Potholders, Paintings, People. Posters

 The bag I posted the other day..cough...other week, is finished...This is the handle and decorative vintage buttons.  I love it.

My friend Lee is a brilliant painter...She was practically giving away some of her paintings.  I just know I can find an inch or two in my small apartment for them.

A few funnies to cheer our day!

Sixteen year old Dylan got his driver's license and bought a truck...so proud!!

Unfinished potholders just had to share.

A thank you pouch for a friend who loves lady bugs.

Well, this post is late and later...been working on it forever. Then, I forgot it!

Thanks to a wonderful Chris helping me with PT, and a smart doctor with a Latin vibe, I am getting better...Slow, I finally  understand, is better than not at all...My group tells me, "Progress, not perfection!!. I am grateful. And, I am grateful for all of  you who still read my blog.

Big Gratitude and Small Gratitude

My Magnolia gift today...brilliant with a wing span of 10 inches!! Amazing!!

Gratitude for Aoife...soon to be 6....A pix of pot of gold under the Irish rainbow....with a chicken enjoying herself...of  course.

AND....Lip gloss for Grandma...Hmmmmmm

My favorite relaxation: creating potholders...Oh, dear...I am all out of Insulbrite!

I am way behind making potholders as I give them away so often....to folks who are so nice to me...or who have birthdays or have sad days. Grateful for my cool and awesome Janome 8900 sewing machine and my huge fabric stash!!

Missing my family who have gone before me...and the stellar family I have left.

Generosity is..loaning my car to my  friend so she could practice swimming for her  tournament on Thursday in the senior games..Yesterday, I loaned my red travel Janome to my 97 year old quilting buddy so she could machine quilt her latest.  Both of these women inspire me so much. 

 Here;  Our neighbor, MK with all  her swimming medals:  She will be 90 in October.  

Time is going very fast...I fear that all my fabric making dreams will not fit into the time I have left here on earth... One am is evidently the time to worry about that??!!  Not!!

Nte! xo

Small Things with Great Love

Celebrating life by making for others.  The other night, watching news on Instagram, I  just knew I had to sew for joy....I made 35 key fobs to give to others...So much fun and so easy. Key fob tutorial  

There are many tutes for this.  I cut my fabric 3.5 x 10 inches and my fusible fleece, 2" by 10".  There are great selections for key fob hardware online. Here I have used 1 inch clasps, but just ordered 1.25 inch ones and I like them better..

Continuing on with the fun is Mrs. O'Quilt's nonstop potholder making...I am so out of them now...A few here to give to the rehab nurses who put up with this difficult patient in rehab!! and for the potholder basket I keep by my front door.

Kathy has cancer.  Kathy loves sunflowers....and so.....

Having left the 6 chickens with a sitter, my girl and her man and her 5 year old and the dog, all spent time climbing Oregon mountains with llamas to carry their burdens... So glad I traveled while I was young...OMG

Loving life today.  More good smart friends here, keeping great friends of yesteryear, fond memories of others...Still walking with a wobble...no pain..TBTG, taking walks, exercising in the pool...making small things with great love in order to survive this crazy world.

I have no earthly idea  how folks survive without sewing and having a good stash!! 

I am so grateful!!

Five Day Count Down

Today's surprise treat:  Linda M brought this totally thoughtful gift to my room this afternoon..A  yard of pristine feedsack from her family stash in Nebraska.. I just love it... Did I mention how much I love it...A perfect treat for me:

My dear daughter and her family has gone completely nuts about their new chickens.  Voila:  Bok Bok sitting on my girl's lap in the family living room...Dear me!!  A Barred Rock....

Em got hereself some chicken buttons!!!!

Aoife loving on Bok Bok

Mango here is a Buff Orpington.

Who would have known seven pet chickens would make dear Rosie, the dog jealous.

Our Aoife is quite the picture ham....

Now...five days until Monday ....Cinco de Mayo....my mother's birthday  AND my new hip operation.

I am nervous, but anticipating the eventual relief of this awful hip pain and maybe being able to lift my leg up into a car or into my bed without pain...  I am surrounded by love and encouragement.

PS:  OMG  Now there is a chicken in a quilt..

 

Thank God for Friends and Family

My family in Portland:  Our four year old with her mommy, checking out the chickens.  Will they get cats or chickens/???

With the awesome oil cloth fabric Eithne bought me in Ireland forever ago, I have made two cat pouches with Velcro.

These can  hold playing cards, little toys, anything actually and I love them so much.  Look at the little tabs I bought on sale a while back.  So cute!!

My girl took a flower/fabric class with her friend the other day...

Pressing flowers from  her own garden onto pre-treated fabric.

Potholders continue to fly out the door as everyone is so very nice here...Just finished these 6:

So much fun to incorporate the saved selvedges.

I swear being old is like being in the amusement park or the circus!!!!!  Everyday, something new.

This morning PT on my  painful adductor muscles that hurt when I walk.  Torture.

The PT told me that their favorite saying is:

Is it better to negotiate with a terrorist or a therapist???

The answer of course is a terrorist is more forgiving..

Spent the night in pain; spent the morning in massage and heat and electrodes at PT.

I felt so much better that tonight I decided to sweep the kitchen floor for my friends tomorrow.

I know that they say they come to visit me, not my apartment....However....

This is the last time I  try that, as the broom and pan are on the floor still.

  I lost my balance without the cane and fell.

Lucky me caught myself on the kitchen sink, not on the floor.  I am sore but graterful...

The reality of being ancient is becoming more present in my mind...and all the new challenges every day.

My kitchen floor is still dirty; I have nothing broken on my body.

The days are going so fast...The summer is almost over...Unbelievable.  Every day I sit outside on my patio and read.  Today, I finished a great book called, HORSE.  

Tomorrow, I start a new , overdue library book...one of Hazel Gaynor's, I think.

My daughter comes to visit me next week for a few days.  Grateful...Very...She always lifts my spirits and she loves to sew.

She is just a terrific 

daughter.

St Paddy's Day and More

Happy St Paddy's Day

Aoife and her dog Rosie...all ready for the parade in Portland

Spring garden here in Charlotte..., so happy!!

Underplanting bulbs in the fall was incredibly worth it. Thank you Dylan!!

My friend, Susan, brought this treasure to me...a present from the museum in Paducah!!

Top done....already with our fine longarmer, Mary Jerz.

The latest group of potholders:

My Marshall's bargain, now with the iron on star Applique...

 

St Paddy's Day is always tough for  me without my dear Irish man.  Nine years gone...sigh..

I  tried to post a few nights ago.  It was all finished when the computer ate it...saved and all.

In disgust, I just went to bed.

Here is what I remember of it...posting quick before it is devoured once again.

Art, the Mess and the Potholder

Starting with the gift.  A stain glass peace sign crafted by my friend  Betty, for my niece, Alexis....the peace sign lover.

Work on the patches for disappearing nine-patch.  Four out of 12 done.

And the potholders finished  yesterday:

Now, the mess is me...the mess is I....OMG.  I have been looking for this neck light for days...wasted time and a lot of annoyance.  It was so  bad, that I just sat down at the computer to order another one, when there is was. in a basket by the computer table.  My brain is the mess.

Somehow when personality gifts were given out, the gift of focus missed me.  It so missed me.

At my age, it is too late...and it is a gift anyway, not a learned skill...I like to make friends with these skills...so far, so good.  There are , however, things I need to do myself.

I can focus if I get furious.  I can focus if I wait till the last minute.  I can focus with meds, I can focus if I run a few miles...ha ha ha...I try not to do any of the above.

I am a mess, my studio is a mess...I need to hire mess support.

or... accept life just the way it is...