Oh! What A Beautiful Morning

Today when I woke up it was a little chilly! There is very low humidity and a little breeze, a good start to the day.
Here is another UFO that I sewed together yesterday. I have a reason to get it done and will share with you at a later date. All the fabrics are Cherrywood. I bought them at the Lancaster Quilt Show a few years back.

A smalll bouquet from the garden. I am looking forward to some more blooms to put around the house. Get out there and enjoy this perfect day!

Kelly

Almost Red and White

My Almost Red and White Quilt is finally pieced. I worked on it when I went on my get away and forgot all about it. I only had 2 more rows to add. Now how to quilt? Kathie do you recognize some of those fabrics?

I laid it out on the grass and took a picture from the deck. It is queen size. At first I was going to put borders on it. Now I like it without,  my husband wants a border. If he wants to sew it on it will get a border!

Kelly

$100 Potholder

Bachelor Button

This little quilt (8 1/2 x 11) is for a guild challenge in September. We decided to make small quilts for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative.  After the challenge we will offer them to any guild member who wants to buy one for $100. The money and the rest of the unsold quilts will be shipped off to Ami Simms where they will sell them with the proceeds going to Alzheimer's research fund.

Here is a close up of my machine quilting. This is a perfect opportunity to play with some designs. It is small enough to manuever under the sewing machine and there is very little quilting in this piece. I also added a little thread detail...the green spikes in the purple middle. It felt kind of flat so I added the green. I also quilted the background first before I put the fused pieces on.
I showed this to my husband and I said would you pay $100 for this? First he said "no, $200" then he said "do they think they can get $100 for a potholder?" Yes he really thought it was a potholder......

How cool is this...we saw a blue heron on top of our garage this morning. He stayed there for a long time...

Sorry the pictures are so bad but I had to take it through the screen. I was afraid if I went outside he would fly away.

Kelly

Miscellaneous Monday

Finally I got back to my applique! I have made up my mind to get this quilt done THIS summer. I think you will like the applique I am adding to the Lone Star.



Jim and Denise

My brother in law, Jim and his wife, Denise had a 50th birthday party for themselves this weekend. They are 2 of the nicest people you will ever meet.



Ann and Kevin

My husband has a lot of brothers and sisters....5 brothers and 3 sisters.

Angie and John

Another brother, John and his wife, Angie.

Ellen

His sister Ellen.



Mary Ann and Jasmine

 His niece Jasmine, and friend Mary Ann.

My husband Bob and granddaughter Maddy.

Denise is also a personal trainer....look at those arms and shoulders. Remember now she is 50!

They have turned their garage into a gym. She is now training clients...like me! After my accident I needed something to kick my butt and she was the answer. She is also a nurse which is an added bonus. Stay tuned this is one of the hardest things I have ever done. She is very motivating but does not let me slack. Not to brag but I now can squat 75lbs......The best part is every workout is different so I can't dread it in advance because I never know what she is going to have me do!

Some gardening was done as well. check these out, black petunias. I am going to put them in a planter with orange marigolds, think Halloween.

This picture does not do the color justice. It is called Pow Wow Wild Berry.

I am trying something new. In the foreground I have black and green sweet potato vines that I am hoping will grow and mesh together.

Maddy, Elliot, Griffin and Fallon

Grandchildren being silly.

Thank you for all the nice comments and emails about my accident. Some emails had questions and I will give a quick response here.
The accident happened 1/2 mile from my house. I pass the spot almost every day and the tree is still on the guard rail.
I was completely consious the whole time and was not paralyzed at all.
My husband did make it to the scene and watched them get me out of the car. The pictures were taken by the fire company not him! They use them for training purposes.
My niece is 14 years old and yes she was very upset but handled herself well for being so young.

Kelly

One Year Ago---Not A sewing Related Post

This is not about sewing today and is a personal experience, some scary pictures are included.

Do you know where you were one year ago today? Where I live on the East Coast we were in the middle of a very hot heat wave. That day is was 105 and they were predicting bad storms later in the afternoon. My niece was visiting and I took her to get a pedicure and a manicure before she left to fly home the next day. It was a total girl day and we were having a good time chatting away in the car when out of no where the storm hit.

We had what they call "straight line" winds, which are fabulous at taking down trees. One tree in particular fell on my car and my head.

It's weird because I knew what happened immediately. We live along a tree lined road and they are always coming down in storms.

