WIP Wednesday

I'm working on my April 12 x 12 but don't want to show it until it's done and posted. Here is a teaser to whet your appetites. I've been wanting to make a star with a hexagon center like the one that was in the box of old family quilt blocks that my sister-in-law gave me and decided that it would make a great Evening Star for my April piece. It amazes me how many quilt patterns I can find made from hexagons. Now I understand why so many quilters make series of quilts. One is never enough!

I've also been preparing paper piecing patterns for more WOTB blocks. I've been printing my patterns onto tracing paper, which is a hassle because I have to cut it down to fit and then tape it with removeable double sided tape to a sheet of paper so it will feed through the printer. My new printer is more sensitive than the old one and won't feed it if it is the tiniest bit off so






yesterday at the Creative Cloth Closet shop in Canon City, I noticed and purchased a package of Carol Doak foundation paper to try. It should feed better and be less slippery to work with than the tracing paper. Hope I like it better; Denise (the LQS owner) tells me that she has good results using it.





After receiving my copy of the book "Sew One and You're Done" by Evelyn Sloppy, I decided to make one big star instead of lots of small ones. I've started cutting out the pieces for a large block quilt called Garden Magic, which goes well with the lovely fabrics sent to me by Debra S. The block will have to have a border added to make it big enough for the QOV standards. It will be a nice change to work with larger pieces after all the tiny pieces in some of the 6 inch WOTB blocks.




The wind has been terrible yesterday and today and the weatherman is warning us to be ready for a major blizzard on Friday. The weather is simply not cooperating with my Spring garden plans.



I got my hair cut yesterday, and once again, they scalped me! I want it short, but I also want to look like a female. With this wind the short hairs are spiked and I look more like a boy than a grandmother. Oh well, it grows fast. Maybe I should get some hair wax and purple and lime green hair dye. ROFL!

Molly's Quilt Arrived

The quilt from Dee for Crystal's roommate, Molly, was waiting for me when I got home from the hospital today. This is one of the quilts made
for the Quilt Sudio 40 Quilts Service Project_Female.

It was wrapped in a beautiful gift bag and is such a lovely quilt. The pattern and piecing are so well done and Deb G.'s feather quilting is perfect to set off the plain squares and borders.


Now that I have both quilts, Crystal's mom can set up a time for a presentation to the two women. The local newspaper wants to take photos and do a story.

We're also going to find out if they know any other women at Fort Carson who have been wounded and haven't received a quilt yet. Since we have 30 quilts promised for the women, Debra says we might as well give some to women that we know of personally.

Thanks for your warm wishes and prayers for Mom. The medication they are dripping in her is helping her to be much more comfortable and they are beginning tests to determine what is causing her to be unable to retain food or water. We were also able to talk to the Discharge Planner about what needs to be done for her and Dad when he is released. This sure relieves me and takes a lot of the load off my back.

I was feeling so beat down last night and then this morning my oldest granddaughter, Lindsey, called to tell me that she is going to have another baby, which will be our third great grandchild. That cheered me up considerably. What a gift that the miracle of life goes on in the midst of pain and struggle.

This is Lindsay, Me, Mom, Kaylee, and Michal Ann, our five generations taken last Thanksgiving.

I just noticed how much Mom now looks like Granny did before she flew away. I'd always thought she looked more like her Poppa.

New Discoveries

The postman brought me a package today from Debra S.; it contained coordinated fabrics from her stash for me to use in making a QOV quilt for a wounded military woman as part of the Quilt Studio 40 Quilts Service Project for the second quarter of this year.

The fabrics are gorgeous, the colors complement each other so well, and I can't wait to see how they make up. I am going to use a free pattern that I downloaded from Hancock Fabrics website that has Eight Pointed or Evening Star blocks as part of the design.

While reading the Pueblo Chieftain this morning I was excited to find an article about Alex Anderson and Ricky Timms filming for their new webcast quilt show at Ricky's Quilt Studio and Gallery in La Veta, Colorado, which is just a short mountain road away from where we live. Ricky sure knows how to find a gorgeous place to live and base his quilt business. La Veta has always been one of my favorite spots.

When I read about the early bird special on membership to their site, I got on line and signed up. Got my Star Membership for $16.95; it will be $24.95 per year after the first show airs April 2. Click on my copy of the article so you can read all the details. They are even going to have a virtual quilt gallery to enable members to share their work with other quilters.

Alex has some interesting observations about the reason HGTV dropped her show. Whatever, their reasoning, it doesn't make it with me, I'm so disappointed in a lot of their new shows and miss my old favorites.

