Modern Quilt, and can you say "idiot"?

I don't get too many modern quilts walking through my door.  They are SO much fun to work on.

Deciding on the quilting was a bit of a head scratcher.  I took my inspiration from the shapes, and added some movement with the wiggly lines.

Super-cozy flannel backing.

And now for the idiot part of the post.  Hmm.  Yes, that IS my arm.  This winter I have broken the left wrist.

The local arena has a free adult skate hour on Thursdays, from 12:30 - 1:30.  I'd been skating for about 45 minutes and was ready to get off the ice, but decided (in all my awesome brilliance) to go around ONE MORE TIME.  Boom!  I've been wanting to kick my arse around the block ever since.  I'd probably fall and break a leg, though.

I have been seeing a specialist for my osteoporosis for several years now (um, hellooo - idiot???) so filling out my questionnaire this year will have some checkmarks in a couple of different spots.  It has been one week, today, so I have 5 more weeks to go.  When I can put pressure on my fingers, without leaving soppy little teardrop stains on my clothes, I can go back to work.  I have my fingers crossed, (um, no - other hand!) for that to happen in the next week.  I am glad, if you can use that term, that I'm not crazy busy this time of year.  I only have a few customers to apologize to.  In the meantime I am catching up on my sleep and my reading.

New favorite author:  Marisa de los Santos.  I have her third book in my current to-read pile.  The first two books were excellent.
I tried to read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, because the movie is out right now.  I put it down after 18 pages because I had not enjoyed one single page.  Yuk.

30's Love

Ta da...

The sashing was all x-hatched.  I placed a motif inside the blocks.

Lovely border design - circles and ribbon.

Pretty feathered border.

Back.  This is actually white (it looks a little green on my monitor) with a small cherry print.

Here is your little bit of silliness today.  Note the allergy warning.  Duh...

Coveting another's property

 Is it wrong to covet a quilt belonging to one of my customers?

Tumblers in 30's Prints

The binding on this is taking me forever.

The yellow bands have been quilted with a cute strawberry design. Inside the tumbler panels is a curly non-descript pattern.

The outside border design was chosen so I could scallop the edge around the design.

This past week I've been going to the nursing home more than usual.  Mom had a stoke on January 3rd that initially left her unable to speak and unable to swallow.  The swallow bit is what was so devastating - that means no fluids and no food.  For the first few days I thought she was a goner, but she's recovered enough that she's getting 'thickened fluids', whatever that is.  She now sits at a different table in the dining room where they have an attendant to watch the residents and assist with eating.  When I visited yesterday I could understand a bit of what she was saying, but not much.  I often go through all the pictures in her room and talk about the people in them.  Yesterday she didn't recognize anyone - not even her brother Hank, who she loved to pieces, or her mother, who she also loved to pieces.  We were watching some tv and she didn't understand what 'snow' was, or 'ski'.  sigh.  It's really hard to talk to someone who does not comprehend the things we don't even think of as things - they just are.  I hope she was just having one of her not-so-good days and the next time I go she will have a better ability to talk.  The weird thing is - when she is like this she doesn't know me either.  But she says things like "I wondered where you were" or " I'm so glad to see you" - so she knows that I belong in her life in an important way.  How, though, she can't figure out.  Geez - typing this is making me a little teary.  Aging parents are hard on the kids who love them.  Sometimes I wish I was the type of person who could ignore mom and just pay the bills.  It would be much easier emotionally.  But that's not the kind of gal I am.

Scraps & Recipe

Okey dokey. Scraps cut into random width strips - all less than 2 1/2" wide. Cut approximately 10 1/2" long. 

Sew two sets, 15 blocks of each colour - a blue/purple set and a red/pink set.  Sew until you have more than 10" worth in each block, then square up to 9 1/2".  I starched these before I trimmed them - it kept them much flatter.

I laid a red on top of a blue with the strips running in the same direction, then drew a diagonal line.

Sew on both sides of the line, then cut apart.

Now I have 30 of these.  Some people will likely say, "Oh, poor Helen!".  Those are the scrap quilt haters - not my favorite people.  Stay tuned for the next installment.  ha ha, note the awesome photographic skills and the camera strap in the pic!  Oh, yeah, these measure 9 1/8".

We had a ham for supper on New Years Day.  There are enough leftovers to get us into the next millenium.  This is tonight's recipe. I've been making this for YEARS.  It is one of the few ways I can get cauliflower into DH.  If you make it, drain the cauliflower well.  And don't let the cheese sauce get too thick, otherwise it will just glop on top of the ingredients, instead of flowing down.
This is from The Lighthearted Cookbook by Anne Lindsay.  If you don't hear from me again, it will be because I am in jail for copyright violation.

Scrappy Memory Quilt and final 2012 STASH report

This is not the prettiest quilt I worked on this year.  But I bet it holds the most memories.  My customer had the top, which her sister pieced back in the '80's.

It includes everything, except the kitchen sink.  There are knit jersey fabrics, flannel, fur pile (!), silky polyester, you name it.

This was a Christmas gift for her niece (the sister's daughter).  I bet they spent an hour or two on Christmas day talking about all the fabrics, where they came from, who the people are/were and what happened to them.  I wish I could have been a fly on the wall.  I made a fancy label for the quilt using EQ5 to make a pretty frame.  Then I copied that into Paint and did the text editing.  Printed on EQ Printables fabric.  (although I have also used regular fabric from my stash, ironed on to freezer paper - needs a bit of dinking around to get it to feed through the printer, but MUCH cheaper)

STASH REPORT December 2012
Used this month 27.75 m
Used YTD 122.45 m
Added this month 0 - as in zero, heh, heh, heh
Added YTD 74.75 m
NET 2012 (- 47.7 m)

I have the quilting completed on my Tumbler quilt, but I will be scalloping the edges, so the binding is not finished yet.  I have included the fabrics used in the above totals.  If all goes according to Hoyle it will be completed before the end of January.

 And, oh yeah - Happy New Year.