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.