Japanese X block

I just could not stand it...I had to do it...I just had to in order to get a good night's sleep:)  So, it is fun.  It only took about an hour, a quick hour.  But, remember that I had not done it before.  It is a bit like the Zigzag, each block has to be prepared individually for the scrappy look...worth it though.  Of course, my block is off and so I cannot turn it in to Guild...Why do you think I go so quickly...not much measuring needed around this house...Guess I had better stop now in spite of the adrenaline still going...

Zigzag again...

Tonight I was able to go to the Charlotte Modern Quilt Guild meeting...yes!  I took a 2 hour nap, my husband drove me and I sat in the back with my sunglasses on.  I had a wonderful hour seeing friends and being inspired to sew...more.and even more....keep sewing.  So I did.  I came right home and after dinner, I made three more of the Zigzag blocks!!

I am not going to mess around with the placement now because that part makes me crabby, I am just making some blocks.  I have 15 done:)  Now I am on to the next thing.....Amy at Badskirt has a tutorial for the Japanese X block.  I have wanted to try that for awhile, but I have been busy...ha ha...Now, the CMQG is doing this block, for block of the month of September.  I am excited and want to try it tonight.  OK, maybe tomorrow night.

My Concussion quilt ...top done

 Now, two months...evidently post-concussion syndrome..will see next week...the good news is that I can work it all out with my needle and thread!!!!  Just like other women throughout the years...Lucky me:)

 As, usual, I could not decide on which picture..with or without the flash...so you get both!

My concussion quilt... process, process, that's for sure

Just sayin.......

My Modern Political Quilt:)

I have always loved elephants, but this time of year I decided to add donkeys.  Then..why make it partisan..go the whole way...tell them how you feel...

and I added the sly foxes for the backing.... 

 Put in some crooked stitches, and bound it with black and white Moo-lah fabric.....

 The appropriate label...

 and we have my Modern Political Quilt...All finished but seeing how it comes out in the wash!

I did not use a pattern here, but the idea is not mine..credits to Kate Conklin.  Also, our very own Amanda Murphy did something similar.

Crabby me still around, but zigzag better

This is better, but it is still annoying.  At least the zigzags are all zigging unlike the other pix...trouble is that I am zigging too!! Enough to make me take to the drink:)  I figure that these 12 blocks...the odd one at the bottom must be the alternate block...is only one quarter of the quilt.  So I will need 36 more.  Hmmm..for now, just for now...into the UFO box..gotta take a break.  I will have to figure out how to label them...top of  

block A and top of block B...will get out the masking tape now.

The Zigzag crabs....help needed

This is NOT working.  I am about to put it away for a UFO..where am I going wrong???

Compromise at it's best...

My sister went to Hancock's fabric store and brought some of this back to share with me!!  Good sister...no, great sister..How cute are the patchwork dogs..

 How it all works out in the end.  Years ago, before the screened in porch, I asked my husband to plant a small pine tree for Christmas lights.   He thought planting a whole tree for Christmas lights was a bit silly, but he did it.  We enjoyed that for years and the tree grew big and scraggly and ugly.  I said, cut it down..NO, said the man..we do not just cut it down on whim!!  Sigh...so,I got a pink Crepe Myrtle to plant a few yards from it.   (knowing deep in my heart that by the time he came around to cutting down the pine, the Crepe Myrtle would be big and showy and beautiful.).  Then we put in the screened in porch and the Crepe Myrtle wound around the Pine tree and it all was so lovely together that nothing got cut down.  It all lived happily ever after just like we want.

  From the inside of the porch, the Pine tree in its glory holding the bird feeders so close that we enjoy them every day.. Ahh...the spirit of compromise and the beauty thereof...

The fox is sly and so am I...

Look what I got for the back of my elephant quilt...sly foxes by Aneela Hoey...so perfect.

 I got so excited, that I basted it and started to quilt.  I knew that I could not do freemotion quilting at this time, so I did straight line...nope..couldn't do that either..got headaches in 10 min.  Rested and did it again..more headaches..wouldn't let it go...grrr...so only half of it is quilted because finally I had to stop.  

 These are sooo fast and easy with this Cherry House tutorial.  I just cut an extra few to throw in the new HST box.  I never made many of these before...but now I am hooked...look to me whipping them out, until I get bored that is...at least now I have a designated box for them...new UFO:)

Nothing like friends...and ..zz# 5

I have been exercising in the water with the same friends for 5 years...We have so much fun.  I love them.  And LOOK, just look....they love me back!!!

Because I miss them so, here is zigzag therapy...number 5!

My husband hurt his back and is in the bed on pain pills....just sayin.... 

