BUSY WEEK

 

My daughter Susan flew in Sunday evening to spend a few days with her Dad and I.  A little early Christmas present.  She came alone and Jon stayed home with the 3 boys and handled the fort.

 





 

Sue with her Dad - my hubby Harv.  It is a bad picture of him - he is not smiling.  I probably took it too fast.

 

 

 

We had a great visit.  We shopped Mon., Tues. and Wed. also lunched and had dinner at the club on wed. evening.  We finished off Thurs. morning with a quick run to the local flea market where we go every week and buy our fruits and vegetables at the farmer's market plus whatever goodies I happen to find.  Sue and I went alone then came back and got Harv. who then drove her and I to the airport.

It is a good hour to the orlando airport from Mount Dora.  She flew out at 2.40 and with the hour gained was in Chicago by 5 where Jon picked her up then home to the boys.  Time goes too fast when you are enjoying yourself.

Then today Carol and Woody Kramer came to lunch.  Carol is in CQI and we met many years ago thru crazy quilting.  We have been room mates at a few different retreats. They live in Claremont, FL about a hour to the SW of us.  Both Harv and I had our cameras out in the sun room to take pictures and it wasn't until they were driving down the street that it dawned on me no pictures were taken.  Next time we get together we will have to remember.  Good time with Good friends.

CARDS

 

 

Here are a few cards I made this year.  I used some pieces of sewing I had done in Karen's class but did not have much down here with me.  I just did scribble FME on the others and added acrylic paper with a few stars.   I only made a dozen or so.

I went to the Dr. this afternoon and he still feels that even though it shows arthritis in my elbow he still thinks it is a severe tendonitis due to the pain up my arm when I squeeze my hand or touch with my finger.  He said he might not have hit the right spot last time and if I was willing he would give me another shot in a different area.  I said go ahead and this time I really felt it but he said he went deeper then before.  Maybe this will do the trick.  Arthritis itself in the elbow should not hurt this much he said.  I have it in other places and they don't hurt like this.  Will have to see but would love to get back to stitching, commenting to friends, etc.  This would be a nice Christmas present.

GOOD NEWS

I had my complete body bone scan last Wed. and my Dr. was out of town until yesterday.  They called in the afternoon and said there was NO cancer in my bones.  I know that is what they were looking for even though the Dr. did not tell me that but the technician was explaining about the scan and accidently told me they use this looking for cancer which I had thought anyways.  My oldest and last sister passed away last year with bone cancer in April and I had mentioned that to my Dr. so of course that was in his mind. 

What it did show was a lot of arthritis in particular places and one was the right elbow plus both wrists.  I guess that is why the cortisone shot did not help this time.  I have been trying to really not do much in the way of using the arm but that is almost impossible when you are the chief cook and bottle washer.  Unless you had a live in housekeeper having house help would not help too much.  I am considering hiring a cleaning woman for the heavy work. I have one at home I ha ve had for years but it is a much larber house.  I go to the Dr. on Thurs to talk about what we can do.  I guess therapy (which I thought I might need) will be of no help if it is arthritis.

I have been reading most of your blogs but not leaving messages because it hurts to even do this.
I took 2 advil after lunch and that has helped.  I might be living on them after this.

I did get some christmas decorations up and will have to take pics and post.  My daughter Sue is flying in from Chicago Sun. and flying back Thurs. night.  Just a short visit by herself.  We will be lunching, shopping, etc.  I am looking forward to it.

ORCHIDS

I am not doing any handwork at all until we figure out what is wrong with my elbow and get some treatment.  This is very hard but thought I would drop by and show some of the orchids I have.

 

 

Harv and I were out yesterday buying a new tree to replace one that has died.  On the way home I saw the orchid gal sitting in her car with orchids out on a table in an empty lot.  We stopped and I found this darling little one planted in a shell.  Holes had been drilled for the wire and drainage in the shell.  I fell in love with it so it came home with me.  Great idea for any small plant.

 

All the orchids in here were saved from last summer and have all been flowering since I came back, plus one in the back is starting a new flower stem with buds.

The gal was also selling large stems that have been cut off the original plants.  I think if they are not sold the growers do this to encourage the new growth.  They were only $1.00 a stem so I bought 5.  They will last for a few weeks if you change the water and snip off the stems every once in  while
You can see I am reading Scott Turow's new thriller.

Obviously not an orchid.

I don't know what you call this one but it has two of the large leaves growing out one on each side and a small purple flower comes out of each ridge in the leaf.  One at a time.  This survived the outside this summer also.

