid 60's.
Her short term memory has become very poor and at home care very hard.

So I made her this quilt to hang on her bulletin board in her room.
I wanted to mail it to her, but my sister said to just bring it with when I come up.

But I want her to have fun mail days......
Then I started thinking.....
okay I will bring the quilt with me and send her something else...


I will send her some other fun mail. I researched making fabric postcards.....

I didn't make mine 4x6, mine is a little bigger.
My quilt label book by Kim Churbuck had a good picture to use. It is closer to 5x6.





The quote "how sweet it is to be loved by you" sounded good.....
only I messed up and my wording is different. I knew it didn't sound right, but I just kept working on it without checking.





Several places said "don't use heat and bond"...they never said why....
I used it and found out...
... the glue gums up your needle when sewing around the edge.




Live and Learn
It was all I had so I used it.



My first postcard is in the mail. Tractor joe is worried..."it will get dirty or wrecked"
I mailed it anyway...regular postage plus 20 cents or so for hand stamping it right there at the post office.



It will be fun to see if it makes it and what kind of shape it is in.
I am sure it will be fine!!

I can call it done....

I am done cutting out words for now....

there is still plenty of book left for another project or two...

and I want to do something like this again.

If I couldn't find the word I wanted, I punched out the letters

using my hole puncher.

This was fun to do.

The frame is a really neat coppery/orange with a touch of pinky red.
My mom will hate it.
"pink and orange do not belong together"



But it is for my sister Jane,
who was at the conservatory last winter, getting her picture taken,
she loves pink and orange,
and in her world
they belong together.

tonight is prom...

In about 20 minutes Crispy will be dressing in

this tuxedo to go to prom.

I know it is 20 minutes....he told me so....

when I sat down and started interfering with the bandwidth.

"hey, I am leaving in 20 minutes, can't you wait?"

There is always a battle for bandwidth around here.

Internet vs. Xbox live.

But I continue to blog.

Cornelious painted this frame with some primer for me.

He said "it should be painted lime green."

I say a combination of copper and orange.

That green is his favorite color and I told him

"next time I paint a frame for you it will be lime green."

Okay...I am off to paint.

adding stuff...

I can't leave well enough alone...
I am adding stuff to my lovely painting.

(besides it really wasn't "well")

I went through my stickers and found a pair of sunglasses....

do you believe it?!

sunglasses that were just the right size...also found some garden tools, a heart and a straw garden hat.
Then I cut out some flowers and a butterfly from a magazine.
and I stenciled on some snow flakes. (this picture was taken in the winter at the St. Paul Conservatory) Next up....I am cutting words out of an old book.
This was the hardest thing to do....cut up a book....I love books.....


I finally got the courage and strength to do it.

Exactly what the words will say is still being worked out or cut out.

and my mini quilts remain unbinded....

I had to try it.....1st attempt

If you go to piknic.com....you can alter a picture and make it pencil drawing.
Then print it out and paint it.....

Sounds easy enough.

The new printer was finally up and running today and I printed out my pencil drawing picture.

Then I painted....

First mistake was.... not using watercolor paper...
but this was new to me and I didn't want to waste good paper.


There were several other "mistakes" made along the way, I won't bore you with all the details.

It is on my fridge like a good little art project....

I like it 'cause it makes me laugh when I look at it.


Karen said I should go do something constructive, like sewing binding on my mini quilts.

Baskets & Blooms....

.... Block of the month finally finished.

This has been years in the making.

The first year was getting to The Quilted Forest every month to pick up the next installment.

I started off strong enough, but towards the end it was hard.
All that applique.


Each piece was sewn down by hand....

At least I didn't have to think about fabric....each kit had what I needed to make the block.

I did have to think about how it would be quilted....all that handwork....and I ended up sending it to the quilters for a random design. I did hand sew the binding to the back though!!

It is a good thing I still like it, being as old as it is...

It was hard to take pictures of....it has been so windy...and it was rainy a few days too. It measures 47" x 66"...it will go on a wall...

All I need to do now is figure out which wall....hopefully that will go faster than making it went.

It is a Joined at the Hip pattern by Avis Shirer and Tammy Johnson.

It is Friday!

Not that much has been happening.

So...I went through my pictures to see what was there.

I have a bunch of miss matched pictures to post.

Karen bought me some more thread one day! I was able to finish the calendar quilt.

It has been so windy though. I can't get a decent picture of it. I did manage to get one picture of it that wasn't all blurry.

Last Christmas we did white elephant gifts.

My sisters and I look for stuff we

don't use

don't need

don't like

and wrap them up real pretty to give away....

We played some dice game.

