imperfections

I"m still working on my quilt. I'm about a little over half way finished with the machine quilting. I have done all the seams going across the quilt, and now I am doing all the ones going up and down. A seam on each side of the 'ditch", where pieces come together.



I have kept working for another week from the beginning of this writing and now I am half way done sewing on the binding. I have sewn it on, but then I have to fold it around to the front of the quilt and sew it down all the way around, finishing the edge and encasing all the raw edges.

Y'all.

It's been a thing.

All along the way,  all I could think about was the next project. What do I want to make next? Maybe the cat block or one called the two step. I couldn't decide.

This week I've really been pushing to get this project across the finish line. I am excited but also beginning to be burned out a little bit. This is the largest sewing project I have ever taken on (hmm except for maybe all the lined curtains in my house lo a many years ago when I felt young and fresh and crawling around on the floor measuring and pinning was no big woop).

Well friends...I think I am old. I'm ready to get my dining room back and not have decor shoved aside so I can pile sewing boxes and piles of do-dads everywhere. I'm over it.

And another thing is that the struggle is real putting on a binding. It kicked my tail when I made the class projects but I wondered if it was because the angles were wonky and there weren't any true actual 90* corners. But I am on the struggle bus again with this piece that has regular corners and it is really annoying. Three of the corners are perfect or close to perfect and the fourth one had to be messed with and picked out and resewn a smidge just to make it okay.

so. bummed.

But ya know what, it really is ok. I'm not entering it into any quilt fairs. I'm just cuddling up with it on the couch. And after it gets washed, it will be super crinkly and yummy anyway.

I hate that one corner that doesn't measure up to what I wanted it to be..which is far below what a pro would call perfect. My perfect. But I will smile and know I did my best for my first real piece and love it forever and like it for always.



My grandmother pieced this sailboat quilt,  probably when she was younger than I am now.  It was just a pieced top at the time of her passing and my aunt quilted it for me and gave it to me as a wedding gift. Do you want to know what I noticed recently? An imperfection! I have had this quilt since 1991 and noticed that one boat has upside down sails a few weeks ago.

And so my little quilt with a less than perfect mitered corner (and quite a few other little hiccups) will be just fine.

touching my toe into the waters #quilting

I have always been amazed by quilts. I have a baby quilt that was made for me by my grandmother. I used it and even carried it on car trips etc until it started to fray and now it lives on my quilt rack. I have a few that were my mother's and I was given a quilt my grandmother pieced and my aunt quilted as a wedding present.

I love quilts. The patterns.  Stars, stripes, bear claws,  squares, triangles..and a bunch of other shapes I don't know the names of. The colors. Every color in the rainbow.  The fabrics. Everything from quilting fabric to well, feed sacks and old clothes, way back when. Quilting has come a long way. 

But quilts are intimidating. I always looked at other's creations with all the heart eyes..and a little bit of jealousy if I am just being honest.

I recently noticed that a local sewing machine and quilt shop has beginner quilting classes...what are the odds? LOL So I decided to sign up. I had to wait a couple of weeks from when I signed up to actually go to my class and I was so antsy and excited.

My first class was last Tuesday and my second class was day before yesterday. Next Tuesday is the last class. (we will come on another day to bind our quilt after we complete the quilting on our own).
The teacher is the sweetest and so is her helper. There are six of us in the class and four of us are left handed. I am used to being the minority, so that has been kind of funny.

The project we are all doing is a table runner. A very doable first project with lots of opportunity to learn different blocks and some beginner technique.

My first cuts and pieces. This was created on our first night.




This is the background fabric...it has bluebonnets on it. Those are the state flower of Texas and they have my heart big time.


And this is my almost completed top. I could not believe we made so much progress in two evenings.


I am so proud of it. I hope I don't get stuck and unable to finish. So far it has gone together so well and the teacher is so encouraging that it makes me feel like I really can do it. :)

I knew that week to week I would forget what we learned so I grabbed some fabric at Hobby Lobby to make another one so I could reinforce it all in my mind. I am just as excited about that one as the official class one. And if it actually turns out, it will be a gift so that is fun.

Such pretty colors!



Squares done but I can't remember how to square them up. So I will carry them to class next week and let her show me again. And then I can sew on the sashing. And do whatever else we learn next week.




I don't see me becoming a super fancy quilter but I am excited to perhaps create a few simple projects that are useful and pretty. So fun. Even an old dog like me can maybe learn a new trick. :)

in my rear view mirror

So thankful to be on the back side of the holidays. I am always glad when the tree and all the decorations are put away and with it, all the sadness and unfulfilled expectations of ‘the perfect holiday’ can go too.