 

NOTE CARDS

The one thing I am able to do with my elbow and arm not hurting is to sew on the machine.  I did a little FME scribbling and it did not bother me.  I cannot sew with a needle or pull anything so I am limited.

I made this bunch of little cards that I can use for birthdays, get well or even invitations.

Here are 5 I made yesterday and today.

 

 

 

 

 

I had a pack of blank cards and envelopes from a couple of years ago so did not even have to leave the house.  I had fun playing with bits and pieces.  The top torn paper is heavy acrylic art paper.





LONG TIME NO BLOG

Hello my friends.  I just wanted you to know that I have been absent due to a very sore right arm and elbow.  I had this last winter and a cortizone shot fixed me up fast.  Well it started acting up in Oct. and I thought I would wait until I got down here which was a mistake.  I should have gone to my Dr. at home.  With closing the garden, packing, lifting and closing up the house and then doing the same down here it became very sore.  I called my DR. here and he was out of town.  Well when I got in to see him he did not want to do another shot until he determined there was nothing else going on as the elbow was badly swollen.  He sent me for an xray and put me on anti-inflammatory meds for a couple of weeks.  Xray showed nothing and anti pills did not do much.  2 weeks later he gave me another cortizone shot but unfortunately it did not do the trick this time.  I think I waited too long and it really got bad.  Now I am sceduled for an MRI early Dec. to make sure there is nothing else there.

The worse part of this is I am right handed and can do no hand stitching, crocheting, anything repetitious hurts the elbow.  I did find that I can sew a bit on the machine as it doesn't seem to bother the arm. My hands do most of the work.  I came up with a little idea today of something I can make.
Tomorrow I will take some pics and see what you think.

Hugs
FredaB

HOME IN FLORIDA

Here we are safely in Florida.  House looked good and no problems.  We have a couple of wonderful neighbours who walk around checking outside and inside over the summer and would let us know if there was a problem.

We arrived Sunday night so have been here a week.  Beautiful weather until yesterday which was a rainy day - much needed even though it rains all summer.  Never have figured that one out.

I have shopped about 4 times and still finding things I need.  Thursday Harv and I went over to the flea/farmers market we usually go to and stocked up there.  I told myself I would not buy much until I came across this gal with two suitcases full of lace pieces.

 

I am assuming this is a collar.  It is very stiff and rigid after being OXY soaked and then washed in hot water.

 

This pretty piece I could not resist because of the Irish crochet flowers.  I am a sucker for this type of crochet.

 

Here is a closeup of one of the flowers.

 

This gorgeous piece measures 8 ft around.  It was cut off something which I assume was a round tablecloth.

 

Here is a closeup of the actual crochet.  It is 6" or more deep.  Can you imagine the lady who crocheted thisbeautiful piece for her tablecloth.  Hopefully somone or myself will use it in a good repurposing way.

 

The gal told me she has a lot more and will bring more next week.  I think I had better stay home or I will have to open a store to get rid of all this lace I have collected.  It gets to be a disease.  BUT all the above and a very pretty broderie anglaise collar and cuffs only cost me 7.00.  The collar and cuffs are in my fridge dampened down for when I next iron.  I will probably use them in Karen Ruane's

Simply Stitch 3 which is starting this Friday.  Can hardly wait to see what this next stitching will bring.  This is going to be 12 weeks long with 2 weeks off at Christmas then continuing in January.

 

Come join in and become addicted like the rest of Karen's fans.

 

 

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

We are leaving in the morning for Florida and if all goes well will be at our house late Sunday.

It will take a few days to get organized - truthfully probably all next week.

See you in a while.

Hugs
FredaB

CQJP2014

I have been putting together blocks for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project for 2014.  I plan on working on them this winter in Florida and by making 6 before I go I will not have to lug a lot of material to Florida with me.  I have made 6 fan type blocks where I am planning on putting my Queen cigarette silks in the middle. I will make 6 co-ordinating blocks in the regular cq way to go with the fans and make the 12 required pages.

I have made myself the promise that I will not purchase a thing for this book. So far I managed with the fabric I had on hand.  It will be made only with what I already have including beads, ribbon, threads, etc.  We will see how I go with this.

Here are the squares.  They have not been squared off yet but will be 10" square when finished. I do not like the gold one so I am going to take  some pieces out and add others when I get to Florida.

 

 

NEW ALBUM

When looking for something I came across the stash of 50th wedding anniversery cards.  I did not want to throw them out as they are so beautiful and so meaning full from our friends and relatives.

I decided to make an album with them that I can leave for my grandchildren to see some day. I know how much I have always loved looking at old cards from the past and with all the Ecards we use these days they may be a good record of the past.

