My thoughts today

Even when times are hard and uncertain its good to keep a sense of humor.  As I looked in the mirror this morning and saw my three, still very red scars, from the mole removals the thought hit me that the scars from my next surgery will not be seen by the public.  That's definitely a positive!!  And also if it is necessary that I need chemo, then I'm going to find a purple wig and wear a red hat.  Yep, that will definitely make the statement that life may hand me some hard knocks, but with God and a positive attitude I'm going to be just fine once I make this journey through the valley.   I had prayers today at church from a wonder group of friends, which only strengthened my courage.  I am typically a worrier and usually assume the worst, but this time I really do feel Gods presence.  The next challenge will be to maintain this attitude after I talk to the surgeon Thursday and find out what the next step is! 

And this is what will get me through!  Stay positive and Pray

My walk with faith

Today I am posting for the first time in a very long time.  I'm changing course with this blog for now and making it a testimony to my faith in God.  Last week I got the results of my biopsy, I have uterine cancer.  My first thought was "this sucks!"  And then my next thought was Dear Lord I need you to help me through this journey every step of the way. 

In the past few months my faith has grown prior to even knowing what was in my future.  I have a friend who is going through an ordeal that has grown her faith immensely and we have talked and shared at length about what God is doing in her life.  Also at the beginning of this year my son started a family group to keep each other focused to read the Bible completely in a year.   Coincidence? No I do not believe so.

I admit I was shaken and upset at first, totally expected I'm sure, after all I'm human!!  But then my faith kicked in and I called my family and friends who started the prayers coming my way.  I know God is hearing all of the prayers and will see me though this.  I don't know all the details of what is going to happen until I see the surgeon Thursday. 

This was what I read today on Facebook!  This gives me so much encouragement.  I have prayed for unwavering faith, to keep my eyes on the Lord and not doubt.  I have to be positive and have a good mental attitude about this.   



I have also chosen this as my motto through this.   I am going through a valley for a reason, what reason I do not know yet and may not until I see Jesus in heaven.  We have an awesome God who knows what we have been chosen to do and uses us to be the light for this world.  I am praying that this journey will make me stronger and help me to see clearer what God wants me to do.   



My two stress relievers are cooking and sewing, I have been doing a lot of cooking today with plans to continue working on a quilt later today.  I am focusing on all things positive!  God, family, friends, and my creative outlets.  In just the past two days I am overwhelmed by the friends God has given me, they are praying me through this!  My family is awesome, so supportive and I have the most amazing husband! 

Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.  Isaiah 41:10

After 2 years I finally finished my son and daughter-in-laws quilt, they were patient with me but very glad it was finally finished.

I had everyone at their wedding and reception sign the fabric squares, then Katy picked the fabric and quilt block designs she liked.
 

I machine embroidered their names, wedding date and their chosen Bible verse in the center square.

Since there was some blank space in the blocks I filled in with either a machine embroidered design or an applique.

Been too long since I blogged!

Wow!  I can't believe it has been so long since I made an entry for my blog.  One problems is I am still trying to decide what camera to buy since I lost my old one and I still have an old phone that is not hooked to WiFi.  I know, I am a bit outdated but with the computer right on my dinning room table I just don't see the need for a new phone.   Anyway, I am still sewing up a storm and enjoying every minute of retirement.

Some of my time is spent visiting my daughter and son who both live in TN and this year I started my garden from seeds.  It was a learning process and I hope next year it will be even better since I had problems with getting the plants hardened off prior to planting.  The weather was not real cooperative added to the fact I should not have taken vacation in May right before time to plan.

I have been improving my knitting skills and and expanded my horizons to making doll sweaters, which are very tedious!  Not sure I will make any more of them, but the hats are quick and do turn out real cute.  I also have been knitting chemo caps with some ladies at our church so I am learning new stitches to use with the hats.

Pillowcase Dress

Here is another little dress made from a vintage pillowcase and some leftover fabric. The flower arrangement are yoyos and some vintage buttons. I love making these dresses they take very little fabric and the ideas are endless to decorate them.

Pillows

I've been doing some more creating the last couple days before I start another quilt. I have to let my mind rest and create something besides quilts from time to time so here is what I came up with.

I had a vintage dresser scarf that had holes and stains on one half of it so I cut it in half and made this pillow using two pieces of upholstery fabric. The back is a very pretty piece of upholstery fabric that matches the colors in the dresser scarf.

And of course I had to make another owl, these little fellows just call my name when I'm looking through my fabric stash.

I made my sister-in-law this cowboy jack-o-lantern pillow. The embroidery is called twilling which consists of connected knots. It is similar to the old style candle wicking, but much easier than doing all those individual french knots.

For Christmas I made her a western table runner. I love the pattern I used for this table runner, it can be increased or decreased for different lengths and it is a quilt as you go so when you have it sewn together the only thing left to do is the binding around the edge. Its so fast and easy!

I found some vintage embroidered pillow cases that were in good condition except for some fraying and holes at the very tops of them. I really wanted to use them since the embroidery was so pretty so I re-purposed them into cute little girls dresses.

I am way behind and have not spent much time blogging lately. But I have been busy creating so here are a few of the projects I have completed in the past few months.

 This is a Queen size blue jean quilt and when you get this folded up it is VERY heavy. It was a bit tricky to get this monster quilted using my regular sewing machine.  My client loved it and was very happy with it.

  My next project was a t-shirt quilt for a lady who runs marathons for breast cancer. I love the flannel she picked for the back and binding, I loved working with it.

