It's Finished!

I have finally finished the quilt I was making for my niece. In an earlier post, I said I was using the Attic Windows block using heart blocks left over from an anniversary quilt as the focal point in the block. I even posted a photo of a block. Well, here is a photo of the finished item:

I think it turned out very nice. There is only one instance of having like blocks side by side. See the two pink hearts in the middle of the photo. And I worked so hard to try to avoid that happening. Oh, well. This photo makes the two hearts immediately to the left of the duplicates look the same, but they are not. The top one is blue and the bottom is green. And some of the windows look empty, but they aren't. Those windows have light colored, usually yellow, hearts. So what do you think? It actually does kind of look like a window -- if you squint your eyes and move back as far as possible. :-)

Good news on the cancer front. I had another 3-month follow-up visit yesterday with the medical oncologist and everything looks good (his words!). I am a year and a half out of the end of chemo so my anxiety lessens with each healthy doctor visit. I still have the port-a-cath, but I hope to get it removed when I can switch over to six month visits, which should happen sometime this fall. It doesn't hurt, but it's a bother having to have it flushed to make sure no clots form. I did find out recently that I can wait three months before having it flushed. I was told at the beginning that it should be flushed every 6-8 weeks. I've been having it flushed every six weeks because that times well with doctor visits. So now I'm switching to three months. Saves a little money because insurance doesn't cover all the cost of the flush. Nonetheless, I am very happy that I continue to do well. I feel good most of the time, which is a good thing. All in all, I'm very satisfied with my life.

In an early post this year, I mentioned the positive thoughts jar that I was going to keep. Well, it was a good idea! I do add thoughts to the jar, but it's not happening every day. To be honest, I seldom have thoughts that aren't positive so it's hard to remember to write down special thoughts that occur. I don't remember most of the things I have written down so opening the jar at the end of the year will be a treat. I must remember to add to the jar, though.

I've started working on the baby quilt for my new great-grand-nephew who is due in July. I'm using English paper piecing in a hexagon and diamond pattern. Something like the diagram below:


I like fabrics from the 1930's so that's what I'm using. Since it's for a boy, I am using "boy" colors -- blue, green and yellow prints for the hexagons and solid blue, green and yellow for the diamonds. I'm just getting started so no photos yet.

That just about does it for this time. The SWANs meet tomorrow night so I'll take the Attic Windows quilt for show-and-tell. They've watched me working on the blocks for what seems like forever so I'm sure they will want to see the finished product.

As always, thanks for reading my ramblings
Amy 

Procrastination

In recent days, I have begun to notice something about my actions that I'm not sure is a good thing. Procrastination. I seem to be adept at delaying action on tasks that I don't want to do/am bored with. It's a long-standing ability that I have. I first noticed it when I was in college 30+ years ago. I would find anything that I could think of to do to avoid studying or writing papers. Well, apparently not much has changed in the last 30 years!

As I mentioned in my last post, I am making a quilt for my niece. I enjoy the quilt and I enjoy the quilting process. However, as I near the end of projects, I sometimes get a little tired of working on it. Such is the case with my niece's quilt. I have just a few blocks to quilt and then stitch the blocks together. You would think I would be doubly excited to work on the quilt. Well, you would be wrong. This week, I decided that I need to transfer some of my favorite recipes that I have stored on my computer onto recipe cards. Keep in mind that I have printed them out on regular paper so I can follow them as I prepare the recipe. And I have backed up all my documents onto a thumb drive. Nope. Not good enough. I need to have them on recipe cards. While that is probably a good idea, I really need to focus on the quilt.

Yesterday, I decided to amp up my efforts on the quilt and got a lot done. Then I realized why it was so easy to refocus. I'm delaying doing my taxes! Yes, procrastination has reared its ugly head again! My plan for today is to do my taxes before I start anything else. And my taxes are really easy since I don't have enough deductions to require the long form. But it is an unpleasant task that I put off for some unknown reason. So, what did I do? Decide to write a blog post about procrastination. Makes sense, doesn't it?

So, that's it for today's post. I'm going to discipline myself and work on my taxes...as soon a I finish this post and check email and get something out of the freezer for dinner and.... Well, you get the point. I WILL finish my taxes today, but I may not have time to do any quilting. C'est la vie!

Yours in putting off until tomorrow what you should do today.
Amy

How will I ever find time???

