I'm taking on the NewFO Challenge 2013

As I'm nosing around and reading more quilt blogs, I'm getting more and more inspired! So, I signed on to take part in the NewFO Challenge 2013 posted on CatPatches Blog. Looks like lots of fun to have "permission" to start something new each month whether it ever gets done or not. There's lots of ideas floating around my sewing room, so here's my in-the-moment ideas to start my list of 2013 NewFOs!

January: A Valentines throw like the one my friend Terry made. Why not plan ahead and if it gets done I can enjoy it in February!

February: A St. Patrick's Day table runner--design yet to be decided.
March: Start on the Vintage Rouge BOM that I purchased in 2012 but left sitting in bags waiting for me. I get to learn several new techniques with this one including English paper piecing and needle-turn applique. Yikes!

April: Start early on Christmas and make my own Advent Calendar out of the kit I bought two years ago on a shop hop. My little grandson will be excited to have cookies to put in the bowl next Christmas!

May through December, I'm sure I'll come up with plenty more from my stash, unopened kits, gifts needing to be made, etc. etc. At least one QOV to be made before November; a Halloween BOM to be done; prairie point pot holders to make for gifts; and even a set or two of tea towels to embroider before next Christmas.

Looking forward to starting lots of NewFOs in 2013 and maybe even completing some of them!

More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz

Life starts anew...

It's been quite awhile since I posted here. A lot has changed and life is evolving every day. Just over a year ago I was dealing with my 95-year-old father and his failing health. Quilting was one thing that helped me keep my sanity. In early April 2012, just a week before his 96th birthday, Dad passed away, thus ending my longer-than-expected tenure as caregiver. His passing prompted my immediate move from California, where I had been in my childhood home for 7-1/2 years, back to Kansas to make a new home for myself in the state I had called home for over 20 years before I took on parent-care. And the procession of U-Haul trucks began. Two trucks and a car load later on three separate cross-country drives in three months, I settled into my new home and began setting up my sewing room so I could get back to some semblance of normal. I found the quilt shop in my new hometown and was soon a member of two quilt guilds as well. Looking back at the months since I returned to Kansas I can say that quilting is taking a major role in my life. I have made pillowcases and children's quilts for guild service projects, made and gifted a Quilt of Valor to my older brother, and made my new grandson's quilt, Jacob's Jungle, that won a first place blue ribbon at both the Lyon County and Kansas State Fairs!

This fall, I managed to finish several quilted and sewn Christmas gifts in time to put under the tree, and am now looking at the stack of UFOs that need to be finished after their cross-country trek. The first one off the shelf is a One Block Wonder that I started in March 2011. The piecing has been done for quite some time as indicated in this picture of me holding the top in May 2011; however, the quilting has been dragging on. With about 80% of it done now, I started in again today and spent several hours ditching the mini orange border so I can free motion the blue field border to complete it. That's my first goal--to complete this beauty and have it bound and ready for snuggling soon.

There are many more where that one came from, so more projects will be completed soon.

More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz

Quilter's Quest shop hop!

First thing in the morning I'm heading out to pick up my friend Nancy so we can go make the rounds on the Quilter's Quest 2011 Shop Hop through the SF Bay Area. Not sure my stash needs any more additions, but I can't imagine not going on the hop and collecting the block kits for another fun quilt! I've had a preview of the shop hop quilt and can't wait to start the blocks!

The pile of projects that I plan (hope, pray) to finish by Christmas is mounting. An advent calendar, three table runners, finishing two quilts (one pinned & ditched, one not even pinned yet--had to buy more batting), and who knows what else... Probably some machine embroidered ornaments for the kids to make it easy on myself. Lots going and I've been really at getting going in the afternoons while Dad's snoozing in front of his daily back-to-back-to-back episodes of Bonanza.

One part of me feels slightly guilty for going on the shop hop--I should be finishing the projects already started. But the rest of me says, what the heck! Shop hops only come around once or twice a year and this one takes me to several of my favorite shops that are slightly beyond my regular shopping area.

