Sweet Friends!

Here are photos of a couple of gifts friends have made for Aurora. Joan made this cute Raggedy Ann doll. I had one when I was a little girl; but the store bought kind, not a handmade work of cuteness like this one. Still, I loved that doll. One day I noticed her hair was peeling off. Now her hair was a one piece glued hard helmet of hair, so..being only 4....I helped it come all the way off. Much to my delight, I found Ann was a lot cuddlier without that hair! My mother, however, got angry with me and glued Ann's hair back on. Hmm. I took it off again. And again..until my mother, frustrated by my determination, declared, "If you do that one more time, I'm giving your doll to Marigene!" Marigene was my older sister, five years my senior and she, unfortunately, heard my mother's threat. Facing the loss of my baby, I decided I'd better not peel Ann's hair off anymore. But Marigene, rather devious and unkind even at age nine, gleefully ripped Ann's hair off! I cried and tried to tell my mother I hadn't done it, but she didn't believe me and gave Ann to Marigene anyway. That's my older sis for you! Marigene hadn't wanted Ann, and tortured her to death to torment me. Poor Ann, ended up in the garbage shortly thereafter. I knew it had been all my fault for taking her hair off one time too many. Alas! When I told Joan that story, she said, "That's HORRIBLE!" I don't think I told her the last part, about Ann's demise, which was the really horrible part. Oooh well! Here is a cute handmade Ann for Aurora to love--and it has nice soft hair, btw!

My friend, "Dutch" (a.k.a. Carol) lives in Pennsylvania. She and I are friends through our online quilt group and have actually had the fun of meeting and hanging out together in Connecticut at our last quilt gathering. Dutch surprised me with this beautiful hand quilted whole cloth baby quilt for Aurora! The photos really don't do it justice. It is incredible!


What wonderful and talented friends!

Looking for some good news

It's been a rough month! Tom and I have both been battling a virus that combines all the worst parts of a cold and the flu, so we've been feeling pretty lousy. That doesn't help me maintain a cheerful outlook on life, that's for sure, but is it just my imagination or are a lot of awful things happening? Certainly among my friends, there is a lot of sadness and heartache. Add to that my mother, who last week was admitted into the hospital because they thought she'd had a stroke. She'd been walking around, mumbling incoherently. Disjointed sentences and an overall confusion. Fortunately, all the tests came back negative--no stroke, no brain tumor, nothing awful. The doctor suspects maybe she just forgot and took her medication more than once. My mother is 82 now, and has gotten more forgetful the last few years. But that was good news! Now my brother, who lives with our mom, is doling out the meds.
She is feeling much better now.

Other good news, well, of course, there's the whole Grandma-thing I've got going here. Less than THREE MONTHS now and Aurora will be born. Frieda will be a Mommy! Jeff will be a Daddy!!! That is pretty cool, all right.

One of our nephews is getting married in January. More good news!

My quilting studio has experienced a major overhaul and is at the point now where I was able to sew yesterday. I put borders on a baby quilt, then started Quilt #2 for Aurora. I think I really need some quilt-therapy...

Sad News

Little Brooke Ashley passed away last Thursday.

Arrival of Thing 1 and Thing 2

Check out Melanie's blog (link on the right of this page) for the whole story of her two wee babies, unexpectedly born on Monday. It's a roller coaster ride, that's for sure! Here is a photo of the happy Mom with Summer Marie (formerly known as Thing 1) Summer weighed in at 2 lbs. 15.5 oz.

Here is Brooke Ashley, born a minute after her sister. Birth weight: 2 lbs. 15 oz.

Of course I don't have the quilts I'm making for them ready yet! I thought I had another month or so. Alas...and at the moment, my quilting studio is undergoing an overhaul. Before I decided on the remodeling of that room, I did have one quilt top sewn together and the blocks for the 2nd one all finished. At least Brooke and Summer aren't needing the quilts yet. I'll get them finished before cold weather sets in! ;-)

Blog Award from Paula

This is an award from Paula at Coffee Time Studio. http://coffeetimequiltstudio.blogspot.com/ Thanks, Paula! Now I'm supposed to pass it on and nominate MY favorite blogs.

1. Liz's blog, my #1 favorite. Liz is a Law Enforcement Park Ranger at Denali National Park in Alaska. A rugged and breathtakingly beautiful part of the world. http://theironinoursoul.blogspot.com/

2. Melanie http://melandcompany.blogspot.com/ and her adventure being pregnant with twins

3. Bonnie http://nineandersons.blogspot.com/ and her life raising seven children!

4. Laura http://jexfamily3.blogspot.com/ and her adventures with her children (check out Cameron's new hair cut!)

5. And not to leave quilters out of this, there's Meloney http://melsquiltingblog.blogspot.com/ Take a look at her beautiful quilts!