I think I may have written about this before, but it seems as if every time I am nearing the end of one project, my  mind is already jumping ahead to the next one. In my last post, I mentioned the quilt throw that I am making for my niece. I have about half of the blocks finished. As always, I am doing everything by hand in the pot-holder quilt method. Here is a photo of one of the completed blocks:

I'm using the Attic Windows setting. This photo doesn't really do justice to the block, but I think the finished product will be really nice. Sure hope she likes it!

Now that I'm getting close to the finish line on this quilt, I'm jumping forward to the next quilt -- the one for the new baby coming in July. I really enjoy doing English Paper Piecing so I am going to make the baby quilt using EPP hexagons and diamonds. I'm still working on the layout, but I have all of the paper pieces cut (using freezer paper) and adhered to the fabric and about half of them have been basted. I hope to finish the attic windows quilt within the next month so I will be able to focus my full attention on the baby quilt.

Annnndd, I'm even thinking ahead to the next quilt after the baby quilt! A great nephew is in the Air Force and I think it's time I make a quilt for him and his wife. I'm tossing around patterns -- flying geese (to honor his service)? Homeward Bound (because he hopes to be stationed back in the states soon)? I just don't know. Fortunately, I'll have a while before I have to make a decision on that one.

I'm doing pretty well at keeping up with the positive thoughts jar. There have been a couple of days when I forgot to add to the jar, but that's been balanced out by the days when I put two or more thoughts in the jar.

Apparently I don't have enough to occupy my hands or my mind because I keep finding new things that I want to try. The most recent thing I ran across is on a blog called Thread Head and the craft is Romanian Point Lace and can be found at http://joanne-threadhead.blogspot.ca/2010/08/romanian-point-lace-tutorial.html. I'm going to give this a try when I have a chance. Maybe this will be my ornament for the 2014 SWAN exchange.

Yesterday was another followup visit with the medical oncologist. I am now about a year and a half out of treatment so I'm hoping that all tests for the next six months are negative so I can move to seeing the doctors every six months. And get this port taken out! While it doesn't hurt, it's a pain in the behind to have it flushed every six weeks. Not having it flushed could mean a blood clot and that wouldn't be a good thing, especially since the port catheter is in a vein near the heart. So for the next few months, I'll continue with the flushing and hope that all of the tests continue to come back negative.

Enough chatter for now. It's time for me to get back to the quilt...so I can get this one finished and start on the next one! Or work on the shawl that I started knitting back in the fall... Or try out the Romanian Point Lace. So many things I want to do; so little time!

Thanks for reading my ramblings.
Amy

Finished!

Yep. It's finished. What I'm talking about is the baby quilt for little Austin Littau. He's two months old now so it's time that he gets his quilt before he's too big for it. I'll package it and the books today and take to the UPS store tomorrow. I can hardly wait to see what mommy and daddy think of the quilt. And I know Austin will like the books. Here's a photo of the finished product.
It turned out really nice, don't you think?

The quilt is not the only thing that has taken up my time. I mentioned earlier this summer that I was working on a surprise for a friend. I gave this witch wall hanging to a fellow SWAN who very nicely gave me a quilt hanger. I felt moved to make something for her. Here it is the way she has it hanging in her house.The one I made is on the left and seems to go quite well with the other door decoration she uses.

And, of course, I'm always working on knitted items. I have been experimenting with knitting scarves lengthwise instead of crosswise. Does that make sense? In other words, each row I knit is on the long side of the scarf instead of the short side. The problem with doing that is you have to estimate during cast on how long the scarf should be. Since I'm not using a pattern, it's been a bit of trial and error. Here are the two scarves I've finished so far. The white one is a gift for my sister-in-law. The multicolored scarf is made of mohair yarn that I bought on a whim a few years ago...then didn't know what to do with. They both turned out nice, I think.

Now, I'm working on a pair of socks...and another surprise wall hanging. (That's all I'll say about that!) When the socks are finished, I'll post a photo of all the socks I've made this year so far. I've ordered more yarn so I suspect more socks will be constructed this winter. For some reason, it just feels right to knit socks when the temperatures are a bit cooler.

So, now you're up to date. I hope you have enjoyed looking at my projects. It seems there are always more projects rolling around in my head that I would like to do than there is time to do them. And for some reason it seems like I accomplished more when I was working than I do now that I'm retired. Go figure!

As always, thanks for reading my ramblings.
Amy

Welcome 2011

Yes, I know I haven't posted anything in a long time. I'm sorry about that, but the end of 2010 was not a very good time for me. Things are looking better now and it's time that I update my blog.

