Puffins and purples!!

I was tempted by Puffins...a squirrelly breed!!  LOL!  This fabric was shared with me, and I have been loved these bright, candy corn colors, to accent the puffin fabric centers.  So much fun!  I am sewing the pieces in steps...one step at a time.

This quilt is a layer cake challenge.  Paula gave me a layer cake, that she had cut herself from yardage, and she said...make something!!  So I am!!!

Above are my purple blocks for March.  Great fun, and yes, my kitty encouraged more kitten blocks.

Here is my progress so far on Puffin blocks.  What fun!!

Hope you are having fun too!

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 fun to bat around the house, finally batting them to never never land under the couch.  I found 9 of them under the couch!!!  I watched him go open the closet, open the little drawer, choose his hexagon, pick it out with his teeth....and run!!  Little stinker!!  He is so playful, and so much fun to watch...and deadly smart!! He can have a couple...but I am using those, and need them, and please see below to see my hexie project.

I am just delighted to finish this plaid quilt!! Made from gifted shirts, and fashioned after the below quilt, which is completely worn and so soft. I planned a border of the soft blue, but I do not have enough fabric.  Something else will have to be substituted.

This is the quilt I made a long time ago, and I use it a lot.  So, I made the "blue" version above. What a lovely thing it is for me to work with soft plaids!  Plaids are soft, and I do not care of the plaids are a bit wonky, or soft.  It drives some people batty, but I like the wonkiness of it.

I have joined in Angela's so scrappy rainbow quilt along.  I am making a few hexie flowers each month; also bowties and simple blocks.  Above are the February red flowers.  She is a cool chick, a teacher, and just so much fun.  She is designing blocks for each month, in the prescribed color of the month.  Angela blogs here:

soscrappy (superscrappy.blogspot.com)

I received several quilts back from my quilter.  Her name is Paula, and I went to school with her...I mean grade school, folks.  She found me on the internet, and we picked up right where we left off, 45 years ago!!  We sewed together in 4-H.  She retired and has a quilting machine...well hey!!  I had quilt tops!!  win/win!! This helps her with spending money, too.

I have sent her tops, those I thought I would hand quilt, and she is practicing her quilting.  Yahoo!!!  

This is a log cabin variation, obviously, and I love it.  Great way to use my 1 1/2 inch strips, which I have been faithfully saving for years and years.  I use Bonnie Hunter's scrap user system.  But...I don't get all my strips used up, so they accumulate.  Sound familiar to anyone?  Hahaha!!

The quilting!!!  Pretty, huh??

Paula also quilted this quilt, and I love, love, love it.  This was also a rainbow quilt from a few years back. 

Wonky stars!!  And pretty quilting.

I made this pink quilt for a nursing colleague and friend...her favorite color is pink and she has breast cancer.  Seems like she needs this.  I will hurry up on the binding and get it to her.

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

I have worked oncology, CVICU, hospice, Orthopedics, and ER lately!!  Wow!!  I loved the ICU stuff the very best, and oncology the least.  It is hard to watch the suffering through chemo and radiation and pain on oncology, and hurts my heart.  I do my very best to ease their suffering and love on them.  ER...I was just lost, frankly, and did not get orientation at all...just 5 charts thrown at me, and computer assigned.  I did not even know where the med room was!!  I did my best, but wow....dangerous.  Glad all my patients were ok. Equally glad for my experience and the fact that I don't ruffle easily!!

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I have been studying the 1940's, from last year.  WW2.  Wow!!  Doolittle's raid...every single person united to a common cause.  I mean I remember my momma talking about victory gardens...saving things to recycle (metal)...the ration cards, because all resources were going to the war effort.  I loved the common sense of a common goal.  The bravery of soldiers, and their wives going to work in the factories...thank Rosie Riveter. Grandparents stepping up to take care of children while young mothers worked in the factories.  Retooling of factories to make war machines, instead of cars and washing machines.   I think of those military nurses, working around the clock, saving as many wounded as they could...the doctors in raw mud floored tents, doing surgeries.  

We have it so easy, honestly.  I am so grateful for every convenience I enjoy...a washer and dryer...clean sheets...the ability to work and be free to make my own way in life. 

I think of my daddy over fighting in this terrible conflict.  He had a cabinet with his uniform, gun and bayonet, and his picture in his uniform.  I thought he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen.

I grew up with parents almost 50 when they had me...kind of like being brought up by grandparents.  Wise and self-reliant.  Hard workers and taught me this trait.  I often thought if I did not have a talent, I did have a great work ethic.  They were devout and with a great sense of national pride.  I remember my daddy selling poppies for the Veterans of Foreign Wars.  I remember eating nothing we did not grow ourselves or hunt for ourselves.  I had no idea how poor we were!!  Going and picking wild garlic, asparagus, mushrooms for dinners.  Mom made all our clothes, and I got my first pair of jeans by saving up money from working at Sonic drive in. I still have those jeans...almost white from washing and wear, with the knees torn out!!  But I save them, a reminder of how lucky and blessed I am today.

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Thanks for hanging in with me through this long post!

I hope each of you is having an amazing, blessed day!!
 

Miniature piecing!

Hello!!  Happy Sunday to you, or maybe Happy Monday, depending on where in the world you are.  Above is a block of the month, gifted to me by my lovely friend Annie.  The large blocks are 6 inches finished, and the small ones are 3 inches finished. The directions were...wow!!!  Complex!!!  Lots of pages, so I waded through them to sort out the nitty-gritty of how to piece them.  Just great fun, and thank you, Annie!!

A few little springtime sprigs are coming up the big planter box!!  Radishes, carrots and I think kohlrabi.  It is springtime, over 80 degrees here, alternating with 40 degrees on some days.  

I found Rosie's quilt, my poodle girl.  I washed it, and just was thinking...hey!!!  It would be fun to make a big scrappy quilt from this pattern!

I am using plaids, my very favorite thing ever, to make this quilt.  I have made this one a couple of times before, and still just love sewing on it.  All joy!!

I spied this little pansy in the grass.  Now I have never had yellow ones, so this was a gift of seed from the birds.  It is so much fun, and so cheerful!!

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

I worked the intensive care unit yesterday and had a fresh heart, and a fem-pop bypass patient.  It was great fun to be back in the ICU environment!!!  My bestie at work was there too, and that made it all the more fun.  I kept on going to her hall and helping her, and then she would come and help me.  We loved our day!!  She is just on the verge of retirement, having just endured her third major back surgery from lifting patients.  

We are decades older than our co-workers, and as they gossiped and cut up at the nursing station, we pondered...wow!  Were we ever that young???

They came to us for IVs, NG tube placements, art line trouble shooting, and one rapid response code, though.  That felt good!!!  Experience is good for something!

Have a super day!

Julie