Hope for Jane

There's HOPE! I have hope that I can persevere through this rainbow Jane. With only a few wonky points, I think it's well within the standard of "acceptable" blocks...at least in my book. This was a tad better than the last block so I'm confident that by the time 200 and something rolls around, I'll have the hang of it. There is some reverse applique coming up so I'll call on Carrie P. at a passion for applique for help there.

I'm hoping that when my ancestors look at this quilt as a whole they'll see the love in it and not the imperfections. After all....it's all about the heart!

Hope - A Milestone Birthday

It was a milestone birthday yesterday. Fifteen years old. I'm in shock. I still think there are dirty diapers I need to get to the garbage can. Where did all the time go. So much has happened yet so much else is still to come. He's a great boy with a very big heart. Smart, athletic, handsome. What are my hopes for him?



First to love God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength. If any of us gets that much right we'd be way ahead of the game. Second, a spouse who puts God first. Of course, I hope that he'll be a hard worker and face life with grace, forgiveness and soundness of mind. Make wise choices and put others ahead of himself, no matter what the cost.

Hope...it's a powerful concept. It's what keeps us going in times of trial. It's what makes a marriage last 60 years. It's what gives us the spark to create something beautiful. It's what makes us pursue things that have hurt us in the past for the greater good of all.

Fifteen, learning to drive. Hope for safety.


Hope for interest in a new hobby. Video games are the bane of my existence. I loathe them with all my heart. I covered the photos on the front of the box because they were so awful. My son got a very large chuckle out of that. He knows me so well.


Hope. or is it trust at this point. Hope to use his gifts to the best of his ability, to be the best that he can be, wisdom. Hope for his heart to love as God loves us. It's a wonderful thing to see him grow up. I'm honored that I would be trusted to be his parent.

His "hope" was that he could have his birthday at lunchtime so he could have all day to play with his gifts. That didn't quite work out. My, my, my how our hopes change as we get older.
It's all about the heart.

Batik

This batik hangs at the top of the stairs in my home. It hangs on a wall all alone. I think it deserves it's own spot. Sort of commanding in a sense. It's a little different than the batiks I've used for quilting in the past.

I have 11 nieces and nephews and try to make it a tradition to do a quilt for them when they graduate from high school. It's tough to do a quilt for those macho boys so I usually do it in dark batiks and quilt it with metallic thread. Turns out pretty neat. I've got one nephew graduating in May so I should crank one out soon! Has anyone ever done one of those "Turning Twenty" patterns? They go super fast and work well with batiks.

Anyway, I love this angel batik. There's something soothing and protective about the expression on her face yet authoritative at the same time. Just thought I'd share this with you until I can get back to the quilting. My babes are feeling better so things should be on the mend tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoy this beautiful day.

Dear Jane Disaster - Confessions

First Block A-1


Here is my Dear Jane disaster. This is actually my second pass at this block...and I've heard this is one of the easier ones. I think once I get my sea legs under me, it'll be smooth sailing but until I get my oars in the water, I'll just have to wade through. (Ughhh, enough of the sailing analogy.)



Here's A-1 reworked a little bit so the points lined up better. I did the freezer paper foundation piecing method where you don't stitch through the paper, on Anina's blog at Tweedletails. It's probably not the right method to use for these tiny little urchins.

Yvette at BOM Quilter has offered to help. She seems like a real pro. Please check out her first month of the Rainbow Jane BOM offered at Tweedletails. They are gorgeous. I hope to offer you some beautiful blocks next week. This is my very first one so thanks again, Yvette for the encouragement and expertise.


I will persevere and get it done!

Eye Candy

With 2 out of 3 children in "sick bay" right now, and too embarrassed to show you my Dear Jane disaster, I will leave you with some of the lovelies in my stash right now.


I bought these on impulse, (unfortunately) at the quilt show this past October. There's something in there just waiting to be born. I just hope they don't rot before I can get to them.


Japanese?



These are my favorites. Click on the pic to get a better feel for the scale and design.

As far as the "sick bay" goes, hopefully it won't turn in to an infection. Honey and lemon should do the trick...oh yeh and maybe some Tylenol. Has anyone ever heard of putting apple cider vinegar in with the honey, lemon, tea mixture? I have a feeling we're heading to the doc an a day or two.

Thank goodness, today, we're just working on repairing a nose, sinus, fever, ears, throat, and not repairing a .....heart!