When I look back at 2010, one of my major accomplishments was finishing my whirligig quilt. I have more quilts than I'll ever need so I gave whirligig to my good friend, Pat. Here's a photo of it. Frankly, I'm glad it's over. Working with all that black got tiresome. But it's finished and Pat seems to really like it.


Our family had a nice Christmas gathering at my brother's house on Dec. 18. We always gather on some day other than Christmas. It was great, as usual. Lots of good food and even more conversation. I took along a bag full of things I had knitted so everyone could take their choice. The best part is I came home empty-handed! :-)

So far, 2011 has been good to me. I have tried off and on for several years to learn how to knit socks. Up to this point, my efforts were not successful. However, after Christmas, I pulled out some sock yarn I had on hand and my needles to see what I could accomplish. I found a sock pattern on the Internet that made more sense than the patterns I had tried before. And now I have completed two pair of socks. The first pair was definitely a first effort! One sock is a bit bigger than the other so I've been using them for my bed socks and they work great. Unfortunately, we have had a lot of cold weather so having warm socks to keep my tooties warm has been wonderful.

After my first so-so
result, I tried again to make socks and came up with a better result. At least these two are both the same size. That's progress, I think. :-) They're still not quite what I'm looking for, but they definitely are wearable and will be used -- either by me or someone. I'm now working on another pair of sock. I made a few alterations to the pattern and I think these will fit better. We'll see....


I haven't been to stitch group for a while. We met only once in November because the second meeting would have been Thanksgiving. The group had a Christmas party in early December, but I wasn't feeling up to par so I didn't go. Then last week, the weather was too cold for me to get out. I'm holding out hope for next week's meeting. The forecast...at least at this point...says we'll be in the 30's so there's hope that I'll be able to make it. I sure miss those evenings of stitching and talking.


Well, this is pretty much my life in a nutshell. I'll try to be more diligent about posting this year. I'm pretty sure it won't be on a regular basis, but I think I can do better than once every 3-4 months!


Until we meet again, stay warm and stay safe.
Amy

Making progress

Earlier this month, I wrote about the whirligig quilt blocks I was making and how I was unsure how I would set them together. Well, I've made a decision! I decided that all the bright colors I used in the blocks need to be toned down a bit and I think black is the right choice.


Now before you look at the photos, you need to understand the kind of quilting I do. I prefer to do all my crafting by hand which means that my quilts are all sewn by hand...no sewing machine touches them! The thought of hand quilting a huge bed-sized quilt was a daunting idea so my early years of quilting involved making small wall hangings. They were fun to do, but I felt limited. Then I dreamed up an idea that had each block being backed and bound like a big quilt and then the blocks are whipped together. I thought I was being creative, but a search on the Internet turned up information about "pot holder" quilts. From what I can understand, the quilting ladies of old would make a block as a sample to see if they wanted to make a full quilt of that pattern. Sometimes they decided it wasn't what they wanted as a quilt so they bound the block and laid it aside. When they had enough, they whipped them together to make a quilt. Instead of using the block as a pot holder, it was grouped with others for a quilt. My "original" thought wasn't so original at all!


I have now made two pot holder quilts. The first one I kept for myself because that was the one I practiced on. The second one is the anniversary quilt I made for my brother and sister-in-law. That brings me up to what I'm working on now. The whirligig block was a free download from Connecting Threads. I have put my own touch on the pattern, of course, by leaving off the center yo-yo/circle. I'm working on the fifth block, but I thought you might want to see what they look like so far.


These are three of the completed blocks. The blocks are 10" square finished size. The black binding is 1" on each side which leaves 9" of background fabric. And yes, the colors are bright! I do think the black binding helps, though. If you look closely, you can see that I have quilted around each whirligig and then quilted just inside the border of each blade. That makes a pretty pattern on the back, I think.

The background colors include the pink, purple and blue that you see here as well as green, orange and yellow. In all, there are about eight different background colors. I am still not sure if I'm going to put the blocks side by side or if I will alternate the whirligig with a solid block. I'll have to get a few more whirligig blocks finished so I can make that call.


I do think this is going to be a really pretty quilt. So far, I have no plans for it. It may be another that I keep for myself. Or I might give it to my best gal-pal Vicky. Or I might donate it to charity. Lots of options out there!


