Monday, December 31, 2012

Happy 2013!!

 Good Evening Y'all!!  Here it is almost 10 pm...a couple hours before the New Year.  I know our friends in Australia and New Zealand celebrated long hours ago, amid fireworks and fun.  I sewed today, so that was my celebration!  Above are the corners of the Quiltville mystery quilt! I used pink instead of lime greens. Can I get a whoop, whoop!!?
 I have all the other pieces and parts all ready to go, when the mystery is finally revealed tomorrow...so what fun to try and figure it out!  But I am not trying...just waiting to see what Bonnie has come up with!!
 I got a Christmas present in the mail!!  Really, I got it some time ago, and have been absolutely loving it ever since. What a darling little hanging, I love it, Lyn!  Thank you so much!  The hanger is absolutely the cutest thing...see the hearts on the ends?
 And Lyn also sent gorgeous fabric too!!  What a pretty way to display and sell fabric, huh?  Thank you, Lyn!  The fabric is on the top of my old antique dresser.
Well...many people are selecting words to live by for the New Year.  I selected some rocks!!  I really love rocks and rock-hounding, and found these two...and together?  They make an exclamation point!!  so...I have a SYMBOL for the new year!!  I want to live each day with fun, and enthusiasm, and excitement, and as much energy as I can pour into life...so I love my symbol, and have it in the bathroom, on the counter top, so I can see it all the time.  So....what is your word, or resolution, or symbol??



HAPPY NEW YEAR to all!!!


Julie

Monday, December 24, 2012

Merry Christmas to one and all!!  I am so grateful for the greatest gift of all, our baby Jesus.  Happy Birthday, Jesus!!!


I want to thank you, each of you, for your friendship throughout the years...you mean the world to me!  Our quilting community is so full of such loving and giving people, and I am privileged to know each of you!!

Sincerely, and have a wonderful holiday!

Julie

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Borders on the Blues

Good morning!! Are you ready?  Christmas is just right around the corner!!  I think I am pretty ready, as ready as I am going to get...so there!  I finished putting these blocks together, and bordered them...yahoo!  Glad to have it in one piece.  I continue to work on the "Easy Street" mystery quilt from Quiltville, and my Barrister's blocks.  And have big plans for the new year...how about you???  What are you planning to do, quilt wise, and life wise??



I am so very sad about the horrible shooting in Connecticut.  Poor babies...when something like this happens, I have the urge to go there, to see if I can help.  Maybe when I retire, I can work for the Red Cross or something...


******************Nurse's notes**************************


Fire in the OR!  The operating room...we have dozens in our hospital, but the Cardiothoracic operating rooms are like something out of a futuristic movie.  Tons of equipment and monitors and fluoro...and flame sources.  Last week, an accident happened and a fire started in the OR.  The operating nurse worked like a top, actually stomping on and smothering the flames...hurrah for them!  Big excitement, as the fire trucks came, and firemen came through with axes and the whole shebang. 


Lots of cancer patients lately...pulling on my heart strings.  Slowing down on cardiovascular surgery, I guess because of the holidays.  But the nursing stuff never ends, and I find great joy, mostly, in my work. One particular patient cannot eat due to extensive surgery until after the first of the year...I feel for him!!  Poor fella...when he can eat?  You can bet he will have ANYTHING he wants!!!

*************************************************************


Have a great day, all!!!

Julie

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Log Cabin quilts!

 Can you stand just one picture of this quilt?  TADA!  The border is on...it is a mere 2 inches wide, but look huge against the 1/2 inch logs.  I really wanted a border on this one, to protect the edges.  It just occurred to me that this quilt may be around for a while, maybe longer than I will be around, and used a lot, so I picked a fabric from the stash and went for it!  I am so elated that it is to this stage..yahoo!!  5200 little pieces in this quilt.
So....I cut out another log cabin quilt!!  Two inch logs this time, and just a few blocks...fun!!  All this is an attempt to use all the strips and strings and scraps that I have been gifted with...I love them so much!  Thank you to all who so generously gave me their strings and strips this year...you will notice your fabrics in these quilts.  This one will be a patient quilt.


Hey, some people have mentioned that I seem to get a lot done...thank you for that.  There are lots of more prolific quilters out there than I am for sure, so I appreciate it, but...the thing is, is that I don't sleep!  Insomnia makes for great cutting out and quiet sewing time.  I don't recommend it, however!! You know, I don't see this piecing frenzy happening forever for me, so right now, I am trying to sew up every last little bit of fabric I own.  Waste not, want not, right?  Frugality comes from my parents...depression children.  I bet some of you know just what I mean!!



Something really cool happened this week...I was contacted by a representative of Fons and Porter to review their log cabin online book!  I am so excited about this...I love Fons and Porter quilts, and have made several of them, bought each magazine and just generally enjoyed their work.  The book is wonderful...several great ideas for log cabin quilts, and of course this was great timing, as I am making log cabins as you can see!  The best tip for me from this book was their binding tutorial, for a no lump binding!!  Loved this, and I am using it!!  Guess what?  You can see this book for free too!!  Please click HERE to see it...maybe you will be inspired to use up some of your little string pieces.