Delete for the rage...or/see block #4

This blendy little zigzag is in honor of my Southwest USA life where I went to high school and undergraduate school in Phoenix/Tempe, Arizona...thx to Tula and I think Kaffe or is it Brandon...anyway..

So, you can delete now, cuz I am about to rant on my day...My husband had a business luncheon to attend and he came in to say goodbye and it was almost noon and I was still in bed!!  I wanted to cry...wasting my entire Thursday..a bad start.  In the afternoon, he drove me to see my mother.  I was thrilled at feeling fine, Mother was thrilled at seeing me.  Within minutes I was dizzy and head pressury..and pissy...So I had to sit in the recliner in my mother's room.  Mother was in great shape and she had gone to lunch bunch..a Mexican restaurant.  She is 91 with Parkinsons...and she can do that??  I cannot do that.  Then Mr.O'Quilts helped her SKYPE her 92 year old cousin in Sweden.  They chatted away while for me, the room spun away.  Visitors then came and my mother held court...queen that she is.  I told her to never, ever tell me that she was so abandoned and had no friends.  I hardly visited with her..she had so many folks come in.  This visit did me in and I had to rest...a four letter word...I think...and silly me had been thinking we could go by Target on the way home.  Guess I cannot ride in a car either, yet...heavy on the yet...Mr. O'Quilts said that I had just over done it...whatever...Thank u for listening...and Emily, your mother has to whine just a little bit once in awhile..please forgive.......

The new zigzag life

There will be no maudlin thinking today...I said NOT!....there will only be gratitude for sewing...TBTG.. Block 3

"Do not go gentle into that good night.  Rage, rage against the dying of the light."            

Dylan Thomas

The brain and the midnight hour!!

HST's and nostalgia..

A snippet of Vintage fabric makes a Mommy teary......

 Made for my girl's kindergarten dance.....24 years ago...

 My first attempt at my HST's...so far behind....I am using Cherry House's pattern.  The only problem is that it makes 8 triangles..and I need 9...What to do??????  Square cut 8 inches equals 8 HST!!

Block one, done....

The day so far...

  Resting the brain, then just because I had decided that enough was enough....enough was not enough...Fabric.com's blowout sale of $3.95.  After I did this on the computer, my eyes were shot..so I took some pictures.  I am so proud of myself using my favorite fabrics and of my random piecing.  I am very pleased with this little quilt made with a charm pack and my own additions.  You know I really love a one patch, no need sometimes to make it all so complicated.

 If you like my new blog format..we can all thank my friend, Wanda, who mentioned so sweetly that maybe the new blogger would show off my quilt pictures better.  She was so right.  Thank you Wanda.

Now as week 7 has passed, I have this mother problem.  She cries to all that I am sitting around my house sewing  and not calling my dear old mother.  Evidently, she says, I do not love her any more.  I call and tell her that I love her and did she not remember that not only did I call, but we had a great chat..yesterday.  She says that she does not remember.  I know she is used to seeing me very frequently which has certainly changed.  I used to go every other morning and my sister every other night.  Now my sister goes every night with great exhaustion.  When we talked last night, she told me that she thought that my sister did not love her either.  She was frustrated that she did not remember.  I told her that I did not know what to do about all this when I  left messages and called her and she did not remember and cried.  She said for me to take care of myself and that all that was Parkinson's emotional incontinence and improper processing and that she knew that but couldn't help it.  I feel sad.

Julia is having a challenge for herself and has asked others to join in....she is sewing from stash and not buying new fabric.  I have another challenge for myself and that is to use the fabric I have been saving and loving.  I have saved it so long that it is now called Vintage fabric:)  The bits of this fabric were bought 25 years ago at the beloved, but now defunct, Mae's discount warehouse in Miami.  I love it so and finally used it tonight.  I have always had a great memory.  I was afraid that my concussion might have interfered...but I am delighted that I did not have to audition fabric for this border, I knew in my heart that this was the one and where to get it in my stash and that I was going to use it finally.  This awareness is making up for my adrenaline rush of losing my meatloaf to that dog!!  I am grateful.

The girl fabric below is probably from the same time frame.  Marie gave it to me when we both lived in Miami...maybe it came from Mae's too.   Marie, give a shout on the comment box if you remember where it came from...and you can see that I still love it so and am now going to use it on the back of my new one-patch.  Glad I kept it all because after 25 years, turquoise is making a comeback.  Can you imagine keeping fabric so long that it becomes Vintage?????

ok...it is all out of my system...I will show you the finished without design wall top tomorrow.  I want to take a picture of it in the daylight and I am getting the  sense that I may be over doing it.  So I had better go to bed.

Zoey and the absolute misinformation

While I was blogging and the meatloaf was cooling, ZOEY  ATE THE MEATLOAF!!!!!!!

I have never ever ever had a dog steal food before...OMG...I am speechless..  If a person does not need therapy after this.........speechless.