Several people have asked me how I fill my time now that I am retired (for almost a year!). Well, folks, this is it! My mind whirls about 150 miles an hour thinking up new projects that I want to tackle. So far, I haven't experienced a boring day and I don't anticipate that happening in the near future. I'll be in good shape as long as the fabric and yarn holds out...and I stocked up on both of those while I was working. I doubt I'll live long enough to use all of my stash. And if I do use up everything, well guess I'll just have to go shopping for more. ha!


Til next time,
Amy

How do you stop it?

Creativity is a wonderful trait. Well, mostly wonderful until the ideas start tumbling around. When that happens, I feel like I've developed ADD. I always have two or three projects that I'm working on at one time. That helps alleviate boredom from working on only one project. But I find that while I'm working on one thing, my brain is thinking up more projects. It's hard to not drop what I'm working on and start a new project. How do you stop the ideas from coming? Should we even want to stop the ideas? I don't know the answer to those questions and my guess is no one else does either.

I have found that the closer I get to finishing a project, especially a large one, it gets harder to focus on finishing this one before starting something new. Case in point: My brother and sister-in-law celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary a couple of years ago. I thought I was planning ahead and started a quilt for them about a year before the actual anniversary. I didn't get the quilt finished by the anniversary because my hands started acting up with arthritis symptoms. I did keep plugging away on the quilt and finally finished by their 51st anniversary, but toward the end I really had to force myself to finish it up. It wasn't because I was tired of working on it because each time I set a block together I was awed all over again. The problem was that I would work on blocks or rows or whatever and let my mind run free. Usually my thoughts were of things we did together over their 50+ years together. Once in a while, though, my thoughts would veer off into....Hmmm. Wonder what it would look like if I....(fill in the blank - could be use different color combinations or make this part larger, whatever). Then I'd put down what I was working on -- and needed to be working on -- and start sketching out what might be the next project.

It's fun to be creative and come up with new ideas, but it sure does interfere with completing what is at hand. :-)

Now back to working on those appliqued whirligig squares....

P.S. My brother and sis-in-law liked their quilt, but they can't use it because my brother says it's too warm. You just can't please some people! :-) They do have it on the guest room bed, I think.

What's it all about???

I've been trying to decide what I want this blog to be and I still have not come to a conclusion. I don't have lofty thoughts so that's not the direction I'll take. I have never enjoyed journaling. Tried it back when I was a kid and someone gave me a diary. My compulsive side pushed me to write something in the diary every day. The problem was I didn't have anything to say every day. Writing in the diary went by the wayside quickly. Taking a clue from other bloggers I've read recently, I have decided that it is OK to not publish something every day. Using that as a basis, my posts will be sporadic, I suppose. Whenever I have something I want to say.

OK. Enough of that. For the last couple of days, I have been working on a quilting project. Don't know what I'll do with it if I ever finish it. Applique is relaxing to me, so I am appliqueing "whirligig" shapes onto a background fabric. The kicker is the "blades" of the whirligig are all different bright...and I do mean bright...colors and the background fabric is bright, too. I'm trying to use up fabrics that I got when I belonged to a FQ-of-the-month club from a fabric store. These are colors that I would not normally work with so it will be interesting to see what this becomes. My plan is to set the blocks together with white fabric. As soon as I get a block or two finished, I'll post a photo so maybe somebody can give me feedback.

So, that's it for now. Back to my applique project. I hope everyone enjoys the beautiful spring weather we've had for the past couple of days.

Welcome

After retiring in the spring of 2009, I find I am searching for who I am. In other words, I guess I need to redefine myself. For 40+ years, I was somebody's employee. They were good years. Crafting has always been part of my life. Now in my retirement years, it has taken center stage in my life, but I still have time on my hands. Friends have asked me for a long time if I have a blog. I never felt I had anything important to say so I never attacked blogging. I'm still not sure if I have anything of import to say, but I've decided to join the blogging world. I hope you will bear with me through my ramblings. Please feel free to add your comments thoughts, ideas, suggestions, brickbats or whatever as we journey down the blog road.

My blogging will most likely focus on crafting, family, friends or getting things off my chest. My favorite crafts are knitting and quilting and I almost always have at least one project of each kind going at any given time. To be honest, I have a host of UFOs (unfinished objects) that I hope this blog will help me get motivated to finish. From time to time, I will post photos of in-progress or finished projects to give you an idea of how I fill my time.

Don't expect posts from me every day. I'll be lucky if I can come up with something to say once a week. I do hope you will check back from time to time to see how my world is going.

Until the next time,
Amy