All right, Liz, Melanie, Bonnie, Laura and Meloney--collect your Award! Copy and paste it at YOUR blogs!!! Which, btw, I enjoy reading very much! Feel free to pass the Award along to YOUR favorite blogs too.

Visiting Melanie

Saturday night I went with Angie to visit Melanie in the hospital. She and the twins are doing fine and really growing! I was glad of the opportunity to take the quilt tops to her, to give her something to DO! She's only been there about a week now, and says that boredom has already set in. Poor Mel! Here she is with the quilts...and the patchwork balls. As you can see, she's already having fun with the balls.


I got both quilts pinned for her and the first one is in a hoop, ready to go.







Angie brought along a Chocolate Fountain, which for those of you like me, who had never seen one before, is quite evil. Decadently evil! Chocolate chips, with a wee bit of oil added, are melted and flow around in the fountain--where anything that can be stuck on the end of a stick, can be dipped in the chocolate. Mmmmmm! We had strawberries, pineapple, banana slices, marshmellows. Melanie doesn't recommend dipping a turkey sandwich, though. Just FYI.

Sewing Projects

Did you get a chance to do anything quilty over the weekend? I finished up a few projects. This one is a quilt top for Aurora, as you might guess since I paper pieced her name on it! I used the Baby Genius line of fabric. It's pretty bright--hope it hasn't burned out your retinas, looking at it!

Project #2 was the July Bag for the challenge at the British Quilting List. No, I'm not a resident of the U.K., but my friend Helen, of Kelso, Scotland, is. In January of this year, she mentioned how they were going to be making a different bag every month. You can check it out here: http://bqlbagblog.blogspot.com/ Helen couldn't share the patterns with me, of course, as that was part of the rules, but she encouraged me to join the group so I could play too. I did, a Yank amongst the Brits, but they are friendly and don't seem to mind. I posted a photo of one of the bags I'd made, as well as talking about the bag challenge, to my other cyber group, which led to several of them joining too! Here is the July bag: I added an inside zipper pocket and decorated it with a button from my grandmother's button box.

Project #3 was two little balls for Melanie, my pregnant-with-twins-and-stuck-in-the-hospital friend. She invested so much time and effort in obtaining the Dr. Seuss fabric for the baby quilts; I didn't want to toss out even the tiniest scrap of it. So..the balls are the result. I didn't have much left, and mostly the pieces weren't big enough to even use for the balls. Still, they turned out cute, and Melanie can amuse herself by tossing them at the nurses. The patterns for making these balls and others come from a Jinny Beyer book called "Patchwork Puzzle Balls." I've found they make a nice handwork project and go together much easier for me, at least, when I stitch them by hand.

Independence Day tradition

As usual, Tom has a big project he is working on over the holiday weekend. One memorable Thanksgiving involved him tearing out a wall and putting in a garden window in the livingroom...while I was making dinner and my brother was watching football on tv. Which was, btw, in the livingroom--with the gaping hole to the outside world! It didn't seem to bother my brother as he sat there, mesmerized by the football game. That man can definitely focus when it comes to watching sports on tv! Fortunately, the heat from the oven kept the house pleasantly warm, even with the November wind blowing in. Tom picks holiday weekends for major jobs like that one, because he has a few extra days off. For this holiday, he didn't have to go to work yesterday (the 3rd) as well as having today and tomorrow to work on his project. This time his project has something to do with his Toyota truck, so the house is at least quiet and undisturbed. Shh! He's out in the garage at the moment, drilling out a bolt or rubbing grease on himself or whatever it is he does out there! LOL

Meanwhile, as also per our tradition, we went to the 4th of July Breakfast at church. After the thunderstorms and deluge of rain we had yesterday and, with a forecast of showers for today, our breakfast was cooked outside, but the tables and chairs were inside. Tom, being diabetic, can't wait until 8 a.m. for breakfast, nor are pancakes (the traditional fare at the 4th of July breakfast) the best thing for him to be eating, so he took up a spot at one of the grills and helped to cook a multitude of pancakes for the crowd. I had a pancake, a few crunchy sausages (hmm...are they supposed to be black?) as well as a yummy cinnamon roll.


We left before the flag ceremony and parade. The parade involves the children decorating their bikes, trikes or wagons, and parading around. Here are a couple of my Sunbeams with their trikes decorated, waiting for parade time.

Neither Lucy nor Michael would smile for me...but Sadie, not on her new bike at the moment, gave me a big grin!







Here's little Jacob, getting ready to fuss, while his parents were playing one of the games.

All in all, it was a nice start to the day--without any showers to dampen the morning. Now for my fun, I'm heading back into my quilting studio. I was going to put borders on my Jennie Quilt, but got distracted with a quilt I'm making for Aurora (my GRANDDAUGHTER!!! 111 days..ohboyohboy!!!)

