Hand sewing and bird nests...smile

The nature experience continues with a daily update. Finally the little bird flew away from my front porch fern and I wa s able to hold my camera high and sneak a picture with the flash on. It looks like we are expecting 2 little babies.

I've still not watered the plant, but, will attempt to do so tomorrow. We spend about 16 days a month for 7 months total in the hospital. My DD #1 Jennifer has Ewings Sarcoma in her right jaw. She gets chemo and on those overnight stays in the hospital and I stay with her. So, needless to say there's lots of down time for me. The good news is we are half way through, 7 out of 14 and so far all the scans indicate that the cancer is local and not spread.

I've found the perfect hand sewing project for me. It's the old grandmother's flower garden or also known, in earlier years as the mosaic pattern. There's no room for an olfa cutting board and I don't think it would be an easy pattern to cut, all the five sides of a one and one half inch hexagon. Karen Witt used a stamp for the

Preview

Preview

hex's and I thought that would be perfect, and it was. Stamp, cut sew, that all there is to it. Then after attending Elenore Burns' Show and Tell at Paducah, I got this lovely clear project bag, in which I can put my fabric and supplies. It really goes surprisingly fast. I've made about 15 blocks and depending how large I make the quilt, I have a king size bed, so it could be large. I think I'll work on it until Jeni is out of the treatments and that's how big it is. At this rate, it might be a really large quilt!

Springtime in Kentucky

God knew we needed flowers so we got some.

This is the view out our front door.

I've planted these iris' around the yard in a variety of places and this is the first year they have bloomed in several years. We've been going through a lot with my daughter's cancer, but, these flowers make me smile.
There's even a potential of some roses that also haven't bloomed in years, yes Jesus loves me.


This is our backyard, not a lot of flowers here, just faeries. There are some iris planted at the top of the stone steps, leading down the hill,but, they are buds right now.

It's springtime in Kentucky so there are lots of flowers and birds. This is a robin in the dogwoods in the front of our house.

What's a front porch in the south without a fern hanging? And this is I don't know what kind of bird that has built a nest in my fern. Far be it from me to destroy a nest, so this will be my nature experience for a while. Maybe it's a little sparrow, my girls love it when I sing that Dolly Parton song...smile...

Nest photos to follow.

Paducah Quilt Show

The world of quilting has it's great times and not so great times. Things can be outstanding and sometimes underwhelming. Such was the case, in my opinion, concerning my 4 days spent in Paducah, Kentucky for the 24th annual American Quilters Society (AQS) quilt show. The wonderful, outstanding part was the place we stayed, the lovely Fox Briar Farm. We had a great room, delicious food, which was served in 3 courses by very nice local women that seemed to have stepped be right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. The farm has cows called Belted Galloways. I've always called them blanket cows, cause it looks like they have a blanket on their backs. The Galloways are from Scotland and fair better in colder climates, you can see the longer hair that helps keep them warm. Besides being a Bed and Breakfast during the quilt show, it's a working farm and the cows are all the work. There is one horse, cause you know this Kentucky, what would a farm be without one. The picturesque setting included a lake with geese and fish that jumped. There was a porch that wrapped around and a few dogwood trees to complete the setting.

The show was it's usual of hodge podge rambling venues contained in 3 buildings that can be daunting to navigate for first time visitors. The underwhelming part, to me was the quantity of show winning quality quilts. I wonder if their aren't more quilt shows competing for the really great quilts and those quilts can't be in 2 places at once so they are spread around the country. In the years past, it seems to me at least, that there have been many more "show stoppers" in this quilt show. I don't know, it just occurred to me, the plethora of quilt shows can't have all the quilts at once. Maybe I'm wrong, any thoughts? The winning quilts were certainly worthy and deserved the prizes they won. This is the grand prize winner, inspired by her grandmother's handkerchief.

The usual gossip, I heard it was in the paper, so maybe it's not gossip, the $20,000 winner didn't want the money. So, that means the she can keep the quilt and it does not go to the museum. I've heard that before, but, someone told me the person changed her mind and took the money. I don't know for sure, I think even at $20,000 if it took me 2 to 10 years to make a quilt worthy of this prize, it still wouldn't be worth your time...but, I'd take the money.

