Suzanne often told me that she thought I’d enjoy hand applique. I took stabs at it, but it didn’t look as perfect as I thought it should. I had seen a lot of what I thought was “perfect” needle turn applique and I was in awe. I started looking more closely and realized that yes, there are people who do exquisite hand work, perfect curves and inner and outer points. But there is lots of applique that is less than perfect. It’s the over-all effect that counts. And of course, it does take practice. 2 or 3 Christmases ago Suzanne gave me a kit and a pattern to make this sweet wallhanging. She didn’t just give me the kit and some fabrics. She had already traced the patterns onto the fabric!!! All I had to do was cut out the shapes she had traced and start the applique. Applique and embroidery, I find this to be a very pleasing combination. I loved working on this quilt. I just got the borders on today. It sometimes takes me quite awhile to get projects finished. I’ll let Suzanne machine baste this and then I’ll hand quilt it with pearl cotton and big stitches.

Update on yesterday’s new project — I think I’m going to put the word F L E U R on the flower wall hanging, big letters across the top or down one side.

I went down to the shop this afternoon to cut out the borders for this Hearts and Flowers quilt and was going to sew, using my Bernina 830 that is down there. But the foot pedal and cord weren’t with the machine. I was also going to work on a quilt that I had bought fabric for a couple years ago to make for our church’s auction. I got it started back then, but didn’t finish. Now the pieces have traveled around to more than one place in my house I think. It’s a Trip Around the World and needs to be pieced just so. It’s in lovely dark batiks. I’m somewhat overwhelmed by it, because I didn’t keep the sections organized. Why do I do these things? Who knows! I’d really love to get it done, but other projects keep calling out louder. And the knitting needles have been speaking much louder than the sewing needles. I haven’t finished a quilt in way too long (and then I can’t resist starting a new one).

I’ve been working on the brown/purple pink quilt for several weeks off and on. All right, probably a couple months. I can’t remember the book the pattern comes from, the blocks were fun to piece. I used my seam ripper once or twice because it’s easy to get things going the wrong way. One strip of the brown border stripe goes on each block. Fine. Then I started the longer borders. I cut the wrong lengths once and put the thing away for a couple more weeks. Today I once again cut the wrong lengths. Then I thought I had everything under control. Then I went to the ironing board and realized that I had cut the stripes the long way — you can easily see this at the top of the quilt, much more effective to have cross-wise stripes for a border. I don’t know if I’ll ever finish this thing. It’s not the most beautiful quilt in the world, but I don’t go for beautiful, I go for interesting.

A couple weeks ago I had picked out fat quarters for my next quilt top. But after the brown/purple fiasco I put the fat quarters away, deciding that I just wanted to sew, for goodness sake!!! I didn’t want to measure too much. So I pencil sketched a vase and flowers and then went to the closet at Knots and Bolts today and pulled out fabric. I took a fat 1/8th and cut a square, then just started cutting 3″ strips from the scraps and started adding them around the center square. The only measuring or real thinking involved was the center square and the width of the strips. The piecing was pretty much truly random. I wanted to end up with a busy background, but hopefully the flowers will still stand out. Started cutting circles for big fried egg type flowers and strips of a pretty green for stems. I think I might just let the stems hang into the border and not tuck them in. At first the flowers were going to be in a vase, but I decided there were fabrics in the background that I didn’t want to cover up, especially the silhouette fabric.. The borders aren’t all sewn on yet because the bobbin ran out of thread and I haven’t mastered changing the bobbin on the Featherweight that Suzanne has at the store. The border fabric wouldn’t be just any one’s choice I know. It reminds me of 50s era curtain or upholstery fabric. I will probably change out some of the flower choices, some aren’t bright enough. I’ll probably do some rearranging. And then I’ll find a backing, batting, slap it all together and get out my pearl cotton and needle and utility quilt by hand.

There weren’t a lot of customers in the store today, but I had a grand time sewing and cutting and creating after I figured out that I just needed to “doodle” with fabric.

I hung out with the boys for a couple hours while their folks went to the local movie theater. I watched them play with their Lego robot for awhile. We listened to a podcast I have called “Stuff You Should Know”. This episode was about how body armor works. Quite interesting. We watched Tom & Jerry cartoons. Are there any good cartoons being made these days? There’s nothing to compare with watching characters get blown up, burned up, tied up in knots, exploded, and then appear good as new. The boys (and frankly I) love The Pink Panther, Popeye, Tom and Jerry… I have to be knitting while I’m watching/listening. But I know when a good part occurs because Joe will say, Grandma, watch this.