Post Christmas Quilt

Hello to all,
Welcome! Here's the latest from my home front:
I did this one for Baby Girl in December. It's flannel on both sides. I saw this whole line from Maywood Studios at my quilt store and fell in love. The colors are not showing up great for some reason but it is a yummy, snuggly kind of a quilt.




The back is pieced with all of my mistakes. Wrong size cuts, etc.


Then it's machine quilted with a "windy" pattern. Nothing perfect but it got the job done. Baby Girl is thrilled! She is at the age where she knows that the older two children had "big" quilts and not just the baby quilts that she had. It is coming in handy right now as she is sick with the good ole cough/cold/fever combination....needless to say... I won't quilt much this week.

Fear Not, readers, I will post! Thanks for stopping by and sitting a spell with me. Leave a comment, if you please.

He Puzzled Til His Puzzler Was Sore

My Nutcracker daughter gave My Hero a 1000 piece puzzle for Christmas. He worked and worked on it until the wee hours of the night. With one piece left, he saved the piece and with a note, put it at our daughter's breakfast place. You see, he let her put in the last piece. Now that's ...all about the heart.

She liked the scene on the puzzle box so much because it kind of reminded her of the Friday night square dances at Montreat. (Those are the best summer memories... you'll hear more about that in July. I may even post a video of them...good old fashioned fun.)

Honestly, we try all we can to get him to quit watching TV. This time we got more than we bargained for. Every waking moment, he was puzzling. Hmmmm, I wonder what we'll give him for Father's Day?

Hawaiian Applique - One of My Favs

Here's Baby Girl wanting to wear this bib one more time. She has long since stopped wearing bibs but needed a last farewell showing.



My brother and his wife sent this to me when they lived in Hawaii. Wouldn't you love a little tutorial on this?


The secret is getting fabrics right... isn't that the age old problem? Gorgeous...one of my favs.

Thanks for checking it out!
Hope you're having a great day and the sun is shining where you are!
Lindsey

More Vintage

This is another one from my grandmother/great=grandmother. Not really sure which. All hand pieced and hand quilted. It makes my head hurt to look at all of those "Y" seems, probably not too hard if you're hand piecing. Right?

Sweet blue and yellow, one of my favs.
Can you imagine what the original color was?
Same on this one...must have been really bright.
Love this peachy pastel contrasting with the darker blocks surrounding.

Definitely scraps...old dresses or some feed sacks, I'm thinking.

I especially love this indigo blue little number.

Just a little detail of the back...Interesting that it was done in a contrasting thread. Bold!

I'm off to work on Dear Jane now...she and I are not getting along right now. Naughty Jane! The kids are at "school" today...enrichment classes on Friday, art classes, Irish Dance, Spanish, current events etc. It gives me a day to myself. I'm having lunch with the ladies in my small group and oddly enough, My Hero is having a business lunch at the same place. We figured that out last night! Funny. Wish me luck, my head is spinning right now with all I have to do.

Hang in there and have a great day,
Lindsey

What is your Legacy?

Welll.....since there's not a lot of production going on at my house right now...I thought I'd share this lovely with you. (By the way, Dear Jane is about to take me to the cleaners...who was that woman that just wanted to make her life difficult by making such hard blocks. Ok...my rant is over.)


A baby quilt that 's 80 some odd years old. My dear aunt gave this to me. It's truly one of the most special things ever given to me...it connects me with those I had so much in common with but didn't know too well. My grandmother and great-grandmother.

This is a baby quilt used by my grandmother. She had 7 children and either her mother or she made this for the 6th and 7th children. I'm guessing she had more time at that point to do something she loved...quilting. I guess it would be a Trip Around the World. I love the vintage fabrics no doubt made from old dresses.

I love things that last longer than we do, things that can remind us of where we came from, that can give us a picture of what past generations were doing with their heart. I'm grateful for so much of her legacy. She and my mother left me the legacy of creativity but more importantly, they left me the legacy of putting God first.

What are you passing on to future generations? What is your legacy?

It is...all about the heart.

Habanero in the eye - Kindle

Oh goodness, it's been a morning....Here is my soon to be 15 year old son. My first born. Near and dear to my heart. We were having a bit of fun this morning....deciding what to put in our garden this spring....then it all turned south...

He bit into a habanero pepper. Those are the super hot...not the mild jalapenos that you think are hot...Habaneros are monster hot. He tolerated that pretty well until he touched his eye. Then his face decided to become a checker board.

He washed it with milk, and took some Benadryl. It seemed to help but time is probably the best healer. He's settled in with Daddy's Kindle and begun the long haul with his Christmas book.

By the way, have you ever heard of the Kindle... it's a great way to read a book. Check it out. In the mean time...I'm going to tend to my boy.

