Thirty-Six Patch and A Trip around the World

We had another good Sunday. We visited MIL in the nursing home for a couple of hours. She is happier. They moved her into the room with her best friend of about 60 or so years. This friend, Pat, had a stroke a few years ago. It left her right side paralized and her speech garbled. I really do believe Pat understands us, just can't communicate with us. Sometimes we hear complete words, but most of the time it is garbled. The weird thing is that Fern seems to understand Pat. I think this will be a good thing for both of them. Oh, I forgot to mention in my last post which quilt MIL chose. I decided to take both of them and let her choose. Good thing, because she chose the Savannah Star. Kevin and I were both wrong in which one we thought she would like. She loved the bright colors of the Savannah Star. (grin)

After our visit we went to St. Joe to Walmart. I do believe I embarrassed my husband. LOL I have still been wearing my shorts. We saw absolutely no one else in short pants, except me. He was asking why on earth I was still wearing shorts when it was in the 50's. Well, I have lost weight and my long pants are too big. So I got a new pair of jeans and a pair of sweats today. LOL I don't want a lot of clothes, because I hope to continue to lose weight. After buying the clothes, we went to Ryan's. Hmmm....hope the pants still fit. LOL  Of course, even buying petite pants, they will have to be hemmed. It is a bummer to have short legs. Everything I buy has to be hemmed. Oh well, sure was nice to buy a smaller size. (grin)

I finally got my 36 patch all put together and I love it. It has been way too windy to have Kevin hold it up for me on the deck, so I took some pictures of it spread out on the bed. Even Kevin loves it. I still haven't decided for sure how I will quilt it. It will either be 1/4" inside the seams, hand quilted or diagonal stitching on the machine. I would like to get it sandwiched together this week. Sure want it on the bed before winter is over. Here are some pictures of it on the bed. You can't see the whole thing, but you get an idea. I tried to alternate light and dark blocks and not have the same colors touching. That is the only things I paid attention to. Most of these blocks are from scraps with a few from fat quarters.

It measures 72 inches by 84 inches. I may still add a black border around it. Not sure about that. It is just that I almost always add a border. It doesn't feel complete to me without it.

Here is one taken cattycornered.

I also have started on a new quilt. I have never made a Trip around the World quilt, so when Bren said she was going to make one from Rose Marie's tutorial, I decided to join in. I am moving slow, but no plans for this one, so no hurry. Here are the five fabrics I picked for the center.

I have to sew these strips together to make 9 strip sets. I have 3 done. I figured I'd do 3 sets at a time.

I hope I have enough contrast in my fabrics to make the design show up good. I haven't chosen border fabrics yet. Since I have about a 1/3 yard of each of these left over I may just make some bricks to go around. I also have a blue fabric that I plan to use for an inner border. I usually don't pick border fabrics till the center is done.

I have been trying to catch up on my BOM's. I almost have Sept.'s Birdie Stitches done, then on to Oct.'s. I have lots of stitcheries that I am behind on, but no hurry. I'll get them done in time. 

I guess that is all for now. After our little stop at Ryan's, we both took a 2 hour nap when we got home. LOL So I imagine it will be a late bedtime tonight. Thank you for visiting and please come again. I do read and appreciate all the comments. I try to answer any questions. I hope you all have a wonderful week ahead.

I Decided It Was Time to Return!

I have had a nice long blog break. I have gotten things done, but not really much to post about. I have done a complete house cleaning. We are ready for winter on the inside, not so much the outside, yet though. LOL The garden is done. We had a bad storm in August with lots of wind and hail. It pretty much destroyed what was left of the garden. We did dig potatoes during Labor Day week. Out of the 12 lbs or so of seed potatoes that I planted we got back about 3/4 of a  wheel barrel. I took 2 of my chore buckets full of potatoes for mom to have and share with other residents in her apartment complex. Everyone was so happy to get them. I was a bad blogger and did not get any pictures.

I have been working on my 36 patch quilt for our bed. I laid them out and decided I needed 12 more blocks. I have them almost done. After counting, I realized that I had 13 blocks instead of 12, so I will have an extra. This will be fairly large for me to quilt. I may need my head examined, but I am thinking about doing straight machine quilting on it with my walking foot. I really would like to have it ready for our bed in a few weeks. I may chicken out, though. (grin) It probably wouldn't take too long to hand quilt X's in the blocks. Anyway here are the first bunch of blocks laid out. I will rearrange these when I add in the next twelve blocks.

At the bottom, you can see portions of the quilt that is on our bed. Sorry about that.
I went and helped Hazel move. I grabbed this great picture of Noah and Izzie. Aren't they cute?

I won a few giveaways, but I'll share about them in another post. I got the Chicken Hearted wall quilt top done. I'm not sure needle turn applique is for me. I usually like hand work, but this seemed to take me forever.

The kit came with the backing and batting too. I now have it pin basted and ready to hand quilt.

Now I need to get off the computer and get some bread made. It feels good to be back. I will try to post at least once or twice a week. Everyone have a great day. Thank you for visiting and please come again.


Winona