Mother Nature and Bow Ties

Being a woman of the suburbs, brushes with mother nature are very exciting to me.  I don't think I'll ever tire of seeing the Sand Hill Cranes.  This morning this big guy (I don't know he may be a hawk) decided he liked visiting our yard and sitting in our tree.  He was here at least a half hour.  I didn't go outside, as I figured he'd be long gone, so these pictures were taken through the window and the screen.  Sorry about the quality.

I sat by the window with my camera and was able to get him when he flew off.   If anyone is knowledgeable about birds and can tell what kind he is even with the bad pictures, I'd love to know.

This is my next to the last packet of bow ties, only 20 more, I'll have my 140, and I'll be starting to assemble my quilt.  I'm anxious to see it.  I think that is a lot of why I enjoy quilting, because I want to see how it turns out.  My brothers were here last night and left this morning, it was certainly good to see them.  This afternoon we are taking one of my DGD's to the doctor.   My granddaughter in law and the baby, Mackenzie, are off on a 2000+ mile ride to get together with DH and daddy.  I'm so proud of Marcy.  She is certainly going to be a super woman after such a long grueling driving trip with a 20 month old.  Yesterday she left Memphis, Tn. area and drove about 700 miles, leaving about noon and driving until about 11:30.  Today, she is not going to try to drive quite so long or far to give her and the baby a little break.  My Grandson, Nathan, just graduated from boot camp.  I'm very proud of him, too.  While he was there he had pneumonia, plus his poor feet have been and still are resembling hamburger, or so it sounded when Marcy was telling me about how they still look.  He still graduated second in the group in physical training, quite an accomplishment.  He is going to training now for something to do with linguistics.  I'm very proud of them both, and of the baby for enduring the riding mostly in good spirits.  I'm so excited for them to be together again, and to have their own home together after being apart and living with others for the past several months.

Even More Blocks

My daughter and her husband caught strep throat from his daughter, so my brothers decided to wait until Monday and not possibly get it, too.  So, did I take advantage and get the house looking its best, no I made more blocks.  I have 24 out of 35 of these now.  I also realized that one of these equals 4 of the bow ties and at some point I may have to see what kind of chaos results from mixing them.   I also have enough paintbox blocks for a quilt, and they would also equal into the same size.  I probably won't mix them, but I have to look and see what it would look like.

I think I must be brain tired as the last row seems to have had a mind of its own. 

More Blocks Done

The doctor called and changed our appointment from Monday to tomorrow, and my brothers are visiting over the weekend, so I decided to do another batch of blocks.  This was supposed to be mostly pink, but it didn't work out that way.  I got into my long quarter yards, and liked these fabrics too much to go on looking.

I was on a roll so I did batch number five of my bow ties while I was at it.  I was still in a pink mood and was thinking great, pinks or reds or greens coming up.  What a disappointment.  The only reason that one odd green is there is because when I started sorting things out I had a duplicate of one of the fabrics.   I'm sure the next batch will be something other than blue or black or purple, at least I think so.

Keeping Up

Second week, second set of blocks.  Check.   Keeping up to date with Crazy Mom Quilts quilt along.

At least one bow tie block done a day.  Check.  Fourth batch of blocks done.  Sixty-eight done, seventy-two left to go, "but" they are cut out and waiting for me.   DH had his heart cath on Monday, and did well.  One blockage, but not bad enough to do any surgery.  We'll find out more next Monday when we go to the surgeon about his leaky valve, and a few days later when we go to his follow up appointment with his cardiologist.   Oh, I have my cheddar fabric, but I haven't started my cheddar bow ties yet.  That one, with Bonnie Hunter, doesn't really have a set time line, so I'm not officially behind, but I need to get started.  Oh well, two out of three, not bad, and usually I'm worse.

No Quilting This Weekend

Didn't get any quilting done this weekend, although some projects were calling my name.  I was thinking that I had until the end of August to do the pillowcases that I had promised to Carol at Brown Quilts.   Luckily, I thought I'd just take a look at the email to double check, and oh-oh, it was August 1st.  I hurried up and did two pillowcases and got them in the mail, (then I realized that she only lives about 15 miles from me, so if worse came to worse, I could have delivered them myself, lol).   I figured while I was at it I might as well do the 7 pillowcases that I want to send along with the baby quilt that I'm working on.  So, no quilting, but i did get 9 pillowcases done in the last 2 days.  My new quilting buddy Ruth, is coming over one day this week to do pillowcases, but I can show her how and I can work on my bow ties, or my 36 patches or my RRCB string blocks,  you get the picture, I'm not without projects.   Hope your weekend is good.