I lost my mom a few months before Christmas, a few weeks after we found out Bub wasn’t going to make it. That was a somber holiday. We tried to be festive. We tried to keep things exactly the same. We picked out ornaments with each kid just like always. But we had Bub pose with his, because we knew it would go into the attic and the next time we pulled it out, he would be gone. It was hard to muddle through and not behave like all these things were going on. But we tried our best and I think we did ok.

We lost him in April, as most of you know.

So along with the thankfulness that Christmas with all it’s mixed emotions is behind, comes the little ache in my heart, knowing that spring is just around the corner. I love spring. And yet it’s when we lost our little fella. Everything is a mix these days. Joy to the world along with knowing my mom (and now dad too) and my little Bub are with Him for the holiday and every day.

A while back I had an epiphany. When I was growing up, Christmas was perfect and wonderful and my favorite time of the year. Because my parents made it so, while they missed long since gone family they remember from long ago. I don’t know why that realization was comforting (but sad) to me, but it was. It sort of clicked with me that they experienced the same things…love and loss and feeling like it’s not quite right. It’s not new. It’s been going on for generations.

And so it goes…

the letter

I got a letter in the mail yesterday from my aunt and uncle. (They celebrated their 50th anniversary a few years ago. *smile*)

This little note really took me back. I remember hearing letters from my grandparents (on the same side of the family) read aloud to me when I was a kid. There were the normal parts of the conversation including how everybody was doing (and who died) and then the info about how many tomatoes she’d brought in from the garden or how many bushels of green beans she had “put up”.

Or how many eggs the chickens were laying.

That’s what made this little letter all the more interesting. It felt like one of my grandmother’s letters. It started out with all the usual pleasantries etc. Then he told me about the fruit trees and the pecans. I smiled. It warmed my heart and reminded me of years gone by.

And then he signed their names.

And included their email address.

Huh?!

Come to find out he got an iPad and he loves it. He uses it for Bible study and the lay preaching he does. And he goes to places in town that have wi-fi to use the internet and do email.

So my little letter took things full circle…reminding me of a way of life that’s pretty much long gone..including receiving an actual letter in snail mail. And then taking it into the 21st century with an iPad. Love it.

thinking cool thoughts

It’s hot. I know I’ve said that one or twenty times of late.

So today I went looking through pictures of vacations and the like to find some pictures taken in cooler weather. I thought it might make me and all my hot weather buddies feel a little better. So here goes…

These are taken out the window of the cog train as we rode up Pikes Peak.

The first pic is Boo’s cute little giraffe she got at the zoo. He seems to be enjoying the ride.

 

Snow!!!

We made it to the top….aaaand then felt light headed and couldn’t wait to ride back down. : )

It was so pretty as we rode up…and down. And nice and cool at the top. Loved seeing the snow in the middle of summer!

And then there is me…playing outside in the snow, sporting a lovely car coat, as my mother always called it. The yellow “fur” around the face really adds that classy touch, don’t you think?! I must have been just 5 or 6 when this was taken. (This is one of my slides that I took a picture of.)  The snow looks pretty deep… for Texas.

I say it’s hot, but it rained a little bit last night and right now (middle of the afternoon), it is only 90 degrees out.

And that’s not too bad… for Texas.

reading

I read…

Angie Smith at Bring the Rain advertised that it was a free download for a limited time, so I got to read it for free. It was a good thing I was reading on my Touch that glows in the dark, because I read late into one night to finish it. Loved it. Very precious story.

Made me cry in multiple places. One of which was when she knew her pregnancy was in trouble and that unless God intervened, she would not be bringing home a baby. Strangers would ask seemingly benign questions that broke her heart because to answer truthfully, she would have to tell the story. I remember times like that during Bub’s treatment. On the outside, everything looked ‘normal’ but what we were living was anything but. I so relate!

And right now I’m taking my own sweet time reading Laura Bush’s book, Spoken From the Heart. I’ve taken it to appointments and what not. I haven’t stayed up all night to read it…yet! : )  I’m still in the early section of the book that talks about her childhood. Since she grew up in a small town, it is interesting how many things I can relate to. We moved to ‘the big city’ when I was a baby, but we still regularly visited grandparents and other relatives that lived in Small Town. Many of the things she experienced as a young girl, I had a taste of growing up as well. She is a very articulate writer and it’s easy to see she is very well read.

So it’s been fun to read two such different books that I can relate to on some level.

What are you reading? 

gone fishing…or maybe just ‘gone’

I kind of feel like I should have put a sign out on my blog that says “gone fishing” or something like that. I sent the girl to camp and then the next morning, I left town.

