Our Family Grieves

My 91 year old Mother has not been feeling well for the past week. Monday she was sent to the hospital. Overnight she took a turn for the worse. Pneumonia, renal failure and a host of other ailments have taken the better of her. We were all there last night to admit her to hospice and they tell us she won't last the week.
Mom and Dad were married this very day in 1940. We are hoping she won't suffer any more and will get to spend her 70th anniversary with Dad.

Incoming

Today I recieved a postcard from Jing in China. This card traveled 8750 miles to get to me and took 22 days to get here.

I have had my grandchildren stay with me for the last few days. My granddaughter was here on Friday, Saturday and on Sunday we drove her back home and switched children. My grandson has stayed the past two nights. He is on an all star little league baseball team. This week are the district playoff games and they happen to be here in Ft Lauderdale. So we have been eating, sleeping and playing baseball since Sunday.
One of the mothers of a teammate made necklaces out of Scrabble pieces. I had heard of people doing this but I never saw one that I liked until now. I'm going to repeat myself by saying I did not make this, so please don't ask me how I did it or congratulate me on a job well done.

That's a Hawk there in the middle, which is the name of the team. My grandson's number is 5 and his team nickname is Ice. The team colors are black and red. The necklace is a thin strip of red leather. I'm really impressed with this. It is such a thoughtful and clever idea.

The four stages of life

Etsy Treasury

They say when it rains it pours. Today my Summer Citrus Party Banner made it into two Etsy treasuries. I have tried to get a screen capture but it's just not working. So you can see these two summer treasuries here and here. Go take a look and leave a comment. I'm sure all the participants will appreciate it.

Party Garlands

I have seen these around blogland and they seem pretty popular. So I had to make my own version of these party garlands. I have made 4 to start with but I have lots of ideas on color and design selection. There are so many events, holidays and reasons to hang a garland.
Too bad it's about to rain. The photos are kind of dull.

CYOC

I said I wasn't going to bore you with pictures of all the different color combinations. Instead I put a picture of each set on Flickr with a brief explanation of what the recipient requested. You can find these photos here. But for those of you who are not that interested, here's one big picture. It really doesn't take that long to sew up 48 string blocks.

I play around with these pictures in Picasa but I still can't get the colors to come out as rich as they are in person. You're just going to have to take my word for it.

Incoming

I received this card a few days ago. It is from Trea in Assen, The Netherlands. She says that the trees in the picture are over 200 years old.

Yesterday was my birthday and I received two postcards. That is more than the number of birthday cards I received. Sad for me but in my family, my birthday is a non-event

The first card is from Sonya in Russia. She says she is 18 years old and is studying Spanish and Journalism. She likes our President and thinks his wife is very stylish.

This card is from Mellody. She too is from the Netherlands but doesn't have too much to say.

Finished...well almost

I completed this quilt as you go quilt today, but all it needs is a binding. I like the colors (lots of screaming orange) and I like the blocks, but I'm not too thrilled with the strips that join the blocks together. In a picture or from across the room it looks great, but up close the top stitching is kind of amateurish. I guess it's not bad for a first try.

This quilt contains fabric from my recently acquired box of scraps, my bingo fat quarter winnings, some Vicki W fabrics, along with some of my own fabrics from the "what was I thinking when I bought this?" collection, the " it's been sitting in the drawers for years, so use it already" collection and the "quite saving it for something special" collection.

Dotted Madness Update

I'll bet you thought I had given up on this. I have been trying to do a little each day, maybe just a half an hour or so. Some of this is only pinned to the design wall. My design wall is quite small so there are more pieces sitting in the box.

A Quick Trip to the Hospital

No it's not what you think, I went to deliver some quilts. As you know, I love to make preemie quilts. For over 10 years I have been delivering them to someone on the other side of town, who then gives them to someone else. Eventually, they end up at the hospital. It has always bothered me, that I don't know if what I have been making is what they really wanted at the NIC unit.
There was an incident many years ago, where about 30 donated quilts were left in someones car truck. I found out that they sat there for quite some time and they started to mold. The lady who had them didn't seem to think this was a very big deal and she said she would wash them. I don't really know what ever happened to those quilts and I sometimes wonder how often has this happened.
The really crazy part of this whole thing is that Broward General Hospital is only 2 miles from my home. So I called the NIC unit and asked if I could deliver them directly. The assistant manager was happy I called and said come on over anytime. So today I took a drive over there and personally delivered 10 preemie quilts.
I was given a quick tour of the unit. To my surprise, the joint was jumping, There were babies, families and nurses everywhere. There was all kinds of buzzers and alarms going off and all the nurses were hard at work. I almost felt a little guilty of taking their time. But I was shown how and where the quilts are used, big ones on the tops and little ones on the bottoms. I was told how much they appreciate them and that they especially like the seasonal ones, even Halloween.
Looks like I'll be making alot more of them in the future.

Incoming

A few weeks ago, me and the ladies of Heartstrings received an email from another charitable organization. The lady said her group makes clothing for the children of Haiti. She said there were lots of leftovers and she would be willing to ship them to anyone who wanted some. I replied that I was interested if she had cotton scraps suitable for childrens quilts. She said she would ship the next day.
I hadn't heard from her and totally forgot about her offer until late Tuesday afternoon when my mailman knocked at my door with a large box.

I cannot believe how much stuff was crammed into that box and notice how many stamps are stuck on the top.

I spent most of Wednesday morning sorting through the box. I pressed most of the fabric, and decided what I would do first. This is only a small portion of what was inside.

 There was one larger piece of pastel blue which made a nice preemie quilt. I also managed to get 8 quilt as you go blocks made using some fabric from this box, including some solids used for the backs, my bingo fat quarter winnings and I even still have some fabrics that Vicki W sent me last year. I need to make 16 more blocks and I have more than enough for that. Now if I could only find a place to store it all.

 Once again I have signed up for the HGTV Choose Your Own Color (CYOC) string swap (that's a mouthful). The deadline is somewhere off in September but if you know me, you know I'll get mine out in the next week or two. I don't plan on boring you with pictures of each set I make, but if you are interested in following the progress you can visit the CYOC thread over at the HGTV message boards.

1 of 4

This is the first preemie quilt made from my embroidered quilt block winnings. I like the way it turned out and would make more, but I have run out of fabric. I know what you're thinking, what about all those bingo fat quarters. I do have tons of pink fabric, scraps, fat quarters and even a few third of a yard pieces but none are big enough for the backing. For now, I think I might work on some quilt as you go blocks using the brightly colored fabrics in my collection. I'm sure I can get a few childrens quilts out of all the fabric I have.

The Party's Over

This is the last of the Zizzy-Dot swaps. It has become increasingly harder for me to come up with a new design each month, or at least a new design that I am capable of constructing.

So for now, this is the end of our swap. We may start another sometime or may just surprise each other with a block or two here and there.