I Need Another Project (Not)

Let's see, I have my second RRCB, my second Paintbox, my Iowa (Carolina) Christmas, the last half of Amy's BOM sampler from 2010 and a couple of other quilts to finish, not to mention the baby quilt that I have in progress.   I have the top back and batting ready for the baby quilt, but can't finish it until I have a definite birth date.   Also, I have 10 pillowcases to do by the end of August at the latest.  Sooo, what did I do.  Yes, you are right.  I started 3 quilt alongs.   I have already blogged about the Summer Bow Tie Quilt Along, and I have Cheddar fabric coming today for Bonnie Hunter's Sister's 2011 Leader/Ender Challenge.   So, of course, I needed to start another quilt along, as things come in threes.  These blocks are my first six from Crazy Mom Quilts 36 Patch Quilt along.     The only good thing is that I'm using up lots of scraps.

Baby Quilt

Here are some blocks laid out on my "design bed".  I have a small design wall, but sometimes the bed just works better, and the blocks don't get blown off by the fan.  I hope that this gets a lot better when it's sewn together.  I think as usual, my idea of a baby quilt is more like a small child quilt (maybe not even that small)  It will be a little under 42 inches by 54 inches finished.   I don't plan on a border, and I plan on using a red binding.  A long time ago I saved a picture of a quilt that I liked and that looked easy in my folder "Quilts to Make", and this is my take on it.  The one I got the idea from was green and red with plain blocks.  I would show the picture, but I don't want to offend someone, since I can't remember where I saw it. 

More Bow Ties and Shopping

Sixteen more bow tie blocks done.  That's 52 out of 140.  Not too shabby of a beginning for a perpetual holder upper of the slowest. 

I kitted up the blocks into 8 batches each, enough for 140 for me and 140 for Ruth, my quilting buddy.  She pitched in some scraps too, but she doesn't have nearly as many as she is fairly new to quilting.  She has 3 quilts under her belt now.  These were all from scraps, and I 'think' that all the bow tie fabrics are different.  The lighter background fabrics are scrappy, but there are a lot of repeats.   I was more than happy to share, as I need to get the scraps down.  I can hardly notice a difference, except that the trash cans have lots of tiny scraps, and I have these bags to show for it. 

Some fabrics from the shop hop that Ruth and I went to Friday, instead of sewing, which we had intended.   The top 4 are for pillowcases for my nieces little ones, each will have the top fabric, and the next 3 will be for the cuffs which will be different, and have names if I get myself busy.   The bottom 2 are for a pillowcase for her oldest girl, and she has another girl who I will pick fabrics for soon.   Their mama, my niece is expecting number eight next month and I need to do a baby quilt for their new baby boy, and I thought I'd send each of the others a pillowcase.

More shop hop fabrics.  The 3 on the left are just because I don't have many oranges or reds, and the light lavender for backgrounds.  The middle two, more pillowcase material for my nieces youngest son, until next month, lol.  The right top just because I liked it, and the bottom right is a panel that I thought would be good for a quick baby quilt some time.

These I got last week when we made a dry run for the heart cath that DH didn't end up having.  The blue is for a pillowcase for my nieces oldest boy, and the green for when I need more scrappy greens.  The purple, just because I really loved it.   It seems like a lot of fabric, but it was all half price and will be largely gone in pillowcases soon.   We went to several doctor appointments this past week, and DH is having another blood test Tuesday.  If his levels are down to his normal levels (his are always elevated) then he has his heart cath the following Monday.   Then, it looks like for sure one heart surgery and maybe two, but the doctor was very reassuring, and it seems like the right thing to do.   Hope you are having a good weekend.

Second Batch of Bow Ties and DH Update

I'm trying to get a little ahead, as my usual modus operandi is to be perpetually behind.  I tried to do a little fussy cutting on these, on the seals and polar bears, the army and the purple goldfish.  Now, to do some housework and then I hope to start working on RRCB number 2.   Just an update on my husband.  Yesterday we got up at 3:45 to be across town for his heart cath. at 7:00 am.  We got there at 6:45 and the nurse said she needed to check with the Dr. as his creatine levels were very high on his last bloodwork, indicating that his kidneys weren't doing well.  He has had kidney stones for probably 40 years, and we knew that his kidneys had damage, but they had gotten quite a bit worse since his last blood test in June.  The Dr. said that his heart cath. wasn't an emergency and he needs to go to a nephrologist  to see about getting his levels better and then reschedule.  Anyway, we were on our way home by 7:00.  He did say that we could go ahead if we wanted to, but that they use iodine which isn't very kidney friendly so he could end up on dialysis, not a very hard decision to make.

                               

Summer Bow Tie Quilt

DH had a sleepless night last night so has slept most of the day and I've been on my own.  I decided to try to catch up on the Summer Bow Tie Quilt Along.  As you can see mine is going to be scrappy and so far I have only raided my orange, yellow and purple scraps, the orange was rather lacking, lol.  I liked this setting when I saw it on Pleasant Home.   It looks like it has been going on since June 19th, and I made 20 blocks today, so I think that I'm almost caught up.  I just figured, and it looks like I am 1 block behind.   This isn't how the blocks will be in the quilt, I was just sticking them up there as I pressed them and I still need to square them up a bit.   I plan to use all scraps so I feel almost like it'll be a free quilt (I like to kid myself).