More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz

Quilting for Sanity

Living with a 95-year-old who is having short-term memory loops can be a blessing and a challenge. Dad is still pretty independent and manages well for the most part. However, spending every afternoon watching back-to-back-to-back episodes of Bonanza is enough to drive me crazy! Dad doesn't follow the stories real well with his brief snoozes every few minutes, so he's always asking what's going on. Oh, and my favorite is when the show goes to commercial and he tells me those boys sure drive nice cars! Are those made by Nash? Well, Dad, that's a commercial. The Cartright boys don't drive cars--they ride horses. And, no, I'm pretty sure Nash doesn't make cars anymore. Ahhhhh... Life.....

So, I spend most of my time in the sewing room to pass my afternoons. I have so many UFO's at this point, I really need to start sorting them out and finishing them for Christmas gifts so I can justify starting more projects! Last week I found a really cute Eleanor Burns pattern for pumpkin placemats that I'm going to turn into mini-wall hangings. I made six pretty quickly and got them all layered and stitched together in two afternoons. Now to do some fun but simple quilting on them, applique the rest of the faces, and wrap them up. Whew!

With two shop hops coming up this month, I feel compelled to start working through some of my stash. So, I found last year's bundle of Halloween fat quarters and made a great stack & slash Halloween quilt for a gift. The top is done (another fast project) and I'll have my buddies at quilting class help pin it on Tuesday, and then to do some quick and easy quilting on it too.

I have my grandson's batik dinosaur quilt all pinned, but haven't started quilting it yet. I bought some fun variegated threads to use on it and will begin that project maybe this weekend. My granddaughter's quilt is designed in EQ7, but not yet started. Geez... so many projects!

I've decided to give a shot at making something fun and creating for the Hoffman 2012 Challenge and received my package of eleven half-yard cuts of the challenge fabrics in the mail this week. Now to get my brain working on something striking and different to submit. Luckily that's not due until next summer, so I have time to design in EQ7 and/or on paper before I dive in with the rotary cutter.

Back to Dad... He loves watching my projects come to fruition. He also knows I'm making gifts from both of us to give at Christmas. He checks out the projects while I'm working and as I make progress I always take them into the family room to show him how they're coming together. Being a creative guy himself in his former active life, he appreciates the effort I put into things. Dad built our home himself and continued to work with wood as a hobby, making my children's cradle and many toys for the grandchildren, while Mom sewed countless Raggedy Anne dolls and Teddy bears, and tailored her own suits. By designing many of my own projects on the old graph paper from Dad's desk and working with fabrics to turn those designs into quilted projects, in my mind, I'm combining the best of both of their hobbies into one of my own.

Stay tuned for more snippets from  the sewing room...
Liz

Jumping in

I have spent nearly 7 years living with my parents as an adult child/caregiver in the home I grew up in many years ago. In this blog I will attempt to relay some of the joys and heartbreaks of those years of caregiving, as well as offer encouragement to those who are also in the place I find myself. As an adult child, the only daughter and youngest of four, when it came time to care for my parents, the task fell to me. They had always said they wanted to remain in the home they had built themselves (literally) and I was willing to support that desire. My parents did not ask for help; however, on my visits twice a year from my home in Kansas to their home in California, I found that my mother was slowly fading into some sort of dementia and needed compassionate care that my father could not provide despite his deep love for his wife of nearly 68 years. Each trip it was harder to leave them and eventually, during my summer visit in 2004, I made the decision to return to California and help them. My father, the stubborn self-reliant person he's always been, said he didn't need my help--he had everything under control and could handle mom just fine, but if I wanted to move home I could always come back. When I drove away that final time before my move, my mother was confused, but still quite functional--walking, talking, eating meals at the table with Dad or the family, visiting on the phone with friends. Two weeks before my move I received a phone call from my eldest brother telling me that Mom was in the hospital. She had become dehydrated and Dad had called 911. Mom spent two weeks in the hospital, malnourished and morbidly dehydrated. October 1, 2004, I arrived home the day she was transferred to a convalescent/rehabilitation facility, an invalid with a feeding tube. It was here she first got her diagnosis of Lewy Body dementia; however, her doctor continued to insist she had Alzheimer's Disease, prescribing medications that worsened or accelerated her condition. My parents needed all the love and compassion I could give, working along side my father so he didn't feel like I was taking away his sense of control, while stepping up to meet Mom's needs. That was the beginning of a life-changing commitment that I continue in today. This blog will grow with current reflections of life today with Dad, now 95, and memories of those early days of my life as a 50-year-old with my mid-80s parents, one stubbornly independent and the other fading into Lewy Body dementia.