Slow Sunday Stitching, on an oldie, but a goodie!

I made this quilt some years ago, and some of you might recognize it.  I was so, so careful, to do only my best work, and am amazed when I look at those tiny stitches, now!!! It is my favorite quilt, and I have been hand quilting it for some years.  I have all the center blocks quilted, and I am working on the border.

I take it out from time to time and put a few stitches in, and then carefully put it away.

So...this is my slow stitching project for today!!!

I am linking to Kathy, 

HERE. 

https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2018/12/slow-sunday-stitching_23.html




Have a great day, all of you!

Julie

Strings ROCK!!!!

 I changed the pink strip, that was in the middle bottom of this quilt...and tada!!!  Here is the top, minus the string border.  I was trying to show the bright, pretty strings in this outside picture.

 I really need to find a better way to take pictures of my quilts, but here it is!!  Speaking of STRINGS!  The border for this quilt will be all strings.  YUM!!

 I have been looking for and sorting strings from my basket...so here are my purple ones.  I am thinking a purple quilt would be fun, perhaps for a patient at work that might need one in the coming year...or maybe for me?!  I don't have a whole lot, so I will supplement from my purple stash...not many of those either, so maybe I get to SHOP?  Hahaha!  Poor me!

 Or lime greens?  HEre are my lime green strings!!  They are fun too!!!

I cut all my neutral strings into 8.5 inch widths, and will for sure make a neutral quilt this year...calming, modern, yet timeless...at least that is what I am shooting for.

The reason for all this string love?  Is that Lori, of Humble quilts, is have a string quilt along in 2019!!!  So come on, string along with her, and me too!!

www.humblequilts.blogspot.com
www.humblequilts.blogspot.com



***********************Nurse's Notes***********************

I have worked....not much.  We  have very few patients, and I was put on call today, and yesterday I had taken a PTO day so I could go to the quilt guild Christmas party.  It is great fun to be surrounded by ladies, 30-90+ years of age, with SO many years of experience and love.  I love to watch them and look at their projects and admire them, especially those golden oldie amazing fierce ladies!  They fascinate me.   Maybe I am one of those old, old people, LOL!!!  We had a bagpiper there, and that was amazing, too, as I had never heard one live before.   Two people in my quilting bee are officers this year, for the guild...and I found myself wanting to do that too, but work interferes with me being available like the retired folks.

One lady had a Burgoyne surrounded block that I just really loved...maybe that quilt is in my future!


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


Have a lovely day!

Julie

And a little more floral progress

 I have been steadily working on this quilt each morning.  Lots of strings...I am re-thinking that bright pink scrap down the middle bottom half....but all that piecing needs something in between it!!!  Maybe some squares?

Also, the brown baskets...I think I will add something to brighten them up, to match the rest of the quilt.


Any thoughts from you?


Hugs to all!

Julie

Flowers, and using what I have!!

 I have pulled out  my applique quilt from this year, a quilt along,  online with Lorraine Hoffman.  There are supposed to be tons of 1/2 square triangles of various sizes between the floral blocks, but I was not fancying them...and I thought...STRINGS!!  are always the answer!!!  In real life, these are very, very bright strings. I have strings, so I am using them! I tried to make this quilt, in the beginning, kind of a dull, more folk art quilt...

 BUT! the colors and the quilt dictated themselves, the noisy rascals!!  So I am going with the brights for the scrappy sashings.  Scraps call to me in a unique way, way more than new fabric off the shelf in a store.  I love them!!! And I  use them, too!

This is the next block that I appliqued today; the pineapple block.  So this is my slow stitching for today.


I am linking to Kathy, for my slow Sunday stitching HERE and

and Cynthia, for scrappy projects,  HERE.