I went to visit my cousin in the small town I was born in. We stayed up late, slept late, at A LOT of Mexican food, went antique shopping and also did a little scrapbooking. Very fun.

We also went around town taking pictures of some of the landmarks I’ve known my whole life.

There is a sweet little park in town, with several “water features”, lots of ducks and the usual swing sets.

This is a fun little building in town. When we drove by there ‘back in the day’, they stored Cokes in it. Now it’s some kind of storefront.

This is the courthouse. My mother worked there before she married.

This is the little country church my grandparents went to. My parents also went there before they dated and married. Their wedding was there.

And let us not forget…Dairy Queen! We would drive past this on the way into town. It’s been there for-evah!

And yes, we ate there. And it was good! : )

I had a fun trip but it’s nice to be home. Late today the girl arrives home from camp. Can’t wait to hear all about it.

And see if she made it home with everything.

camp

The girl and I have been busy figuring out some of the last minute things she will need for camp. She leaves Sunday evening.

A lady that we’ve both known since our single days is going as a chaperone and one of the cooks for camp. She was on Facebook today reminiscing about what camp used to be versus was it will be for this group of kids. She didn’t go to the same camp I did, but I think a lot of our experiences are similar.

We went to more than one camp over the years I was in youth group.  Now they call it student ministry.  But whatev’s. One of the camps was pretty close to home. It had air conditioning even though it was pretty rustic otherwise. The auditorium was also very dated with shag carpets, but it was also indoors. I went there when I was a good bit younger than my girl and I don’t have as many memories of the place.

In the later years, we went to a place in  Arkansas. I think we went there two or three years in a row when I was an older high school ‘student’. There was a creek that separated the girls dorms from the boys. There was a swimming pool with a bridge in the between. There was no mixed swimming. As a matter of fact, the opposite sex wasn’t even allowed on the bridge nearby during swimming times.  The dorms were very crude and I think there were only 3 or 4 potties to a group of a couple dozen girls. Yeah. And we didn’t have real A/C..only evaporative coolers. Talk about sticky and hot. And the sanctuary was open air too.

I looked them up online the other day and they just built a “state of the art” sanctuary, all indoors, and air conditioned, for sure. I just don’t think it would be the same.

My girl leaves Sunday night for camp in Alabama. She’s never been to camp before at all and she doesn’t know these kids very well. So she’s very excited but a little nervous at the same time. They’re staying in condos on the beach.  I did read online today that they aren’t recommending that people go in the water at her beach, but the beach itself is still open. As is the pool adjacent to the condo.  They will travel by bus to a local church in the mornings and evenings for church and have their meals etc as a ‘family’ in their condos.

Sounds pretty fancy compared to way it was ‘back in the day’.

**Also please pray for traveling safety for our group. They are going to be traveling through the night on buses and that makes me a little leery, if you know what I mean. On the return trip, they will travel all day long, which doesn’t make me as nervous as somebody driving throughout the night.

lazy girl’s way to get prints from slides

I’ve had a huge stack of ‘stuff’ sitting in my entry way since last year.

I got enough done that I only had this one stack.

But it’s a big stack. See.

Boatloads of slides.

I told myself that I was going to scan them at some point during the winter ‘when there isn’t anything else to do’. When exactly does that happen?!

So now at least they say spring is coming and before long it’ll be creeping up on one year and I’d really like to get this stuff dealt with. There is the time element, but also I’d just like to have my entry way CLEANED UP.

Crazy talk, I know.

But the longer I thought about scanning hundreds and hundreds of slides, the longer I waited. I knew it would take forever. And I just wasn’t up for it.

Last weekend I got an idea. I wondered if I could take a picture of a slide? So here’s what I did.

I pulled down the shade in Miss Boo’s room and moved the twinkle lights out of the way. Then I set up the projector and put in a reel of slides. And turned out the lights and grabbed my digital camera.

Oh yes, I did. I snapped a photo of each and every slide as it shone on the makeshift screen. And it worked. Oh yes, it did!

See.

This is me slaving away at the ironing board. I remember my mother ironing evvverything when I was little because there was no such thing is wrinkle free anything way back then. And she hung everything out on the line in those days too. I remember when they got their first dryer.

Vacation in Colorado. Very pretty.

The black edges are just the empty screen area since most of the slides are square shaped. But it works!

I was very impressed with myself for figuring that out and sticking with it long enough to snap shots of over 700 slides!

I hope to tell a few of the stories contained in these slides. But I also wish I knew more… like how/why on earth this picture was taken?!

Maybe I don’t want to know about this one. *shudder*

I'm linking this post to Works for Me Wednesday at weareTHATfamily!