WIP Wednesday

It is a good day to make quilts, since it is cold and snowy outside. I just read that I-25 was closed at the Larkspur exit, north of Colorado Springs, due to a major multi-vehicle accident. I'm glad I don't have to drive that section of the road today. I will drive downtown, about 7 blocks, to Curves to exercise this afternoon. I'd rather stay in and be lazy, but...

I've gotten all but one row of ninepatches on the child's Solar System quilt I am making for the 40 Quilt Service Project. I would be done with the stipes and ready to put on the borders, except that, when I got ready to assemble the next panel of ninepatches, I discovered that I had ended up with 5 of one kind of block and only 1 of the other. I need 3 of each, so have to make 2 more of that type of ninepatch. Luckily, I overcut on the strips, so I have extra to put together to make those 2. In f act I have enough stips cut to make a lot of ninepatches for another quilt. Math was never my strong point.

I also got the torn section of my design wall/door replaced and have posted before and after photos. Eventually, I will do both doors entirely with the flannel stretched over the foam core. Oh how I could use a whole design wall so I could lay out all of the blocks for a quilt tops in one spot, besides the floor. I can't leave them on the floor for long while I cogitate about how they should be arranged, due to the need to walk around our small house, as well as the fact that the cats immediately lie down in the middle of any fabric they can find.

For proof, you can see here that Ditto approves of the Solar System quilt. All I have to do is turn my back and they are there. Oh well, it looks like that quilt was designed for the cat. I hope the child who gets it is not allergic to cats. Maybe the child would like a cat? But we all know that Granny Fran couldn't give away one of her babies.

WlP Wednesday

I picked up a blue fabric to use as the border on the Solar System Strippy Ninepatch that I am making for the Quilt Studio 40 Quilts Service Project. I had an idea in my mind of the blue that would look right and was so lucky to find the perfect fabric. Should be ready to send the top to the longarm quilter in a week. There is enough of the cute solar system striped fabric to use it as the backing also. I hope this quilt will help some kid through a rough time. (Those ninepatches don't really have curved seams, the quilt is not laying flat.) I got so carried away with cutting strips for the ninepatches that I'm going to have enough for another quilt.

Now that the WOTB4 is over and I finished my New Testament women's blocks, I have joined the new WOTB2 group and am starting at the beginning of the Old Testament to study and make blocks for the women I missed by joining WOTB4 late. I'm working on blocks for Sarah and Hagar.

I put together some materials to start doing the Take A Stitch Tuesdays Challenge that Sharon B is leading, but when I sat down to do some embroidery stitching, I realized that my arthritic hands simply cannot deal with the small needle used with embroidery floss. I've decided to try doing the stitching with wool yarn and a larger needle. I manage to do some needlepoint with the large tapestry needles and I have done a little wool on linen crewel, many years ago, so should be able to manage some stitching. Maybe I'll have to do wool crazy quilt blocks instead of silk. That's all right, I love vintage wool crazy quilts. But I love the silkies also. Maybe I should get a sewing machine that can do lots and lots of embroidery stitches and do my embellishment that way?

My other WIP projects are peripheral to my fabric arts; I bought another basic book shelf kit to add to the shelves that are in my bedroom/studio, because I've been collecting more quilting and embellishing books than fit what is there already. Now all I have to do is put the kit together, remove books from shelves, restack bookcases, and then put books back in the rearranged shelves. I long for the results, but dread going through the process. Part of removing the books will be getting rid of lots of dust, I'm afraid. I'll wear a dust mask because I don't want that dust in my impaired lungs.

The other project is reworking my design wall/doors. I just have diaper flannel tacked to the closet doors and ChoCho tried to climb on one and it is now torn and sagging, so I bought a piece of foam core and will stretch the flannel over the foam core and attach that to the door. Hopefully, this will keep him from pulling it down again. It's bad enough for cats to sleep on the quilts in the making, but climbing on the design wall?! It's a good thing I love my cats so much because at times they try my patience.

The weather has been so warm and lovely the last few days and I have been feeling quite a bit better and more ambitious, which is why all these WIPS are in progress. Just as I was basking in the joy of feeling well, I leaned over this evening to put some dry bread slices in the cat pan by the back door, for the raccoons, and couldn't stop leaning. I fell, bashing my temple on a vintage graniteware pan hanging on the post by my back door, skinning up my fingers and shredding several fingernails. (There are also several broken flower pots that I will clean up later.) Joe was watching TV in the living room and didn't hear the crash, so I called him on my cell phone (which is always in my pocket for this very reason) and came out and helped me up.