Before they started getting ready for bed I told them each to go get a story book for bedtime stories. I suppose that eventually I won’t be able to talk them into letting me read to them, but I’m going to hope that maybe I’ll be able to get in occasional poems or random picture books squeezed in somehow for a long, long time. They each picked out a Dr. Seuss book. Well, Will actually picked out a “faux” Dr. Seuss book. It was written by Jack Prelutsky and someone else, in the style of Dr. Seuss. Hooray for Diffendorfer (or something along those lines). Sorry, I’m not taking the time right at the moment to Google and find the right name. Here’s another thing I’m not Googling — maybe someone can let me know the answer. Their home history lesson of the day was about St. Augustine, Florida. Is St. Augustine the capital of Florida or is Tallahassee?

Will took all of today’s photos with my camera. First one here is the Lego robot thing they’re building. Pretty clever. He took photos from all angles. Photo two is of Joe in a red hat I knitted, family laundry in the background on the drying rack. Photo 3 is one I took actually, Will on the couch in his favorite corner of the couch cuddled up with their flannel popcorn quilt. By the time I took this photo I had figured out how get the date stamped on photos on my camera. Photos 4 and 5 are the same photo of Joe, one I let Windows “fix”.

I’m guessing this was in 1973 when Suzanne (Suzy at that time) was 1 or so and I was 21. Wow. The glasses, the cheekbones, the youth.

Christmas in Connecticut, I think this might have been Mark’s first trip to Connecticut, our first time meeting him. I remember picking Mark and Suzanne up at the airport in Warwick, RI and seeing this very tall, handsome, slim young man for the first time.

Yesterday when I came home from work I started entering the alley that my garage is on and realized that there was a very good chance that if I ventured much farther that I would get stuck, so I parked on the street. I kept my ears tuned to outside noises, hoping I would hear the plow shoveling out the alley, but it didn’t come until sometime today while I was at work. So my poor car had to brave the winter weather outside all night. When I got into it this morning, the temperature read -11 F. It really groaned when I started it, but did ok. Tonight it is in its proper place. If you can’t have a garage attached to your house, make sure you have a heated garage. Heaven for car and its person.

This cat hanging on the side of the garage has seen better days, but it’s been a good garage guard/angel cat.

No photos of children today, just a Howdy. I couldn’t decide which Howdy photo to post, so decided on all 3.

I have no idea who this is. It was in my mother-in-law’s house. The story was that it was an ancestor, but I don’t remember who and don’t know if that’s actually true. But I like the frame and I like the photo.

My mother used to collect china deer. My favorite was always this Bambi with the butterfly on the tail. I got the blue and white snow people in Norway, I think. Although I was thinking it was in Copenhagen before I picked them up and looked at their bottoms.

Debra and Sadie, 1990-something. I think that’s David in the background, although possibly Mark? Sadie was our beloved English Springer Spaniel that we got in 1980-something when Carl was at sea. On our way to the pier to see him come in on USS Pargo (maybe), the submarine he was on at the time, I made the kids promise not to tell Daddy about the new dog. Naturally young Debby, first thing when she saw her dad said, “Daddy, guess what we got?” I don’t really recall whether we had talked about possibly getting a dog or why I thought it was a good idea to get a dog when Carl was at sea and couldn’t participate in the decision. But we all loved her, eventually anyway. I took her to dog obedience classes and she and I did learn how to take nice walks and she would sit on command. Otherwise, I’m not sure she was the best behaved dog in the world, she jumped up on people as I recall. A friend went to the vet’s office with me when she got old and sick and had to be put to sleep and we cried together. Sadie was buried beneath some trees on the lawn of Gales Ferry United Methodist Church, close to at least one other English Springer Spaniel named Lady who belonged to the minister who was at the church for most of the time we attended there.

This was another scrapbook page and I can’t figure out why the whole page didn’t get scanned, the photos got scanned separated from each other, but anyway… Two handsome families. Grainy looking photos for some reason. Colin always closes his eyes when you tell him to say “Cheese” for a photo and I love the thumb in the mouth.

Thanksgiving 2008

I really need a current family photo of the other sibling in the family. That’s a hint, David and Stefanie.