Quilt tops for Thing 1 and Thing 2

My friend, Melanie, is in the hospital, pregnant with twin girls. You can check out her blog, in my Favorite Blogs list, there on the right, for futher details and even ultrasound photos of the girls. She's due about a week or so before Frieda, which is sometime in October. Melanie is one of my favorite people! Well, actually I have a LOT of favorite people, but I swear, Melanie is right up there near the top of the list. Really! She is funny and sweet--and has a very positive attitude about her current situation, which is more than a little scary if you ask me.... Lots to admire there. As if all this isn't enough to point out just how wonderful, courageous and terrific Melanie is, she's also a QUILTER! I suspect her developing into a QuiltAholic stemmed from her association with me as I have done my best to encourage her tendancies in that direction. Poor Mel. Yes...quilting is contagious. Be warned.

Melanie really wants Dr. Seuss themed quilts for her twins, but found that Dr. Seuss fabric is hard to come by. I found a yard being bid for on ebay and it was up to $27.00. YIKES! And that wasn't even the final price! Fond as I am of Melanie, that was too much for me, even though I admit to a few moments of insanity where I was tempted. Melanie managed to find some 4 inch squares of Cat in the Hat fabric on ebay, as well as three hospital "scrubs" that were Dr. Seuss prints. I took the scrubs apart and cut them into 4 inch squares. Here are the quilt tops that results from all that cutting:
There are even left over squares!
Melanie is going to hand quilt the quilts, as well as see what she can come up with, using the left over squares, while she is stuck in the hospital, lounging in her purple recliner. She'd better enjoy this life of leisure while she can. Once the twins are born and she takes them home..that's it for getting any rest!

Becoming Grandma

I've been thinking about my granddaughter, who will be born sometime in October---there is a sign I saw once, maybe it was needlepointed on a pillow, that went something like this: When a baby is born, so is a grandmother! Frieda asks us what we wanted to be called. Tom opted for Grandpa, which will work well since the Frieda's Dad has the title of Papa. I told her Grandma was fine with me. My mother goes by "Granny" and my grandmother had us call her "Nana." When I was about 10 years old, I asked my Nana why we didn't call her Grandma, which I had learned, was what all the other kids I knew called their grandmothers. She was originally from the Netherlands and told me that Nana was Dutch for Grandmother. Well, friends, it isn't! Try Oma! When I found that out, I asked her again, this time with the added question of "why didn't you tell me the truth?" She admitted then, that she didn't like the word "grandmother," because it made her feel old. Diplomatically, I didn't tell her that she WAS old! But I was left with the feeling that she was ashamed of being a grandmother and ashamed of us. "Nana" was her disguise so no one would know. My sister goes by "Nana" with her grandchildren, but for me, no thanks. I have the urge to shout "I'M GONNA BE A GRANDMA" from the roof top! Is there a t-shirt I can get with that on it? LOL

Fast forward a bizzillion years to now. When I put the label on the Sock Monkey quilt and signed it "from Grandma _____," my universe shifted. Grandma _____! That was my mother-inlaw. I loved my mother-inlaw. She died in 1999 and I still miss her terribly. She filled a hole in my life and we got along pretty well. I'll never forget the trip we took to Norway together, just the two of us! Good times, that's for sure. She was always willing to listen to my problems and offer advice (okay, sometimes even when I didn't ask!) But she was a good "Ma" and loved her sons, daughter-inlaws and grandchildren. I'd be doing well to fill her shoes. Being called Grandma brings her a bit closer to me now. Another thing we share. To me, she will always be the "original" Grandma ______, but I am more than happy to step forward and take on that title. Wow. GRANDMA!!!

A side note. Our eldest son, Jim, called my inlaws: Little Grandpa and Big Grandma. My mother-inlaw was on the "fluffy" side. My father-inlaw, though, wasn't particularly small, but I think maybe Jim mostly saw his Grandpa sitting down (he ran an insurance agency) while my Dad was always up and about, making him seem "bigger." My Dad, btw, liked being called Big Grandpa! However, my mother-inlaw was offended. Can't say as I blame her, particularly as this designation came from the grandson who, at age 3, innocently asked me in her hearing, "Mama, why does Grandma walk like a duck?" Ooops. My mother hadn't come up with "Granny" yet, so she was "Little Grandma." It's funny how children have a way of coming up with their own methods of telling one grandparent from another in a conversation, so I'm sure we'll get labels bestowed on us. I just hope mine isn't BIG Grandma! Time to hop on the treadmill and make sure I don't fill more than my mother-inlaw's shoes...

Watch out, World, Grandma ______ is here!