Hexagons, Hospitals and Soccer

Woes my daughter. She's been in the hospital for 8 days and finally we were sent home. While there, she continued to have radiation and needed transport to another hospital for it. We cannot wait until this is over.

So far, so good on the CT scans and MRI's-Ewing's Sarcoma cancer gone. It was in her right jaw and now it's not. But, I gather the little cancer cells have a way of recurring and so she must continue on with this treatment-30 days of radiation while undergoing 14 chemotherapy treatments-5 night stays in the hospital for every other one; 2 night stays for the other half. Jennifer is pretty tough and doesn't whine, but, oh my goodness, I do, to strangers. I can break down and cry in front of the man that is cooking my daughter's falafel. Like fallen leaves on the water, my emotions run very shallow sometimes. It's what mother's do, when their child is hurting.

Make no mistake quilting is therapy. A big part of life, sometimes, is all about the art of distraction. My worry monitor could really make me a basket case if it weren't for quilting. Being in the children's hospital, because Ewing's is a classic children's disease, I have a bed in the room with Jennifer. I'm normally a machine quilting gal, cause you know, I want to finish the quilt in my life time. But, there's no room for my sewing machine, plus, besides all the beeping that goes on, only another quilter would interpret the sound of the sewing machine as a relaxing purr. And so, I hand sew, 1 inch hexagons. We have a king size bed, so the plan, at least for now is to make the Tillie's Mosaic pattern quite a lot larger as the original pattern is only about 5 foot by 5 foot-I'm going to need 7 X 7. Here's my next hexagon flower/center block. The original pattern only has a couple of these toile type of scenes then solid material of different patterns, I think I'll make mine all toile. All quilters, that have been quilting for a while, know that patterns are guidelines. Use the patterns for the basic ideas then feel free to expand or innovate. My innovation is the method of putting the blocks together. Instead of row by row, I like to focus on the toile/flower center hexagon blocks. Scroll down to the label at the bottom of this post and click on the Tillie's Mosaic/Grandmother's Flower garden label to see all of my progress. Don't forget, for a closer look at my pictures, click on them.

My team, Portugal, got beat by the big bad Germans in the 2008 Eurocup!
The remainder of the tournament continues on over the next few days. I want Turkey to come from behind and whoop those Germans!! Don't you love the beautiful game...smile

Quiltmania/Tillie's Mosaic-necessary to complete this quilt!

With Jennifer in the hospital, I'm fortunate to be able to be with her during her treatments. The nurses are great, but, they are stretched pretty thin. So, I'm there for banana split duty. She can't eat a lot or taste a lot, but she does like those. You can see the redness on the right jaw, this is where her cancer is and is where she gets her radiation. She is halfway through her treatments, of 30 total. Chemo goes until Aug/Sept.

In the mean time, I'm hand sewing 1 inch hexagons for my Grandmother's Flower Garden/Tillie's Mosaic quilt. As you can see this is quite a unique pattern. Most patterns are complete in the picture on the front. Karen Witt is a wonderful historian, but, I must say, her patterns are a bit challenging. We quilters do like our challenges, but, my goodness, please complete the quilt when you go to print. Fortunately, Karen did finish the quilt and it was in the really, really great magazine, Quiltmania. This is a french magazine that has wonderful pictures of quilts you don't normally see, I guess because they are in Europe or Japan. Anyway, here is a picture of the finished quilt. I recommend getting both the patten and the magazine, as where one is lacking in information, the other makes up for it.

If you need a close up view of any picture on my blog, you can click on it and it will blow up for a close up!

Exercise for Quilters-the Louisville Zoo

Let's face it, quilting is a sedentary activity. Our beautiful stitches and piecing are not created while running through the poppy fields on our way to Oz. Yes, at times we are more on our bottoms than our congress should be. I just wish it was up to quilters to decide major tax or health care issues. Hmmm-a sewing machine for every family...smile.

I digress. Quilters need to be more on the move. While I've been at the hospital and busy making my Grandmother's Flower Garden/Tillies Mosaic hand sewn quilt, I've not let the time go to waist. We must stay busy and keep the little grey cells moving. Besides the little grey cells in our brains, we must move our feet for exercise. Being downtown, I'm closer to the Louisville Zoo than when I'm in Crestwood, our home. The Zoo has a great program, called Zoo Walkers, in which you can walk a little over a mile, in the mornings from 8:00 am to 10:00am. I've been doing this and it's a wonderful time to check out all the animals. If you go be sure to visit the new tiger exhibit. Also in the morning the animals seem to be more active, at least some do. One of the favorite's is the baby elephant. It was born last year, and I doubt many events raised more attention for the Zoo than the blessed event. If you have little ones, there is a new waterpark. My other favorite is the meerkats. They have been given a box to play in. Just like we humans, don't waist your money on those fancy toys, sometimes our kids get more fun out of playing in a box.

The Zoo Walkers is just what it says. You have a well marked path and healthy tips all along the way for you to break up the walk. One mile doesn't sound like much, but it's mostly uphill, but only if you start at the correct starting place. As I'm walking I am aware I'm the only one walking in this direction. Those other savvy walkers have figured it out, walking downhill is easier, so you start at the end and walk to the beginning if you want an easier walk. Ah well, maybe they are walking around twice, to my once, but, I kinda doubt it.

