Not Over Yet

 

Covid is not over yet, but it felt like time to replace the green bulb in my porch light.  Our Kentucky governor asked us to light up our spaces green in support of the families who lost folks because of the illness.  Several of my neighbors did that.

Yesterday there were five reported deaths in Kentucky, although sometimes the reports of deaths come after review of the records.  I think my state has done a good job of checking and rechecking, both to make sure that deaths weren't due to other causes and that deaths attributed to other causes were actually because of Covid.  Enough of that.  What a long haul it's been and still is.

Families, I'm still thinking of you.  And I'm thinking today of the families of those 156 people still unaccounted for in the Florida condo building.  I'm hoping that some of the 156 are on vacation in Vermont or Colorado or somewhere else.  Who maybe have a summer home and are residing peacefully there.

Some day soon, any day now, I'll have my front yard garden planted.  Enough will be enough.  It's time now to start using some Miracle Grow to get those plants looking really healthy and well fed.  To pull a few more weeds every day.

Tough Pet Week

 This has been a hard week for family pets.

Maggie (in Ohio) had a couple of touch-and-go days with an abdominal infection following a surgery last week.  She lived to tell the tale and also had a second, and successful, surgery.  She earned herself this fancy cone.

Milo in North Carolina had three days of radiation.  He had a surgery to remove an eye earlier this month but he remains handsome as ever, as you can see.  He earned this kerchief.

Kyrie in Pennsylvania, so beautiful and much loved, was hit by a car in the street and didn't make it.  She was afraid of cars so her people don't know why she was in the street.

And Cookie, the beta from North Carolina, also died this week.  I don't have a picture of her.  She was such an interactive fish and nicely cared for, with special water and food.

Hard to believe that all this happened in the same week.  My daughters and niece love their pets and care for them so well.  

Leopards

Before Ginny died in the fall, she put the borders on this leopard panel and sandwiched it to the batting and backing.  Her daughter asked if someone could finish it as a donation quilt and that someone was me.

Ginny was a lover of Australian fabrics and the fabric I used for the binding was one of her Australian fabrics.  So maybe the panel, backing, and sashings were too.  They all seem to go together.  

After washing, the quilt came out lovely and soft, despite all the quilting.  It made me wish again that I could safely wash the Stars for Dad quilt without fear of the red running.  I could try using one of the commercial color catchers in the wash.  I'll think about that.  If you have any experience with them, let me know.

My next fabric package for the My Favorite Color is Moda block of the month is at the quilt shop and I'll pick it up tomorrow.  The directions look like lovely squares and rectangles this time, not a half square triangle in sight.

Stars for Dad

My dad died in 2002, and later that year or the next year, missing him, I saw this pattern in Quilters Newsletter magazine and wanted to make it in memory of him.  Named it Stars for Dad.  I am guessing I worked at it, on and off, for a year or so and then life got in the way.  And I was feeling better.  

The quilt is made from little nine patches incorporated into paper piecing.  I had no idea how to paper piece but I got that figured out.  I loved going to the fabric store in Lexington and getting little pieces of fabric, folded and stapled, for the nine patches, and I'm sure I got some of the reds and yellows there too.

I declared it done in my mind when it got to this size but I also didn't know how to quilt it, other than hand quilting, so I put it in a tub.  Moved it around to three new living spaces.  I'm glad I let it be, because I probably would have tried to quilt it in puffy polyester batting and it just wouldn't have looked right.  I have long lost the magazine with the picture so I don't know how the quilter did it.

A few weeks ago I spotted it in its tub and decided to just finish it.  Added the sashings, did the quilting that I couldn't have dreamed of all those years ago.  It really isn't wonky, just looks that way.  I would love to wash it but I'm afraid that the reds might run so I'm leaving it alone.

Quilting close up.  Finished size 40" x 30".

If you're wondering whether I have any other old unfinished quilts in the tub, the answer is no.  I think this is it for old unfinished projects.  Well, there might be one, somewhere, that I did start hand quilting with puffy polyester batting and later took out the quilting stitches.  I'll have to see.

Hard Lesson

 

There is nice progress being made on this quilt started years ago.  Just a few more areas to go before starting on the borders.  Except - I am taking out quilting on the green stars - not the one shown here but the first ones I did.

I'm a big believer in that the Universe takes care of quilting bobbles, that they add to the story and texture of the quilt.  But this looked really bad, and I knew when I was quilting it that the design just wasn't right.  And I kept right on, thinking that because of the nature of the block that was the best I could do.

Somewhere toward the middle of the quilt I realized that there was a better way, and now I am taking out stitches, wishing that I'd just skipped those green stars that I knew weren't right.  Taking out involves the trusty seam ripper, snips, tweezers, and time.  Lots of time.  This is a hard lesson, and I hope I've learned it.

This quilt has a story for another day and I really want it to look nice.

Thinking of lots of time - have you heard the Appalachian saying, "What's time to a hog?"  There's even a long-ago song by The Dillards:

What's time to a hog
What's a Nobel Prize to a toad
Or a fiddle to a frog
What's time to a hog

Now everybody knows that hogs don't hurry
And everybody knows that hogs don't worry
It seems to me
We could figure it out

And the refrain:

Everything depends on how you see it
Be the kind of person you can be
Well it seems to me
That's what it's all for