I cut a heavy card stock 7 x 11" and covered each side with pretty stampbooking paper.  Then I put a card on each side.  I covered very heavy paper board with fabric that I glued down and over the outside covers.  Inside I turned down the edges and machine stitched the edges of the 2 linings to make a good clean edge that I cut after that so it would not be too thick.  I then glued them down to the covers.

The little window on the front was purchased in the black velvet from an old picture frame.  It has the bubble glass on it.  I removed the old pic from it and cut with that pattern one of the pictures of Harv. and I.  This was glued down to the cover and then a piece of trim glued around the edges.  I was a bit disappointed with this trim.  I wanted just black gimp and wouldn't you know it JoAnnes was completely out of black so I settled for this. It seems to have more of a frayed edge.

I had purchased an old album page with inserts for pictures and made copies of some of the old black and white ones and filled them with our pictures.  This is a nice memory of some of the people who have since passed away in the little pics.  My Mother, her brother My Uncle Tom (who gave me away) and our best man Donald McKenzie has also passed away.  My MOH is still with us as are Harv and I.

My daughter Sue made the 50th. invitation to the party and printed it on vellum and used a pic of Harv and I from the wedding underneath it.  Great idea.  I have included a couple of pics of cards we received.

I should also say that I made my own wedding gown.  We were on a tight budget and the ballerina length was very popular in the late 50's.  I borrowed a dress form from a friend and took off.  It is hard to see in the small pics but the main dress was covered in silk organza and I embroidered over the skirt area.  A couple of years later my SILBeth liked it so well she had me make hers for her wedding. 

 

After looking at the last pic I see that I forgot to put ribbon on the binding clips.  I will remedy that now.

SIMPLY STITCH 2

I started SS2 a little late and am just catching up.  The beauty of this type of non class is you watch what you want to watch and stitch whatever takes your fancy.  This time around it includes smocking/manipulating fabrics and Karen stitching on her own projects.  One of which is a wedding purse for her daughter who is getting married in Vegas in mid Oct. I must tell you a little funny that happened connected to this.  I was at my laptop at the kitchen desk and Harv was reading the paper with his coffee at the table.  Karen said the purse should be big enough for a hankie and her phone.  I said out loud "what would she want with a phone at her wedding" and a voice answered "in case she gets a better offer".  It just broke me up - thats my guy and his wonderful humor.

Karen  is also working on what she calls her body bag and includes all the various types of stitching she does plus fabric she has manipulated and stitched on.  She is very innovative. 

 

 

 

 

Here is a sample I made using  eyelet trim..  The top piece was pleated at the bottom and stitched down at the sides them embellished with French knots. The next piece shows the eyelet with enough plain fabric on the bottom that I ran it through the pleater and then embellished it.  I also did embellishing coming out of the bottom piece on up to the top piece.

 

WEEK CONT'd.

No pics today but did want to tell you about Wednesday.  Well Tuesday with all the goodies to eat I could not have a thing except black coffee because that afternoon I had to do the prep for a colonoscopy,  If you have had one you know what that is like.  That is all I will say about Tues.  Wed. morning we trot off to Alexian Bros. Hospital for Dr. Sales to do his thing.  This is the easy part of the whole thing.  All went well and the results were perfect, - no polyps and I can now go 3 years until the next one.  Due to the early cancer 3 years ago I had one after 1 year, then after 2 years from then and now 3.  We left and drove home and I felt fine until I started to eat lunch.  Then I started to sneeze and my nose started to run.  This kept on all afternoon and all evening.  One of the last things when we were leaving the nurse said no antihistamines at all for 24 hours.  Okay.
Well I woke up thurs. and finally took a Claritin-D and that helped except I still kept  sneezing and blowing.  The nurse called from the hospital and said did I feel okay and had I any problems.  Well no physical except for the S & B.  She said it sounded like a severe allergic reaction to something.  Not the meds or it would be different.  She thought it might have been from the sheets, blankets, etc. and the laundry detergent they used.  She said she would make a note of and see if anyone else had the same problem.  I have kept taking Claritin D and it kept S & B until today it seems to have subsided.  Very strange.  Next time maybe I should bring my own sheets.

PRETTY CARD

I have had a busy and strange  week.  I had volunteered to give a program for my Questers group and it was scheduled for last Tuesday (Sept.11) and my daughter volunteered her beautiful home for us to meet.  Sept. is the first meeting of the year so we usually have a good crowd and so I knew we would need room.  We had 27 people come including 2 of my daughters friends.