There were lots of familiar beloved faces, none more so than Elenore Burns. Ricky Tims rode a Harley Davidson onto the stage for his show, complete with fog and lighting like Chuck Norris coming out of the burned out barn to save the day. He was pretty good, but, the woman that sang with him, really blew him and all of us away, Cat Bowser, I think was her name-just a singer/comedian, not a quilter and soooo funny.

Here's my purchases. I'm getting into wool rovings and hand sewing a Grandmother's Flower Garden, which before it was called by that name was known as a mosaic pattern. I got this fabric to put in a scattering around the quilt, more on my progress later. I can never go to a quilt show and not find some very unusual embroidery items, this is silk ribbon embroidery thread. I've got another needle threader that works with bigger eyed needles. I did get it through a big eyed size 12 needle, but, it's not worth the effort. Use the heart shaped Clover needle thread for your size 12 needles. We also didn't have a bad meal, the Whaler has great butterfly fried shrimp and Toucan's had the best tuna fish sandwich I've ever had. Food in Paducah can not be mentioned with Patty's Settlement, home of the mile high meringue and pork chops-this can be split very easily between 2 people. Here we are, my mom and me relaxing after a wonderful bit of R and R. Now it's back to business and time with my daughter, who is still undergoing chemotherapy.

Paducah Bound, I hope, I hope, I hope...smile

All quilter's know Paducah, or have at least heard of it. Our mecca for quilting. At one time it was it-not much in the "really big show" description of a quilt show. Now, there are several Quilt Festivals, put on by Karey Bresenhan. A lovely woman from Houston, that started a revolution, of sorts for us quilters to enjoy our craft even more.

I've been to several Houston Quilt Festival shows, as I lived in Houston for 11 of my growing/wonder years for quilting. I took lots of classes from some of the biggest names in quilting, and cherish those techniques and inspiration I picked up from them. Not to much has changed with quilting, you still stitch and you still combine colors the same as before. Today, it's the notions and the machines that impress and pretend to make our lives easier, but, they don't always.

To contrast the 2 quilt events, Paducah is a town in Kentucky, that puts on a quilt show. When I say a town puts on a quilt show, I mean just that. The whole town trots itself out in the Spring for quilt related activities. Everyone gets in on the act. The Rotary Club has it's quilt show, the AQS puts on the show at the Executive Inn, the Mall has it's own quilt show. There is a veritable plethora of quilt shows around this gorgeous town by the river.

The Quilt Festival shows, Houston, Chicago, and elsewhere, are all self contained in a huge, I mean huge convention center, and it doesn't matter how big the venue, it still feels like you are crowded!. But, the vendors have got to be the winners in these events, cause there appears to be many happy quilters feathering their fabric/notion nests. If you are in the market for a sewing machine, this is where you want to be, because, almost every representative from every company will be here and your walking time is greatly reduced, compared to Paducah.

The Paducah quilt show, will have the same things the Quilt Festival shows have, they are just more spread out and finding your way around the event can be confusing-by the pool, upstairs, downstairs-it's a maze of quilty goodness.

In the end both are not to be missed and if you are going to either, book early for the nearest hotels to the event

Home again...smile

Welp, we made it through round 4 of the 14 chemo treatments my daughter must have. We find out about surgery this Friday. The decision needs to be made, radiation or surgery. A 23 year old should not have to make these choices, but, Jennifer is charging on and learning Spanish in her "down time" at the hospital.

Now, so far so good with the Clover Heart Needle Threader, if you are looking for a gift for a quilter, this is my suggestion. I'm not a shop owner, or get anything from Clover for my recommendations, but, that's it, so far, my favorite needle threader. The only thing it's lacking is a cap to protect the wire. During my "down time" at the hospital, I'm working on a floral boarder for this pink and brown hourglass quilt that's been in my UFO pile for quite a long time, and, other than embroidery, applique can be a very satisfying project to work on in your lap. This is a king size pieced nine patch and hour glass block quilt. I really like visual texture in a quilt and combing applique and piecing is a great mix, in my opinion.

If you'd like to see pictures of my pink and brown scrap hourglass quilt, click on the labels below for that and the UFO and you'll see lots of pictures I've taken of it.