Have a great day!!!

Julie

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Blues again...

I finished the blocks for this blue string quilt...I love string piecing, and this one was no exception.  It will be a lap sized quilt.     I will add a narrow inner border, and then a wider outer border.  The pattern is a modified String X from Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville site. 



*******************Nurse's notes************************

We have several towers at my hospital.  You can see from one tower to the next, sometimes, if the blinds are open.  I was in a patient's room, and happened to glance out the window and saw another nurse, dressed in blue as I was ( our uniforms are all blue)...and she smiled and waved, and so did I.  It was kind of fun, seeing another nurse in another tower, just a sweet smile from a really young nurse.  Guess you had to be there! 

Years ago, I worked in another tower...and across the way?  Was labor and delivery.  Another nurse and I were in a patient's room, and we glanced out the window...and got an eye full!  A lady was delivering her baby right then, in full view of the open window!  We called over there and told the charge nurse, and she said that the lady wanted her baby to be born in the sun, and the patient insisted on the blinds being open.  So we just cried and watched the miracle of that baby being born...a precious moment to us too!!

A sweet older, very frightened gentleman came in yesterday...in trouble.  91 years young, he was in the middle of a heart attack.  The problem?  A very low heart rate, very suddenly...an ominous sign.  As we were intervening for him, he suddenly told me, "I knew the the 91th year would be a the bad one...THE ONE!"  I wonder if he is still with us...pretty sick when I left...I think that people sometimes know things that maybe others do not know...what do you think?


Enjoy each moment, all!!

Julie

Monday, December 10, 2012

And there we went!!

 Well, I got distracted!  I am working on a BOM, above...Enchanted Garden.   I love to work on these appliques, they are so much fun!  Ready to go for the next two blocks.
So, I made some progress...only five rows left!  Yippee...these little four inch blocks, four hundred of them, are taking some time to sew together.  I will use a small border, mainly to protect all those little seams, because quilting will not take place for a while, probably...

Have a great day!!

Julie

Ok...here we go!!!!!!

 Good Monday morning to you!  I am off work at the hospital...my plan?  To get all these little, itty bitty log cabin blocks into one piece!  You may have noticed that I am now setting them in a "Straight Furrows" setting, for no particular reason except that I have made a barn raising log cabin setting before.  So hurray for something different!!  I have been working 4 hours straight to get it to this point...about 1/2 put together.  Can I do it?  I am going for it!!!  Rosie the poodle has been helping...see the bottom right...
See that white stuff on the house across the street from us?  Must be something else?  Couldn't be SNOW!!!!  Cold, cold here!!!

Have a great day...updates as the log cabin blocks come together!!


Julie

Friday, December 7, 2012

"Easy Street" Mystery progress!

Well, I am caught up with the Quiltville mystery quilt "Easy Street"...almost caught up that is!!  I still have to press most of the gray four patches.  I anticipate this box to be full of pieces and parts before we are done!!  I really had to dig for purples...and the teal?  Is one batik I found...in deep stash.  I love that term...really applies to this piece, too!! I am going to use pinks instead of green...so my quilt will look a little different.  This quilt will be bright and cheerful, and somehow reminds me of the beach.  Many thanks to Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville for making this fun mystery quilt available to everyone!




Have a great day, all!!!

Julie

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Log Cabin...and a mystery!!

 OK everyone!!  This is it...the last of the 1/2 inch  strip log cabin blocks are finished!!  I made four extra...don't know why I cannot count lately, LOL!!  These were so very much fun...The quilt is really not that big, due to the small size of the blocks ( 4 inches). Am I going to make more?  NOT!!  I want to quit while I still love them!!
 Here are all the blocks on the piano, where they got placed until I could lay them out.  The piano is from 1912, and was a gift from dear husband long ago.
 I could not resist a couple new books at the quilt shop...come to think of it...I need to STAY OUT OF THERE!  But it is just so much fun, isn't it??
 A couple broody hens...
 And some of the leftovers from the log cabin strips found their way into this mug rug.  Wouldn't a neutral quilt be so much fun??

 Now for the gift!  I was thinking (gasp!) of not doing Bonnie Hunter's of Quiltville's mystery quilt!  That seems kind of sacrilegious or something!  I did not have gray, or purples, or teals, having being a good girl  and using all these colors up.  My dear friend Mary, who works at the same hospital I do, gifted me with the most lovely, soft, dove gray fabric...it is so beautiful!  So...I am hoarding it!  LOL!
And lookee!  These pretty fabrics too!!  I am so in love with them all...thank you Mary!  Please see her blog HERE.


So I am a spoiled lady...and now working on the mystery quilt!  Please go here for all the details, you could do it too...fun, fun!!


Have a great day,

Julie

Hexies, rainbow quilts and plaids!

Good morning to all!!!  Above is a hexagon, for English paper piecing.  My kitten Lucky has discovered them, and decided that they are great...