ANNNND...It's a swing and a miss

Here's a little sampling of my "quilting area". It's really my laundry room with a great 32" x 80" counter top. I use it for sewing because it's got a nice window, and I can keep my sewing machine up indefinetly. There's always a catch...here's mine...I have to sew standing up. I kind of like that because it doesn't hurt my back. I do take everything to the dining room table to do any machine quilting.

The room is only about 5' x 8' but it's mine! I do have to do laundry in there and ironing but I feel like it's a luxury. My grandmother had 1' x 2' space that was behind a chair in the family room. That's it. She accomplished more, with less, than I ever will.

The close up...click on it for more accurate colors:


What do you think? I'm thinking it's a definite swing and a miss. This one is not cutting it for me. It's a first attempt at the Project Improv at Tallgrass Prairie Studio required block. I love the fabrics, all Kaffe Fasset but somehow it's not happening for me. I'll try again.

I'll dig deeper into my heart!

What Inspires You?

What inspires you to create, ...to love,... to seek,.... to press on? Gosh, maybe you say to yourself...I'm not really inspired to do those things, it's life and it just happens to me. Whether you are intentional about these things or not, everyone desires to be inspired, moved, taken to the extreme of something wonderful.

What brings you to tears? Only the sad? or the beautiful as well. As a 8 or 9 year old, I watched my grandfather weep in church while singing "The Old Rugged Cross". Without truly understanding his emotions, I still knew it was something wonderful. To this day, My Hero carries a handkerchief for me on Sundays. I don't make it through a service without tearing up during the music.
Genetics? Maybe. All I know is that for a split second, a nano second, I get it. I get the preciousness of it all.

What inspires me? a sunrise over the ocean? birth? a victory? Yeh, yeh. Look a little deeper. Do you know someone who truly listens? or do you go through life making small talk... getting through one event or another? Are you truly a friend who cares? Or are you just checking off the "friend requirement" boxes of life?

Inspiration comes to me in several forms. Old hymns, holding a hand while walking the block, watching my daughter dance The Nutcracker, hearing My Hero's story of watching me being Life Flighted at 2:30 a.m., him texting a friend at the same time.... and getting a text back, a friend having the courage to jump in bed with me during recovery, watching a parent hold to their standards - no matter what, seeing my son surpass his athletic ability in order to win,

a recent inspiration:...a homeless child running down the hall at "The Shelter" to show me his report card.

Sincerity, being real, ...it's inspirational.

What inspires your heart?

Sue Spargo Aspirations

This the "Teaberry Sac" From Sue Spargo.
It's suppose to look like this when finished. Wish us luck.


More than likely...we'll use it for a blanket.



I have aspirations for this little needle case. Can't I just whip that up while waiting for ballet class to end......hours and hours later...

This is for...later in life when...there's not 3 meals a day to cook, percentage and ratio lessons to figure out, wash to wash, piles of papers to sort, beds to change, history timelines learn, closets to clean, research papers to grade, 2 vowel rules to memorize, dog's ears to clean, etc. etc. etc.

It's fun to dream about though.
It'll happen some day...I'm sure...because...it's in my heart.

Be Still and Know....

There are times in life when you just know...God is God. You know...be still and know that I am God. That is what happens when you taste these little beauties. Here's the recipe....very easy. I call them:

Cheese Biscuits
1 cup self-rising flour
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1/2 cup sweet milk
1/2 cup - 1 cup sharp cheddar cheese - you decide how much depending on how much love you want in them. 400 degrees for about 10 minutes.

Here I mean love for the heart or love for the tongue...2 different things you know...it's love nonetheless.

It's all about putting a little love on your table...to fill the heart.

Asheville Quilt Show

Enough of that gooblely goop life flight stuff...let's get to the fun side of life! These are just a few more goodies from the Asheville Quilt Show this past summer.

This one reminds me of the regrets I have for missing Nanette's Christmas cottage exchange.... I will not be slow on the draw this year if she does it again. (Look for the bicycle).


This is my dear brother...the oldest of our five siblings (I'm the youngest), trying to look interested. Even got the glove on!

Hmmmm....who should I vote for? Love that pieced border.

I put this one in for Carrie P. over at a passion for applique.
I think it's gorgeous and have not a clue as to how to do it!

More applique and:
look closely...it says "Don't park beside your troubles" - Love it!


I'll end with this adorable Log Cabin:


Such hours and back bending put into these! We wouldn't do it unless we loved it, now would we....it is...all about the heart.