I Think It Is Time

 I haven't sewn anything for the last year.  I think it is time to set up my machine again and get to work!!

I'm going to try to do the QAL with Sandra of  Musings of a Menopausal Melon - want to join me??

Home

I came home yesterday, Thursday, so that is the great news.  My pain is controlled by Tylenol, so that is also a good thing.  My youngest daughter is still here with her boys, 1 & 3, trying to pack up most of my dad's home to take back to Oklahoma with her for her new house.  It is nice to know that another couple of generations will be enjoying the furniture and furnishings.  I'll be missing a few things - like the dining room table I have been sewing on, but it is one step closer to me going home.  My oldest daughter ran out of time to get all her stuff out of here so she is planning on coming here for Christmas to pick up the remainder of the pictures and mementos she wants.

I'm exhausted and can't really help with packing because bending hurts.  I have 5 different incisions across my stomach, from side to side.  It is quite swollen, but I hope it will go down soon.

Crazy Times

Five months after he died, we are finally having a small memorial service for my dad this Thursday.  All three of my daughters (plus one son-in-law and one girlfriend to help with the three and one year old) and my four grandchildren are here this week (along with 4 dogs - 2 Rottweilers,  1 Chihuahua and one service dog for the friend) and my quiet life has disappeared!!  I'm enjoying spending time with them all and appreciate that they drove to Nevada from Georgia, Texas and Oklahoma.  They are currently going through everything in the house, deciding what they would like to keep and what I'll have to deal with when they are all gone.  That is the hardest part about having kids that don't live close!!  However, they do give me great places to go to visit (especially when I got to spend 6 weeks with my Army daughter in Hawaii).  I'll be getting to keep my daughter's Chihuahua for the next year as she is being deployed in October and Sita gets along well with my Chihuahua Tara.

Next Tuesday, August 25, I will be having surgery to remove the last foot or so of my colon.  I'll be in the hospital 3-5 days...I'm hoping for 3 because my youngest daughter has to start back home the following Friday and I'd like her to be here to stay at the house and take care of my dogs, as well as bringing me home from the hospital.  She'll be taking most of the furniture because she has a new house in Oklahoma.  I'm so glad I don't have to get rid of everything and that someone who loved my parents wants to surround themselves with the same furniture they enjoyed.  Of course, it will be weird to come home to a house with little furniture, but it will make getting the house ready to sell much easier.

My computer died, so I had to get a new one and I can't get the pictures off my phone onto my computer...I really hate needing to get a new computer because I have to figure things out that stump me!!  So a post with no pictures...sorry!!

The Blender

After being a posting queen, there has definitely been silence for months.  What a wild ride those months have been.

My beloved father died on March 18.  This is a picture of us out celebrating his 95th birthday.  This was his last year of freedom, from needing oxygen 24/7.  I'm so glad that he was all there mentally until the day he died.  His body just gave out a few months before he reached his 99th birthday.

My ex-sister-in-law passed away on April 16.  It was a total shock as she had a heart attack.  Not even my kids knew their aunt wasn't doing well.  She was always a lovely woman and her family really misses her.

My favorite cousin died on May 20.  He had a stroke just before Thanksgiving last year and even with immediate medical care and therapies, he never made any progress back to the person he was before the stroke.

Also in May, I ended up in the hospital and was diagnosed with diverticulitis.  The pain was right up there (9), and ever since then it has been a struggle to eat enough so I stop losing weight.  This week I had a colonoscopy and endoscopy to see the extent of the diverticulitis and why I can't really eat.  Well, I now need surgery to remove part of my colon because the diverticulitis is severe and the doctors are concerned about ulceration and bleeding.  I don't want to end up with a colostomy, so I hope the doctor can actually put the two ends together to make me "whole" again.  I'm concerned because the surgery will probably take place when I'm here alone.  But I know God has it all figured out and the plans I need to make will be revealed in time.

That's the reason for the silence on my end.  I have been feeling a bit like a pinball, slamming from one life-changing event to another, just focusing on getting through each day (sometimes hour) whole.

Next month we'll have a small memorial service with all my girls - they can finally travel (they are all "essential"), so I am looking forward to not being alone and getting to see them and my grandchildren.  The isolation demanded by COVID has definitely made dealing with death and illness so very different.

Quilt Qwazy Queens Making Us Laugh

All good things must come to an end and it is the same with the Quilt Qwazy Queens Making Us Laugh blog hop, hosted by Joan of MooseStash Quilting.  Thank you so much, Joan, for bringing us something to smile about during these difficult times.

The blogs making us smile and laugh today are:

Songbird Designs

Bumbleberry Stitches

Quilting Gail

Just Because Quilts

Patchwork Breeze

MooseStash Quilting

I hope you have enjoyed this blog hop as much as I have enjoyed hopping around the blogs and making my little wall hanging for it.

