Hello April, 2023

Last month, with its end of life arrangements for my half-sister, the annual trip to South Texas for a visit with hubby’s family and even a mouse in the house, took more out of me than I expected.

I hope I regain some energy this coming month.

Here are some of the 360 plus tumbler pieces I basted since my last post.  

Our South Texas trip offered me lots of basting time and this project continues to be my favorite one to work on during television time.  I should have more than enough basted tumblers to add 10 rows to the project.  And, when I had some downtime in the hotel, I set up my Featherweight and did some paper piecing on my log cabin project.

Here is the current status of my log cabin project.  It looks like the last picture I posted, but I promise it has grown.

Bluebonnets are really making a show right now.  I took this picture of them thriving in the cracks between concrete pavers to prove they really are weeds.  

Whenever I can smell their scent on the breeze, I consider it a good year.  2023 is a good Bluebonnet year.

Finally, one of the month's bright spots was the arrival of the package from Donna at Brynwood Needleworks.  She hosted giveaway for her 14th blog anniversary and I was one of the lucky winners!

Checking In

A friend was only able to purchase one of the Texas Tech journal covers I made for the Guild Quilt Show Boutique.  Would I make her another in order to prevent a family fight?  Well of course, and here it is.  As usual, I used the tutorial Wanda provides in her blog Exuberant Color.

 

In other stitchy news, work continues on my tumbler (or as I’ve also seen them called, thimble) quilt.  I’ve added several rows to the main body and am building up my inventory of basted units.

 

Bluebonnets are making their appearance.  It won’t be a blowout year, but they will be pretty when they reach their peak.

 

A chapter in my life ended February 28.  I received a call at 4 a.m. notifying me that my half sister had passed.  We were connected, but not close.  Twenty years separated our births and a lot of family dysfunction and geography separated us physically.  In 2002 we reconnected after a separation of more than 25 years.  I was able to visit her in person twice since then and we established a regular correspondence after that.  All our telephone conversations ended with “I love you Big Sis!” and “I love you Lil’ Sis!”  She was the last living connection to my father’s family and my only sibling.  The flowers came from Julia.

 

I have stitched 118 log cabin blocks with 19 of them still needing to be de-papered before I can add them to the design wall.  A 60x80” top would require 208 blocks, that’s my current goal.  If I were to quit at a 60” square quilt I would need 169. 

 

We had our first 90-degree day Wednesday.  That’s the ninth earliest 90-degree day on record for our area.  I’ve seen a few bluebonnets in bloom and our mountain laurel plants are beginning to bloom too. 

 

Hubby and I spent yesterday in Fredericksburg seeing a hand specialist.  Both of us are beginning to have issues.  I reluctantly agreed to a shot in my thumb.  It’s still too early to tell how effective it will be for me.  I have a quilting friend whose first shot lasted a year and she described it as a miracle.  I should be so lucky!  As we were leaving, we were handed a letter saying that the doctor is retiring May 31.  Bummer.

 

While we were in Fredericksburg, I stiff-armed hubby into stopping by a quilt shop.  Gotta take advantage of these opportunities when they happen.

Checking In

I’ve been working on my red and white tumbler quilt while watching television with hubby.  In order to break up the process, I’ve already started putting some rows together.  The dining table has become a secondary design area as log cabin blocks are taking up the design wall in my sewing room.

Speaking of my sewing room, it has never completely recovered from being disassembled Friday so the glass repairman could get to one of my windows.  It was another golf ball casualty.  We thought the dense landscaping protected this one, but apparently the ball ricocheted off something and still managed to break it.

My poinsettias continue to give me a show and brighten my winter days.  They seem to like the southern exposure. 

And my orchid, which I first showed in my post November 23, is still in bloom, although some have begun to fade.  It prefers the humidity and filtered light in our bathroom.