Join the Zoo! Besides the Louisville Zoo, you can use your membership to zoos and aquariums around the country.

Back to the hospital for 5 days.

Well, once again, Jennifer and I will spend 5 nights at Kosair Childrens Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. My 23 year old has a classic children's disease, Ewing's Sarcoma in the jaw. So, I'll be spending my time on my little chair/chaise lounge and working on my hand sewing project, the Grandmother's Flower Garden. We are on chemo treatment number eight in our protocol. There are 14 total and 31 radiation treatments. It will be interesting to see how we are going to get to the Brown Cancer Center, where they do the radiation.
It's strange how I seem to think of it as "we". But, believe me it does affect the whole family, whether we like it or not.
So, needless to say I'll be out of the blog world for a while. There are computers at the hospital, but, they seem to always be busy with kids on them, which is fine with me. It amazes me how tough these little cancer patients are. They can't be wimps an go through the,what I'm sure must seem like torture at times, the treatments the must endure to get better. The androgynous toddlers-they are all bald-that wield their way through the halls in their walker or in red wagons. Happily pulled along by concerned parents and grandparents.

Seventeen year Cidadas and quilting

You know it's summer when you can hear the outdoors. Like the purr of your sewing machine, busily pushing material, the cicadas are buzzing or whatever they do to make their familiar sound, as they push their way up and out of the ground. This is the year for the 17 year cicadas to emerge from the ground here in Oldham County, Kentucky, Crestwood, to be sort of exact. We are about 20 miles north of Louisville. Different parts of the country have broods that come out on particular summers. The sound is defining. I don't know how to describe it.

I'm still quilting as I await the outcome of the Democratic National Committee rules hearing. They are probably deciding the presidential election with their vote to allow, or not to allow the delegates. Wouldn't you have loved to have been a fly on the wall when they left the TV room and went behind closed doors? I wonder what they said.

Movie, Book and DVD rental reviews...

Besides making my Grandmother's flower garden/Tillie's Mosaic quilt, which is the best hand sewing project I can recommend for waiting on Doctors, and at bedsides in hospitals, I've been enjoying other sensory perceptions.

The new Indiana Jones movie was like being on a ride at an amusement park. I never really engaged with the movie-action or script. But, you got to see it, because it's picks up somewhat from the original movie and I guess it's okay. If nothing else, they brought back Karen Allen who, a while back was a really great actress that seemed to drop off the planet for a while, but, now we can see her again. She's knitting, I understand, so she must be a great person, maybe could have been a little better if she's a quilter, but, knitting is good...smile.

A better afternoon spent is watching a French film with subtitles, the Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It's about the editor of Elle Magazine who has a stroke at the age of 42 and how he writes a book just by blinking it out to a nurse. The French really are cutting edge movie makers and some of the scenes in this movie are impossible-I won't give away anything. This is an interesting movie and the soundtrack is awesome-I recommend buying that, the variety is wonderful, U2 to Tom Waits, luscious.

The book I was given as some fluff reading is Stealing Shadows by Kay Hooper. It's a nice page turner with detective/psychic/serial killer finder/person...you know what I mean. The book is a romantic thriller and I usually shy away from this type of thing, but, I started reading it and couldn't stop.

So, there you have, may while away the time while I while away the time ideas for you.

Ain't Life grand...smile

Baby Quilt for the new Boomer Sooner

Well, cancer has not completely got me down. I have had a lot of down time, running my DD #1 back and forth to radiation everyday and will for the next 6 weeks, while going through chemotherapy every 2 weeks. This stuff is way not fun. I'm not even in the ballpark of no fun, compared with Jennifer. Ah well, this time next year, it should all be a bad memory.


Someone called from our wonderful church today. They got my name mixed up with Jennifer and said they'd keep us in their prayers. I guess God knows which is which, so it okay. Our church is getting so large, I know it's impossible for someone to remember all however many thousands are now attending. But, I've never met this new minister and have been attending said church for 12 years now. I don't go every time the doors are open, but, I was going every Tuesday to lead our church quilt group, Northeast Quilting Friends. I haven't attend but, once in the last several months because I don't want to be a downer to the group. The last time I came to the meeting I cried. The ladies have managed quite well without me. What did I expect? Helplessness? A complete loss of quilt abilities? Nope, they did just fine, when I came back the one time. Ah well, what will be, will be and the quilting group goes on.

Anywho, here's Jennifer in her radiation session. It's quite the science fiction setting, but, it's no fiction...lots of science. Life does go on, everyone has their own soap operas to manage. Speaking of newest, my niece had a baby boy, Daxton. She sent pictures of him dressing in his Oklahoma State University outfit, of which Boomer Sooner is the mascot. So, in honor of our new Boomer Sooner, here is my original design of an OU baby quilt! Hah! Who needs a pattern. I tried a new boarder technique where I made the center blocks and then laid the border on top of the red blocks then did a raw edge appilque curving to add some visual texture to the straight blocks. And everyone wants to the back, so here it is, flannel.