I reclined for a while with a sack of frozen peas on the huge lump on my head. When the headache let up a little I managed to fix some comforting potato soup for our supper, with help from Joe, and conferred by phone with my former RN DIL. Once the initial shock wore off, I was amazed that I was able to function at a slow level, so I'm posting my WIP Wednesday and then going to take a headache pill and go burrow under the covers. I fear that when I wake up I will hurt in places I hardly knew I had. But I will get that bookcase put up, God willing.

WIP Wednesday and the Weather

Welcome to southeastern Colorado. After over a month of snow and frigid cold, we've had four days of warm Chinook winds here in Florence, it got up to 72 degrees today. There is still snow on the north side of the house but even a little of the mud has started to dry out.


We took Mom and Dad to dinner in La Junta on Sunday to celebrate their 69th wedding anniversary. From Florence to Pueblo the prairie was bare except for little drifts on the northeast side of the plants; we saw a herd of pronghorn antelopes who were enjoying being able to eat without having to dig through snow. As we drove beyond Pueblo there was more and more snow remaining on the prairie and fields. In Fowler there were glaciers with double tire track canyons in the streets and huge stacks of snow and ice along the highway where it had been snowplowed. East of Fowler there was still at least a foot of snow on the fields, even though there hasn't been more snow there for over a week. Here are photos of the snow piles at the sides of the parking lot at the restaurant where we ate. It was much colder in Fowler and La Junta than here due to the longtime snow cover. We saw several buildings that had collapsed due to the weight of the snow.

There are still many of the side roads that are not passable and over 100,000 cattle have perished on the ranches due to lack of food and water and pneumonia from breathing snow and stress. It is calving season and the cows are having a hard time giving birth and many calves cannot be saved. In addition to all of the hay drops from planes and helicopters, today it was reported that Coors Brewery is donating huge amounts of cattle feed, that is a by product of the making of beer. Michael Martin Murphy, a country singer who lives in Colorado, is giving a benefit concert at the State Fair Grounds in Pueblo for the ranchers who have lost so much.

The cold, snow and mud have been a good reason to stay inside and sew. I'm still working on the strippy ninepatch for the 40 Quilts Project. I have over half of the ninepatches done, and
the strips to make the rest are cut. I have two more of the stripe elements to put together of the three required. I wish I could work as fast as some of the other quilters but my speedy days are long gone.



Here is a teaser of my February 12 x 12 quilt. I didn't want to ruin the surprise of what it is so I took a photo of some of the scraps that remained on my cutting table. You have to wait until the 12th for the reveal.

When I went to the Creative Cloth Closet in Canon City today to pick up some Steam n Seam 2 I was able to take a photo of the Eleanor Burns "Egg Money Quilt" that is on display there. It is a wonderful Depression Era looking quilt that made me think of some of the quilts that Granny made, only a more modern take. She told Denise that she was sorry she couldn't come with it, but that she doesn't travel well in cartons any more.

Urban Red Fox

I am so jealous; my daughter, Michal Ann, sent me these photos of a fox in her backyard. She says she thinks the fox is dreaming of eating Roo Kitty. The amazing thing is that Mike lives in Wheatridge, which is a western suburb of Denver. She is just a few blocks from a city park with natural landscape and a lake so occasionally she has a fox come for a visit. I've never had a fox in my yard, what am I doing wrong? I'm sure it's just as well, but I do love to see the foxes.




It is snowing again; we've had major snows now for 7 weeks in a row, usually at the end of the week. This one came in sooner than I expected and had the "fun" of driving home from shopping in it this afternoon. There wasn't much on the side streets yet but it was very slippery.

I didn't manage to check in on WIP Wednesday, but I'm still working on the Strippy Ninepatch for the 40 Quilts Service Project; I'm nearly done with a new WOTB block, just have to do the machine applique stitching. I've also started doing a few mock ups for my February 12 x 12 quilt. The first photo I tried just wasn't pleasing me but as I was driving to Canon City I spotted a herd of black cattle grazing on a snowy pasture in front of some hills, so I turned the car around, found a place to park and got some photos which I think are just what I needed. Even the "just before the snowstorm" light was right for the evening scheme that I have in mind.

Blogger wouldn't post my photos last night, so here I am again. It was forecast to stay under 10 degrees F. today, but it is sunny with a temp of 39 degrees. I prefer this type of forecasting error so much better than the unexpected blizzards.

Design Wall and Brother's Photos

I couldn't wait to see how the Strippy Ninepatch I'm doing for the 40 Quilts Service Project was going to look, so as soon I had enough pieces I set up a sample on my Design Door. I think it will look great with a dark blue starry border to pull it together.







