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?

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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!!


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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

Technical difficulties.

 This is a little early, but I am posting because I am frustrated.  This block is for our ongoing project, "Dearest Boy."  I made the hexagon blocks EXACTLY the size of the pattern provided.

 This is the pattern page.  The four hexie blocks are supposed to fit within the block size, as pictured in the pattern.

 This is the pattern page.  I made the hexies EXACTLY the size of the pattern...hope you can see my yellowish hexie...the right size.

BUT the hexie block just won't FIT IN THE 10.5 INCH BLOCK, which is EXACTLY the right size!!!

Here is one block.  I guess I will just try to make something out of just one of them, in the square.




Does anyone have any suggestions of how this went wrong?




Thanks for listening...but these have taken me a long time and I will not have time to make another block by the date it is due...grrrrr!!





Julie

This one is not on the list...but I love it!!

Slowly, this quilt is coming together.  I am using orphan blocks, some newly made blocks, and imagination...and a picture from Randy's blog.

I try and post when I have made some progress...a lot of years ago, we wanted to know about process...so that is why I post not only finishes, but along the sewing road as well.


www.barristersblock.blogspot.com



I am trying to work on it in between cleaning, holiday preparations and cooking...and the ever present laundry.

This has made me realize just how many orphan blocks I have...so I gathered them all up, separated them by size...and off I went!!!  I am sure I have enough blocks for another quilt...just not Americana style.





I hope you have a great day, today!!!  That mystery quilt is still calling to me!!





Julie

Just a bit of wee progress

 I made this block, for my strippy, red ,white, and blue, and orphan block  quilt.  HAHA!!  That is a lot of adjectives for one quilt!

 It is true fall time here.  The leaves are falling thick and fast, and the wind whipped them almost all from our trees.  So...the above little quilt is a fun and appropriate one for this season.  My friend Lyn gave me the tiny quilt stand, years ago, and I have had so much fun and enjoyment of it!   My friend at work, Dianna, gave me the heart rock. She found it in her yard, and thought of me.  She is a sweet lady and excellent nurse!

I have made several little quilts for the seasons, for that little quilt hanger. I have a snowman one somewhere, unless I gave it away when someone said they liked it, LOL!!!





Have a great day, each of you?  Are any of you working on the Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt??  It is called Good Fortune!


Here is the first clue!!

http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2018/11/good-fortune-part-1.html





Julie