Split Nine Patch

Here's Charlene's Split Nine Patch finished. She wanted a simple meander, so that's sort of what I gave her. But, I wanted a bit of a difference between the light and dark side of the streak of lightening effect of her setting.So, I did the simple puzzle type meander in the light, and a loop meander in the darks. I'm happy with this one. I used varigated Rainbows blues in the top thread, and a light grey in the bobbin.

Hyper critical

I finished a customer quilt a couple of days ago. I didn't taken a picture of it, because I wasn't happy with the way it turned out. I've been upset, and nervous, and anxious, about her reaction when she picked it up, since she is a long time customer of mine. She just picked it up and loved it. The stuff that I was obsessing over didn't bother her in the least. So, my question to myself is, what was I so upset about? When I looked at it again, when I got it out for her, it wasn't that bad. Am I too hard on myself, or was I just having a bad day when I did that quilt? Maybe I was just "hormonally deprived" that day, as I seem to be most days, LOL. I lost part of a night's sleep over the silly thing. Is it just me, being overly critical of the stuff I do? Somehow, I don't think I'm alone in this, which helps, a bit, at least. I talk to many women, in person, and here online, and we all seem to do the same thing. Why is that? Why can't we do something, and be happy with what we do, rather than looking for the mistakes, or the not quite perfect in it? So, lesson learned, take pictures, even if I'm not happy with it, because what I'm not happy with, is probably just me being hyper-critical of my own stuff, stressing out over something that needs no stress put out over it. I just discovered something else, too, that writing about it seems to help to put it in perspective. Something else I'm going to have to remember, next time, and I'm quite sure there will be a next time. Thanks for listening. DO you do the same thing?

Design wall Monday March 29

How is it possible that it is Monday again already? Where did March go? The weather forecast for London is getting better. It should be up in the 70's by the end of the week. A great way to cure cabin fever. I should be able to get out into the garden by the end of the week. Yippee!! On my design wall is "Endless Chain", which is growing at quite a nice pace. So far, according to my rough estimate, I've used up almost 3 yards of scraps. The pile is starting to look smaller.. I had planned on working on a couple of customer quilts today, but have decided, since I worked this past weekend, to take today off and do some more work on this quilt, and do customer quilts tomorrow. How's that for a good excuse to procrastinate?

Cabin fever

I think I have a really bad case of cabin fever. I'm moody, and grumpy, and irritable, and can't seem to settle down to doing anything constructive. I feel like I'm jumping around inside my skin, and I don't like it, not one bit. It seems like this winter has gone on forever. I'm longing for warm breezes, warm sunshine, and sitting out in my yard watching the roses bloom. This is a pic of my shrub rose bush, in full bloom from last year, which I took from my lovely swing, where I have my coffee every morning in the warm weather. It's my favourite place to be to read, or do hand work, other than when we are off on one of our camping trips. I'm reading other blogs of people in the southern states, and they are talking about temperatures in the 70's, and here we sit, near freezing. I love my country, and wouldn't want to live anywhere else other than Canada, but, winter stinks............ there, I said it. I try to be patient, and I try not to complain, at least not publicly. I try to be positive, but, winter stinks. However, spring always comes, and always will as long as the earth endures, and yet, I still have cabin fever. I'm longing to get out into the garden and get my hands dirty. I love planting things and watching them grow. I love the smell of the lavender bushes, and the sound of the water on our pond. It's fun to watch the birds as they come to drink and bathe. Even the sound of the bees as they visit the rose bush is pleasant. Hmmmmmmm, I'm not sure if I'm helping myself here, or making it worse. (sigh) Right now, not even all the spring colours in my fabrics are helping the cause. I think I get it now why so many people travel south in March. The warm weather craving is critical. It helps to know that most of us feel this way, but still.........

Design wall Monday March 22

I'm a little late posting today, but I've been working on the star blocks for this BOM I'm doing. It's by Burning the Midnight Oil, which is in my blog list. I'm actually working on next month's blocks. This month's were the chain squares. But, I really like this quilt, and would like to get it into the finished category. Right now, the green in the star block is looking rather out of place, but I think it will be better when the other 3 are done. At least, I hope it will.

Sad goodbye

One of the most influential women in my life is gone. She passed away on Saturday. She was the woman who most exemplified the love of Jesus in my life, and is the person who led me to the Lord. She was my ex-mother-in-law, and, in spite of that, kept in touch with myself and my family. Of course, having my son as her grandson had something to do with it. In spite of all the family dynamics, she remained a kind and gracious lady. She never forgot an occasion to send a card, birthday's, Valentines day, Easter, Christmas. She showed me the kind of Grandmother that I want to be, when that day comes. I will miss her, until we meet again, in the Lord's kingdom. Good bye for now, Elsie.

I found my dress!

I took the dress that I was making for myself for Rebecca's wedding out of the closet the other day, and tried it on. I had put it into the closet because I wanted to lose some more weight before finishing it. There was something about it I just wasn't happy with, so, since I have lost about 13 pounds, I decided that I would give dress shopping another try, before investing any more time into the dress I was making. So, off Becca and I went, and who would have thought those pounds would make such a big difference. It's hard to get a really good picture of it, but enough to at least get an idea. It isn't really revealing, and it certainly isn't mother-of-the-bride frumpy. I love it! the actual colour is a bit darker and bluer. In addition to finding my dress, we also found shoes and jewelry to go with it. Then, we found her hairpiece for going above her veil, and her jewelry, and then we found necklaces and earrings for gifts for the bridesmaids. Woohoo. All in all a good couple of days worth of shopping were had by mother and daughter. It was fun to spend that time with her, too. She's in her final month of school at college, and it has been a brutal year for her, with not a lot of time available for anything outside school work, so it was nice to have that time, even if she did have to steal it from school work she should have been doing. I feel a whole lot better, too, now that I know what I am wearing, and that part is done, and can be crossed off the to do list. Huge sigh of relief. And now, I'm off to get ready for work.