Quilt Qwazy Queens Making Us Laugh

Today is my day to share what I made for the Quilt Qwazy Queens Making Us Laugh blog hop, hosted by the marvelous Joan of MooseStash Quilting!!  Thank you for the invitation, Joan!!  I had a blast!!

Have you seen those cool quilts made by using the collage technique?  You know, where pieces of fabric are cut up and put back together to create a recognizable animal or scene?  Most of what I have seen has been animals, sometimes very realistic and other times quite fanciful.  I thought they looked so cool and I wanted to give it a try...this blog hop gave me the push to give it a go!!

I started with this piece of gorgeous fabric

I just love this!!  The colors are stunning and there is metallic gold shining through!!!  YUM!!!

Now, what to make with this???  My "grand pets" are weighted heavily towards dogs (I have 11 grandpups), 3 rabbits, a hamster, random chickens and 1 cat.  I have spent a bit of time with this cat as he belongs to my daughter who is in the Army.  I got to house/pet sit this stunning male specimen (along with his dog sister) for 8 months in Florida way back in 2011.  Guinness, the cat, welcomed me to the home by urinating on my bed the very first night.  Thank goodness for a thick down comforter and thick down mattress pad, my mattress didn't get wet, but my daughter got to take my comforter and mattress pad to the dry cleaners!!  With that kind of welcome, who wouldn't love this guy!!

 After his mom left for her tour of duty, we did become friends and he loved to help me with my piecing.  During the months I was in Florida, I pieced about 50 quilts and wall hangings, met some wonderful quilting buddies (SewWhat!?!? bee group), and found out that I quite enjoyed Florida in August, with the high temperatures, high humidity and rain that pours down most afternoons!  Totally qwazy, right???  For a girl who was raised in the high mountain desert where we get 4-7 inches of precipitation a year, that is certifiable qwazy!!

I made Celebrating Guinness in honor of my one and only grandkitty.

Yes, he does do what he wants, especially when it comes to expressing his displeasure or bringing his ball for you to throw so he can fetch it!

All fused and I tried to quilt over every piece because I know that fusible isn't forever.

We got 4 inches of snow a few weeks ago, so I ran out to take a glam shot in the snow!!

After carefully cutting out all the gorgeous pieces from my strip of fabric and placing them in such a way to look like a cat, I used the extra cut-out stuff as a pretty on the side, which, of course, Guinness had to tear a piece off of...he's a cat and that's what cats do...what they want!!

This shows the heart at the center of Guinness...he does love his mama!!  I know I missed some of the smaller pieces fused on, but since this is a wall hanging, I hope it will never be washed.  I made the corner triangles so my daughter can slip a small dowel in them for hanging on the wall.  

Sharing my day on the blog hop are these fabulous blogs:

One Quilting Circle

Quilt Schmilt

Devoted Quilter

Turning My Heart Quilts

Home Sewn By Us

Farm Quilting

If you have the urge to try making a collage quilt, give it a shot.  I had so much fun creating Guinness in fabric that looks nothing like the coal-black cat he is!!  You don't have to make it as whimsical as I made Guinness, you can create a totally realistic collage quilt.  They are gorgeous too!  I love fusible applique, but I do know that if a piece with fusible is going to be washed and loved to death, it does need to have every piece nailed down with thread, either by hand or machine.  Hand sewing through the fusible is difficult - I did that on the first applique quilt I made.

This is a public service tutorial for making your own reusable toilet wipes.  If your supply closet doesn't look like this:

You can take a fat quarter (or fat quarter-sized rag) and make your own, but it is reusable!!  Fold your fat quarter in half 3 times until you end up with a rectangle that measures about 8.5" by 5".  This is thick enough yet still flexible.

Then all you need to do is sew the 3 open sides

Use a different color for every member of the family, keep a "diaper pail" with a lid by each toilet and have bleach water in the "pail"...that pail does require a lid!!  Flannel is a good choice, old t-shirts, and even micro-fiber cloths.  But if you don't have any of those available, you can dig in your stash of fabric and keep your families nether regions clean!!  

Or you can sew those charm squares together using a basting stitch and create this reusable TP:

I hope you have as much fun hopping amid the qwazy blogs for these five days as I did creating my Celebrating Guinness!!  Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the world!

Quilt Qwazy Queens Making Us Laugh

Here we are at day three of the Quilt Qwazy Queens Making Us Laugh, hosted by the lovely Joan of MooseStash Quilting!  Have you been enjoying all the qwaziness the bloggers are spreading around?  I know I have been having a blast hopping to all the blogs and seeing what the quilters have been creating!!

The blogs bringing you the laughs today are:

If These Threads Could Talk

Kathleen McMusing

Samelia's Mom

Seams to be Sew

QuiltFabrication

Ms P Designs USA

Keep leaving those sweet comments for all the bloggers...we love them!!  Be sure to come back on Monday because I'll be showing off what I made, using a new-to-me technique that I fell in love with!!