Upstairs, Downstairs

Mr. O'Quilts is out playing tennis.  The postman just came...how did he know:)  As you know, the upstairs office is on a budget.  I have explained to him that my recovery depends on therapy...fabric therapy.  I also suggested that it is miniscule...mere pittance...compared to the gas I could have been using these past SEVEN weeks.  I always got A's in my logic classes.

 AND, tonight I had the energy to make Mom's meatloaf...I mean..such savings...we did not have to have Monday pizza again this week.

 I have company in the downstairs office...they understand..  

In the sweetest of ways, Mr. O'Quilts mentioned that since I cannot work and this is lasting much longer than we had imagined...that we are now short one income.  It must be that the diplomas in the upstairs office are from a different school than those here in the downstairs office(:

The Painted Zigzag

Check out Wanda's post today...That is it!!  I am doing it..the Nike way...Beth has organized a Flickr group to do it all together....Sujata has the tutorial....Julia does a block a day....Nifty is doing it....Lordy I will NOT be left out.  Going to start today...after my nap!!!  So here are some of the fabrics I have pulled.  NOTE to self:  Do not push yourself to keep up.  If you have a headache, do NOT do it.  You do not have to be so productive in this that you are asleep for days resting the brain.  Self does not like this note...but will listen!!!!

 Random sewing...easy on the brain...wonder how this will be when it is sewn altogether..soon we will see....I am so used to using the design wall...I might even try the border without it....such flexibility!!!

Jan, you are right, many old quilts were done this way..Maybe it will be done by tonight..

Taking it easy....

Taking it easy..is not easy...I slept and then sat in the screened in porch in the rain pondering the purpose of life and drifted off and watched the woodpeckers at my bird feeder,etc.....Tonight I have finished 12 nine patches.  I do not know what era that the charm pack that my sister got me is supposed to be from...but I found in my stash complements, so probably not that long ago...anyway, this is going to be a simple one patch.  I might even just wing it without a design wall and just sew them together..easy...no thinking

As I move through my journey, I just think of that song, "I get by with a little help from my friends"....  Sometimes it only takes one email or one phone call or a card or a chicken or a comment...and it is often a surprise who is there...but joyously, I am getting by with a little help from my friends!

Rain, glorious rain in Charlotte

It is raining today.  I would show you how happy my cucumber plants are, but they were too ashamed.   My husband is Skyping his brother in Ireland and I am trying to just chill.  The quilt that Zoey is sitting on, on the porch has as its filler our wedding quilt.  In 1980 when we got married, I made a log cabin quilt in Irish colors and embroidered our names and birth dates and birth places and eventually the names and birth dates of our children.  We used it so much, and with the exposure to the Miami sun/light, it became so faded, that I covered it with this quilt top.  Now the "treasure" is on the porch with Zoey.  I cannot throw away anything.

 The aluminum platter and pitcher is from my grandmother.  She could never throw away anything either...lucky me.  There were Hydrangeas in this pot as well with the herbs and Coleus.  I knew I could root Basil and Coleus, but was so very surprised to see that the Rosemary rooted as well...great to know as Rosemary grows year round here in Charlotte.

 I have vowed to "take it easy" today.  I have had a rough two days and Mr. O'Quilts and others have said it is because I am doing too much.  That sneaky drive on Thursday to see my mother did me in, as well as using the design wall.  So when my sister brought me these pre-cuts yesterday, I decided that if I must sew, which I must, it will just be sewing and not thinking.

If you are not already a follower...I do love Nadia....http://multicoloredpieces.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-weekend-in-cairo-part-3-best-for-last.html

Charm Bracelet Quilt

  I have seen so many of these quilts online, that I was not sure of the source.  I googled the "Charm Bracelet" pattern and found Kate Conklin's pattern.  Our very own  Amanda Murphy from Charlotte, has something similar.  I did not use a pattern, but I did use the idea..so thanks to the above folks.  My addled brain has decided on just extending the orange.  I did not want anything to take away from the cute elephants framed in white.  I cut my elephants 6 inches with a 1 and  1/2 inch chain..  I am going to sew this on now and then go look for a backing.  I hope I do not go nuts with this too????  Maybe some M&M's from my other stash will help.

I am thinking of these for the binding, but then...

Cristin voted on the Summersville in Black..left side.  I think I just might add that to the binding options...a great idea..Thank u Cristin....

One bad___ border...or is it the quilter?

You would think that with 50 years of collection, that it would be easier than this to put a small 2.5 inch border on this delightful quilt...but oh, no...grrrr.  I guess I am trying too hard.

I did not realize till posting that most choices are green...whatever....guess after a break...a big break, I will look more at the blues...jeeze louize....maybe just another white...just ugh