*********************Housewife Chronicles*******************


Today, I gathered up laundry and washed and dried one load  of it.  I swept and mopped all the hard floors. I shook rugs, made lunch (leftovers so not hard, LOL!), and cleaned the mirrors in the bathrooms and the windows in the kitchen.  Now, I am off to vacuum, and dust, and I will probably scrub all the sinks and toilets.  And maybe that is enough for today.  My problem is that I have clutter...mostly my fault, with quilting projects...and I am working to finish things up, so that will be better!!

Let me know your best house keeping secret for a working lady?????  How do you keep your home immaculate, as I see in many of your pictures??  There are just so many hours in a day, and I WILL sew some...it is my refuge and peace and fun!!  So how do you do it all?

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



Have a super day!

Julie

And it is a wrap!!!

 This quilt has been advanced to the flimsy stage!  Lots of orphan blocks have been used, and new blocks too,  and all went into this one.  Pretty scrappy, which is right up my alley. 

 Here is another view.

 I like this picture, though...that is Rosie Posie Pumpkin Pie, my poodle, who just would not budge when I was straightening the quilt top out for a picture...she is such a love and such fun to play with!

 And here is an empty basket, from my blue scrappy quilt...that feels good!  Two triangles left over...and they will eventually go into something.

 These are my recent heart rock finds...nature is marvelous, making this aberration of normal stone weathering, with water, mostly...I wonder how these are formed?  I love heart rocks!

 Another wrap today is....my iron!!  My iron from Walmart was really letting out a foul smoky smell, and I had to let it go before it caught fire.  So I am using this little travel iron, instead.

At least I am not having to use this little sad iron!!  It is a small one, and the tiny swan iron may have been for pressing cuffs or collars, at least that is my thought? 



I have a Rowenta iron, but I am kind of afraid to use it, because of the spitting of water and such.


Anyway, that is my day today...now off to finish laundry and clean a bit, and go to the store for food for dinners this week.




***************************Nurse's Notes***********************


I had a lovely day in another ICU yesterday.  These people are medical ICU patients, not heart ICU patients that I normally work with.  It is a sad place, full of hustle, but a lot of these patients will not live to see the outside again.  And yet?  Both of my patients were very ill, but made a lot of progress yesterday!  It was fun to work with old friends from twenty years ago, and meet so many young lovely nurses, just starting on their careers. 

I had a weird thing happen...a family had been very angry and demanding throughout their hospital stay, and I was selected to calm them down that shift and be their nurse,  and "love them into submission!", if you know what I mean.  They kept on talking about how they were going to sue us!!  Crazy...I finally told them in the most loving and straight forward way I could that that talk did not influence me in any way, and I was going to do the very best I could for their loved one and them too!  By the end of the shift, they were hugging me and had totally turned around in their thought processes, or at least I hope they did.  It is hard to love people who are trying to be mean, but a lot of times it is fear and misinformation that leads to that aggression. 

Anyway...another day awaits...nothing dull at the hospital!!


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

Have a great day, each of you!!


Julie

Hand quilting

 I finished the hand quilting on this one block wonder quilt.  I guess bubble pink is a favorite color of mine, because it just makes me happy!!  A heart seals the deal.

 I recently saw a quilt that I hand quilted about 15 years ago, and the stitches were tiny compared to what I do now...so I trying to make my stitches smaller again. I embroidered the heart shape.

 I did get the fall table runner quilted as well.

Big stitches!!  That is super fun too...and plaids...what could possibly be better???




What quilt alongs are you going to participate in, in this coming year?  I would love to know...please share?




Have a great day,

Julie

 Good morning!  This is my latest block for my stripy quilt.  I am hand appliqueing the pieces down, and worked on that yesterday for quite a while.

 I made some little viney applique pieces for the failed block of last post.  I think they look a bit like Medusa's snakes on her head.  Maybe I should add some flowers or something, LOL!

 I sewed the last five blocks for this blue quilt.

And added another block for the strippy, vertical, orphan, red, white, and blue, Barrister's block inspired quilt!!  That is a lot of adjectives, don't you think?











Have a great day, each of you!



Julie