The East Brandywine Fire Company were there in 15 minutes which is amazing for all the trees that were down. They did a wonderful job of getting me out and were exremely kind. The fire chief called me a few months later to see how I was doing. They are all volunteers.......send in your donations, you never know who they are going to save!

Thank God my niece did not even have a scratch. She was able to call 911 and my husband who was working only 2 miles away. It took them 1 1/2 hrs to get me out of the car. As a side note I had a Ford Edge, it absolutely saved my life. We got another one.

 I spent the next week in the hospital with 3 broken vertebrae and a concussion. At that point I did not know that my life would be a roller coaster for the next 9 months. I would wear a neck brace for 3 months, have something called "post concussive disorder" which scrambled my brain, not be able to remember anything and have problems spelling, see a speech therapist, a physical therapist and a psychologist, take medication for depression, deal with the deaths of 2 family members, my level of fitness declined as I was not allowed to exercise or do anything to jar my brain and many more things too tedious to list. But I am alive and that is a great thing!  Only in March did I feel like my life was getting back to normal. I still have a lot of stiffness in my neck and that may never go back to the way it was but I can do just about everything else.
Everything is different now. I really have decided what I want and what I don't want. Small things don't bother me as much anymore and I am trying hard to focus on only the good things. I am eliminating the negative people in my life as well, there is not enough time and there is a lot of good out there.

I also had a wonderful circle of family and friends, who cooked, drove me around (I didn't drive for 5 months!) including taking me to quilt stores, even though I couldn't sew I could shop, and kept me entertained. My husband was a source of strength and encouragement. On some of those dark days he would always make me laugh and tell me we will get through this....notice he said "we", that's why he's my guy!

Kelly

No Sewing Here

I need a little motivation.....I want to sew but I keep finding wifey things to do, cleaning, doing the laundry you know what I mean. I thought I would look around the house, as I cleaned to find some inspiriation.

It's everywhere if you look for it. No I don't have this in my house, I saw it in a paper store.

I am not a purple person, but I love this. I think nature captures purple perfectly.

I am into blue lately...

Something about this reminds me of eyelashes...

More blue, maybe I am blue?

This fabric is so soft...

For some little boys I know...

I find green in the garden very inspiring, they all go together, they feel fresh and new.
What inspires you?

Kelly

Inspiration At The Post Office

Inspiration is everywhere! I like to buy different stamps at the post office to try and make paying bills a LITTLE bit more palatable. I found these forever stamps today and immediately thought it was a quilt block....not so but I htink it could be!

Here is one of the background blocks for the Longwood Garden Quilt. It is paper pieced...which I can do and thought would be easy. NOT SO! Each block took an hour to make, thank goodness I only took 5 and not 10 like Terry and Jane. It is not squared up.....

Today I am working on a project for my sister in law, Denise. She and her husband are having a 50th birthday party for themselves on Saturday and she needed these cushions jujed up! So I volunteered to do it and have 2 down and 8 more to go.

This is the fabric she picked which is awesome....I can use the lines and not have to do much measuring. Back to work.
Kelly

Update on Lone Star

Success! It makes you eyes go zingy....It is pulsating! So far I am giving the Quilt Smart the thumbs up, my diamonds came out amazingly perfect.

This part I am not so sure I liked....they have you cut out triangles (see above) and then sew. The large triangle edge is on the bias, it is making me nervous.

So now I have them ready to be sewn together...again, nervous about stretching out that long edge.

It went together fine but I am not so sure I like that line from the stitching........

But the diamonds do line up so perfect!



There will be applique, those white spaces were just calling out for it!

Saturday my daughter Caitlin and granddaughter Maddy participated in a benefit Run/Walk. I watched Maddy while mommy ran and then all 3 of us walked.

They had a kid's race too. Maddy loved it, I think track is going to be her thing!

Kelly

Bob

Johnson, Dylan, Colin and Caitlin

I would never have these 4 great kids if I didn't have my wonderful husband.



Bob on his other Harley.

 Happy Father's Day to my other "kid". Love You!

Kelly

Catch Up!

We sewed.......

We created........

We shared reading materials......

We walked........

We went out on a boat...

We

found

lots

of

inspiration......

Some of us accomplished a lot......

Mostly we had a good time. Oh yes, we ate very well too!
Thank you Christine for a wonderful time!

Kelly