The weather cleared and the guild quilt show week before last was a success.  I was quite concerned as I made the drive to the Burnet Community Center for set up the Thursday before.  While our neighborhood had mostly been spared the worst of the icy weather, all the trees along the highway were coated with ice and great ropes of it were falling off the power lines that crossed the highway.  Austin, 40 miles to our east, had it even worse and we feared that people would be so busy dealing with the aftermath of the storm that they would not be attending. It will be some time before all the accounting is finished and committee heads reimbursed, but we had good crowds with the boutique, silent auction and bits and pieces areas doing a brisk business.  This was the first time we offered people the option of paying by credit card and it went smoothly.

Today I have a date with the vacuum, dust rag and mop.  I’ve been procrastinating on those chores too long. 

 

Fingers Crossed

Our rain chain looked like this when I took the dogs out this morning.  The gauge still says we have had no precipitation, but the ice had to come from somewhere.  Hubby suspects it is frozen and not transmitting data.

The first chore of the day will be to add labels to two quilts that I want to hang in the guild quilt show this weekend.  The weekend is supposed to be pretty with a high in the 60s Saturday, but the weather will probably play havoc with logistics for the set up that is supposed to begin today.  I am trying to stay optimistic hoping that everyone will be so tired of being cooped up that they flock to the show.

This is the guild quilt that will be raffled.  As I recall, I did some of the applique on the lower right corner. 

Here are the details for anyone who might be in the area:

 

2023 Highland Lakes Quilt Festival

FEBRUARY 3 & 4, 2023
BURNET COMMUNITY CENTER
401 E JACKSON ST
BURNET TX 78611
9 AM - 4 PM

Log Cabin Blocks, Acorns and Geese

I have more than doubled the number of log cabin blocks since my last post about this project, and I’ve started de-papering the blocks so they will be easier to play with on the design wall.  These are so relaxing to make, I’m sure there will be many more before I either run out of fabric (not likely) or finally decide I have enough.  They finish at 4" and each log is about 1/2".

It seems two Egyptian geese have adopted our yard.  Bob thinks they are after the acorns that get crushed on our driveway.  Whatever the reason for their visits, they always make me chuckle with their clownish appearance.  They are very used to humans and are reluctant to leave if we get close.  Our neighbor has started calling them our guard geese.

The golf balls I collected while dealing with the dog poop recently weren’t as colorful as before, but there were more of them.  Strong winds and youth tournaments always make the number grow.  We have a galvanized bucket full in the garage.  You can see all the acorns the geese are after.  The squirrels have had a field day and I expect to be yanking lots of them out of the flower beds in the spring.

 

 

New Year, New Handwork Project

A guild member recently donated a partially completed Baltimore Album Block of the Month for the silent auction at our quilt show.  Since there is no way the project could be completed by the 2023 show next month, a group I’m a part of decided to complete it for the show which will be held in two years.  This is not a project I would have chosen for myself, and I am very grateful that we have a long lead time.  Today I started prepping stems on one of the monthly units.  I was rather surprised to see that brown fabric was chosen for the stems.  The project coordinator assured me, however, that all the units had brown fabric for stems, though not all the same brown.

 

I’ve also been at work on my English Paper Piecing project which will be a good break from the applique work.  When I started running low on templates, I began joining some units together.  This will help me determine how many I need to baste in order to make a reasonably sized throw quilt.  I like how the pieces look together.

 

We had our family Christmas celebration December 28.  As usual, the Jolly Old Elf was much more generous to me than I deserved.  This was in the basket of goodies my daughter gave me and is now my favorite coffee mug.  I wonder, if instead of coal, a really naughty quilter would get empty thread spools?

 

New Year’s Eve was quiet for us, just the way we prefer.  We are definitely not party animals and, as usual, the one of our dogs had a hard time coping with the sound of fireworks.  We’re pretty sure that we also heard someone firing a pistol.

I’m not seeking out quotes for a specific word this year.  Instead, I’ve decided to focus on one simple reminder attributed to Theodore Roosevelt: “Comparison is the thief of joy.”