My current project is another t-shirt quilt. This one is for a guy using his college football t-shirts and I've added a couple pictures to this one and a block with his number and name.  I am ready to do the quilting on this one now.

I decided to learn something new for 2013!  I am learning to knit by watching you-tube videos and from the book Knitting for Dummies.  So far I am feeling quite good about my progress.

These scarves are the reason I decided to learn, I wanted one in several colors and didn't want to pay the $25.00 for them so I bought the yarn for 4.00 each and made them.

This is my first knitted scarf!

Heritage Quilt

It's done!!!  A commissioned heritage quilt with the names of the original family members who immigrated to the United States. 

I've been working on this quilt for what seems like ages, I had to design the whole quilt first on graft paper for proper placing of the flags, pictures and lettering.  Then digitized my drawings of the countries, and set up the lettering in my embroidery software.  I learned a lot by doing this quilt, seems each quilt I do is a learning experience with several mistakes that I have to rip out and do over again.   I will be giving the quilt to her on Monday and asking to be able to show it in the upcoming quilt show in October.  

This was my first quilt to be basted and partially quilted on my friends long-arm quilting machine.  I learned how to roll the top, the batting and the back onto each of the separate rollers and get them all even which took a few tries since there is a seem down the middle of the backing fabric that needed to be right down the middle of the quilt back.  It was a bit intimidating at first to stand in front of the huge machine and guide it over the quilt!  Now I love it and can't wait to do the quilting on the next project!

Here are the yellow flying geese in the upper corner and I like how well they show up against the dark blue background. The borders of this quilt gave me a bit of a headache because the first time I sewed them on I only measured the top and the bottom of the quilt then cut them according to the average of the two.  Well, as I was basting the quilt and I got to the bottom there was a very ugly pleat appearing in the lower right corner!  Ouch, I could not have that on a quilt I was being paid for!!  So back home I went, and took out all the basting stitches and took both boarders off the quilt.  I remeasured the top, middle, and bottom averaging the three measurements, then re-cut and resewed the boarders back on.  Loaded the quilt back onto the quilt machine (I was actually getting better at it by this time!) basted it again AND YAHOO the boarders were a perfect fit with no ugly pleat!!    

Here is a closeup of the star quilting in the boarder which I did on my regular machine.  I don't have enough confidence to do anything this complicated on the big quilt machine yet. I took a stencil of different size stars and chalked the stars individually around the boarder and quilted each one individually, then I went back and made all the curlies between the stars.  A little tedious, but I love the way it turned out. 

I found this wonderful Zucchini bread recipe. It's delicious and healthy!!

 3 eggs
 ½ cup of unsweetened applesauce
 2 tsp vanilla
 3 cups whole wheat flour
 ½ cup  walnuts – ground
 2 tsp baking soda
 1 tsp salt
 ½ tsp baking powder
 1 ½ tsp cinnamon
 ¾ tsp nutmeg
 1 medium zucchini shredded (1 cup about )
1 20oz can crushed pineapple drained Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

 Open the can of pineapple and place in a metal strainer in the sink to remove some of the juice while preparing the rest of the ingredients. In large bowl, beat the eggs until frothy. Add the applesauce,vanilla and beat until foamy and then beat some more. Ground the walnuts in a blender or food processor. Don’t over process the oil in them will start to stick. In another bowl, mix the ground walnuts, flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Stir the shredded zucchini and drained pineapple into the egg mixture. Add the dry ingredient to the wet and stir until just blended. The batter makes 2 large loafs or 6 mini loaves. You can even make 1 large and 3 small or 24 muffins (note: haven’t tried the muffins YET!) What ever you decide be sure to spray with non-stick cooking spray and dust with a bit of flour. Bake the large loaves for about an hour, small loaves for around 40 minutes. Muffins probably half that. A toothpick inserted should come out clean when it’s done.

Random blocks

Today I finished the first block of my barn quilt. The block is machine pieced with blanket stitch applique. I did the blanket stitch by hand so it takes me a while to do, but I take it to my sewing groups where I can chat with friends and work on the block. I have three more barns to do and then I will start on the boarders.



Here is my cute snowlady block that I appliqued on the machine. I made this block for the block of the month at one of my quilt guilds.

Crazy Quilt Pillow

My last Christmas gift is finished!! I made this for my daughter-in-law to be. I used upholstery samples, beads and buttons from my stash. The only thing I bought was some of the silk ribbon for the flower embroidery.

Engagement

Jared asked Katy to marry him on Thanksgiving day in front of both families, I really thought he may pass out before he finished all he had planned to say. She said yes and we are all excited about the upcoming wedding!!



Merry Christmas everyone!! Next year I plan to keep my blog updated with all the family events and all my new sewing ideas!!

Whats going on in my garden

Fall weather is in the air and my vegetable garden is winding down for the year. I picked the last of the butternut squash and red peppers this week. I still have a few small cantaloupe that may ripen if the weather warms up for a few days and there are a lot of green tomatoes that should be ripe by the end of next week.

However my flower gardens are far from dead, I was out mowing the lawn and had to stop and take a few pictures. I was about out of gas so it was time to take a break so on the way to the garage for the gas can I passed the gazebo and saw this little fellow. I had to get my camera and take his picture!






While I had the camera out I took some pictures of my roses, which I planted this spring so I'm very happy with how they did this year.



I planted some mums about three weeks ago and they are doing well also, sometimes they can be a little fussy to get started, but these are doing very good so far!