I took all my stuff over Monday afternoon and we laid out what we could then Sue did the rest Tues morning before it started at 10.  The committee for the meeting consisted of 3 gals and they brought all the morning pastries, fruit, etc.  Sue made coffee and iced tea to go with it.

I put my talk together on Monday evening and it was 3 pages long.  Some gals knew what crazy quilts were and some did not.  I had my collection of old ones plus some of the new ones I have made including my kimona, my butterfly items, purses, etc.  I was a bit nervous but I have known most of these gals for years.  It went very well and seemed to be well received.

Would you believe we did not take one picture.  I don't know where my mind was that I did not have my daughter snapping pictures.  One gal bought her camera and asked if she could take some pictures of my work.  I told her certainly.

A long story short I received this lovely card in the mail on Friday thanking me for my program.  We have a end of the year potluck luncheon in May and we also bring plants to swap if you want to.

This card was made from the home where this years lunch was held.  I thought it was such a great idea to make cards from your own pictures.  I assume she had it copied maybe from Snapfish because it had a border around it.  A packet of paper and envelopes which are very inexpensive at Michaels and you have a great card.  A picture of our own work could be used and would make a very inexpensive all purpose card.  Just an idea.

 

 

 

 

I will continue on with the rest of the week tomorrow.

 



POINTS ON

 

I am not the best photographer in the world but laid this on our king size bed and stood on a step stool to try and get this all in.  The points went on very well with a wee bit of fudging when I was near the corner.  I just undid a couple and moved then up or done as was needed.  Worked well.

 

Here is a pic of one of the corners.  All it needs now is a backing and then some type of quilting or maybe tying will be the way to go.  Stay in with the old look maybe?

 

Any suggestions on backing it would be appreciated.  I thought if it is going to be a throw maybe a nice soft backing like a flannel would work.  Has anyone used flannel for a backing?

 

I think I will pack it away for now and add the backing and finishing in Florida.  We are hopefully leaving October 19th. for the winter.  I am going to try and keep my packing light this year so have to decide what I will want to work on and what to take.  As my husband says there are always stores to buy what you need.  Nice guy.  Also I have a winter of the flea markets coming up so they are like stores for me.

 

I have decided to keep this after all my work on it.  After looking at it on the large bed I thought that it would look good on a young girls bed.  Maybe someday.  When finished I will take a picture in Florida wherever I decide to throw it.



PRAIRIE POINT CORNERS

Well I took myself off to the quilt store today plus about 6 other places (busy day) and talked to the lady in the quilt shop who said she had used this type of border many times.  She said that the traditional way to do it is to just go across the top and end at the corner then start down from the corner.  She also said it is up to you if you want to play around and try and add extras but after talking to her I am going to go with the simple way.  Enough is enough.  Thanks for you all who commented and gave suggestions.  I just laid the points behind the quilt to get an idea and to take a picture.  Here it is:

WORKING, WORKING

I am busily working away at my old linens project.  It is finally all sewn together and today I sat and tied down with their threads the yo-yos I made for the middle around the picture of the lady.  I made all the prairie points on the weekend and have them sewn together ready to attach.

 

Here are some pics I took today.

 

 

If I had thought I would not have had the pink hexagon flower on the top left of this square.  I am going to have to look at removing it and think of something else to put there.

 

The yo-yos are all sewn down except for the few in the upper left corner.  Now that I look at them I am not sure about putting them there.  They are only pinned.  Maybe once the large pink flower comes out it will be better.

I will sew the points all around it this weekend.

 

I haven't figured out how to do the points at the corners.  I just found out we have a fairly large new quilt store over in Arlington Hts. (new to me at least) and they are doing well.  Went from one store front to 3.  So many needlework shops are closing these days it is good to know there are some surviving and doing well.  I have to go over there tomorrow so will pop in and see if they can help me with the corners.  Also give me a chance to see what all they carry.

 

I have one concern and that is with the size of the quilt.  It may have turned out too large for my wall in Florida.  If that is the case I have to rethink what I will do with it.  Give it to some woman's shelter or have someone auction it off and give the funds to some good cause.  We will wait and see. I did have a lot of fun doing it.  I have enjoyed it all until the final stage of adding a backing to it.  I do not have a large enough table to lay it out so will just have to measure and cut and hope for the best.



WE HAVE A WINNER

 

Harv did his job and picked a name.  The winner was Deb Spincic from Debra Designs.  The bag full of goodies shown above will be wending its way to Houston, TX once Deb. sends me her address.

 

Thank you all for participating and please keep on reading and I will have another giveaway one of these days.