I've mentioned before that my brother, Steve, is a fantastic nature photographer. Today he sent me some of his photos and I wanted to share
them. It was hard to decide which ones to post but here is what I came up with.

Death Valley Patterns
(copyright Steve Metzner)





Great Horned Owl in Camo
(copyright Steve Metzner)











Death Valley Sand Sculpture
(copyright Steve Metzner)

WIP Wednesday

I haven't gotten much quilting done this week due to feeling crummy and visiting the kids in Byers over the weekend, but I did get some stitching done on my current needlepoint project while visiting. This has been my favorite prayer for many years; it is from Elizabeth Goudge's book, "The Scent of Water." A couple of years ago I decided to stitch it in needlepoint so I could hang it on my bedroom wall. Since this photo was taken I've stitched the background as far as the H in "have". I don't stitch as much as I did before I started making quilts.

I have quite a few pieces that I've stitched during the last 30 years that I never made into anything. I didn't stitch to have a finished product, I stitched to be stitching. It has always been so soothing to me, especially when waiting in doctor's offices or hospital rooms with my Mom or Dad, or my previous husband, Lou, who died of cancer after a two year fight. At that time it saved my sanity. (Needlepoint and walking) I've designed quite a few of my needlepoint pieces and I prefer to stitch onto a blank canvas, from a chart; it always seemed more magical to me than stitching on a painted canvas.

I decided that I should let my kids choose which one they wanted and if they wanted it made into a pillow or a wall hanging (these I stretch on canvas stretchers.) I took a stack to Byers with me and the girls chose one apiece.

DIL Lori chose the flowered heart and it will be a pillow. DIL Jennie wanted the log cabin pattern as a wall hanging. (Even before I started making quilts, I loved them.) My daughter Kat grabbed the octagon; it will be made into a pillow since I can't find octagon stretchers. Now my other DIL Robyn, and daughters, Michal Ann and Shay will get their choice when I see them.

As you can see the stitching tends to warp the canvas so they now have to be blocked to get them back in shape and sewn or stretched so they can get out of the drawer and be enjoyed.

Now to get back to stitching the Strippy Fourpatch for the 40 Quilts Service Project of Quilt Studio webring. I'm really getting the quilt itch since a few days without working on one.

WIP Wednesday

Wednesdays sure seem to come around fast! This week I am working on another WOTB block, this one for Dorcas. It's called Charity Wheel and I'm doing it as a combo of paper piecing and applique. I really enjoy these blocks, the blocks that Carol Honderich chose for each woman are so diverse and interesting (that means not simple) and I love putting together the colors to match the women as I see them.

The other project that has priority now is the child's quilt I am making for the
40 Quilts Service Project for the Quilt Studio webring. Beth sent me this great striped solar system fabric and I'm figuring and measuring and cutting. There will be four strips of this stripe across the width of the quilt with ninepatches on point between. There was also enough of this fabric to use it as backing. I'm getting ready to set up an assembly line to produce the ninepatches. I think this will make a very cute quilt for some child somewhere.

It is all of 46 degrees F out here today! I am spoiled by living in the Banana Belt of Colorado and not used to the kind of cold and snow we've been having lately. Some snow expected again this weekend, I hope it doesn't keep us from going to visit the family as it has now for 3 weeks. Mandy is celebrating her 16th birthday Saturday and has some new artwork she wants to show me.

If we don't get high speed internet soon, I'm going to go battier. With all the blogs I need to check on and the graphics I need to download and upload, this dial up is just wasting so much of my time. Joe thinks we don't need high speed but he doesn't use the internet the way I do. He did put in a big chunk (technical jargon) of new memory to speed up our computer but it doesn't do a thing for the dial up. "Lord, I need patience, but I want it right now!"

Crystal's QOV Quilt Arrived

Such excitement! Crystal's quilt arrived in the mail this morning. It is absolutely gorgeous! Vicki had it wrapped so well but I had to open it and look. I didn't unfold it completely because I was afraid I'd never get it refolded so neatly but I did photograph it in the box to share with you all. Look at the great label that Vicki made and attached. It gives all the pertinent info.

My husband thinks I should set up a presentation ceremony with a photographer from the local weekly paper to take a photo . I do think the community needs to know that we have a heroic wounded woman warrior in our midst. I'll talk to her Mom and see what she thinks of that idea, and if she approves, she can help me set up a time.

This is one of the quilts that is being done for the 40 Quilts Service Project of Quilt Studio. You can see the whole quilt in Vicki's blog.