If you rolled some number you got to pick out of the pile.

Jane ended up with this snowman quilt.

I had a fake wreath outside...it was starting to fall apart.

I just took it all apart, but didn't throw it away.

Cornelious found some fake leaves blowing around this spring.

I didn't throw them out either.

I had some other fake flowers in a box in the garage.

I ended up sticking them in this pot.

It is all fake stuff put together. Looks more like fall.

But I kinda like it.

And it won't die from heat and lack of watering.

Karen's finished quilt and her little dog too....

I stopped by Karen's house to see her finished quilt.

Even the binding is done.

Sewn down by hand.....

The backing is this super cute numbers fabric.

I am debating....

should I buy some for future use???

I know a math teacher.....

I will keep thinking about it.

I moved in closer to get this shot.

All washed and wrinkled.

Then who do I spy.....

Look, it is Charlie, he is hanging around the bottom of the quilt.

What a sweet little dog.

He has a big day ahead...

he is going to the groomer.

One bath and haircut are on the agenda.

I always say in a high pitched voice,

"hellooo baabiee"
He seems to like that...he always come running over.

...and then I pet him and he is my best friend.

He must be part model....he sat so nice and still for these pictures.
When I talked to Karen later...
after she arrived home....she said he looked more like a pug dog now.
I bet he smelled really good too.

full circle skirts unleashed...

Last night was the the musical....
Alas! Allack! Zorro's Back!
Amanda's character was described in the program as,
"fiery, but her heart is chiseled from ice"

oh my
she played the part well!

The whole cast did a fantastic job!!

Afterwards the cast came out for pictures.
I heard some of the girls say,
"lets do it!"
"1 -2- 3---"
...they did a little hop up and then sat down, allowing their skirts to flair out around them.
so cool!

Easter hamballs.....

Last week I was asked a lot....
"What are you doing for Easter?"
I would say going over to the in-laws for my absolute favorite thing....


HAM BALLS!!

...and so often the next question was....

"what are they???"

They are just the most delicious thing in the world.

Ham Balls

1 lb. ground beef, 1 lb. ground pork, 1 lb. ground ham (I use my food processor)
3 eggs, beaten
2 cups crushed graham crackers
2 cups milk
(I also add some onion that is pulverized in the food processor when I am doing the ham)

Combine and mix well. Use a 1/3 cup to measure 25 meatballs.
(I usually get about 30 meatballs and split them between two 9x13 cake pans. And will freeze one of the pans after I have poured on the sauce)

The sauce...
1 can tomato soup
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup vinegar
2 tsp. dry mustard

Bake at 350* for 1 hour

yummy

almost but not quite finished.....

When I was pulling out the old picture of us...I was also reorganizing things.
I found all these blocks for a calendar quilt. The book is from 1997. I had made a bunch of them for my sister Jane. We put them into a valance for her sunroom/breezeway. I haven't been paying any attention to that room...so I wonder if they are still there??? Anyway...I was able to sew the entire quilt top over the weekend. I fell in love with it all over again. While machine quilting it....
I ran out of the thread I was using!!
Dang.
I was so close...only about 4 more inches at the top needed to be sewn.
So this poor little project is on hold for the time being.
There are plenty of other little things to work on instead.

picture of a picture...

My sister Jane has a friend who is having a "book party"

She sent out links to the catalog and....

we find what we want to order.

It is words mostly, that are cut out and ready to apply to your wall. I saw the words "happiness is a journey" applied to a picture.

* ......light bulb going on in my head!

I have a 20 x30 inch poster of us in Canyon de Chelly. This hasn't seen the light of day in over 10 years. The picture itself is over 20 years.

The frame is busted. We were so young and skinny....sigh....

I told tractor joe we needed a new frame.

"That would be a perfect job for my dad!"

Now I need to go outside and gather up old barn siding that is nice a weathered and bring it to my father-in-law and hopefully he will want to put a frame together!!

the start of something....

I was doing my normal blog hopping the other day and came upon Lazy Gal's latest post about making cats....unruley cats....
Hey, I have enough cats to use as models, including Pearl here.
She was laying on my chest and kneading my neck...in other words she was bugging me.
http://lazygalquilting.blogspot.com/2010/03/here-kitty-kitty.html
(I tried shortening it and ended up deleting poor Pearl...so the link is the long version)
So one of the first things I did this morning was draw out some kitties....

Now that I am done with all those ruffles...I can play some more on other stuff. The skirt was a hit with Amanda. The first dress rehersal was yesterday and it looked great on the stage. She was swirling and playing it up. I didn't have any camera with so I will get some shots later. Except I still have a lot of binding to work on....maybe it is a binding day.