Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Inch by inch...row by row....(Pete Seeger if you're old enough!)

Continuing on . . . "inch by inch.....etc....we've got to make this garden grow..." Anybody old enough to remember Pete Seeger of the Weavers as well as the writer of classic "protest" songs like "If I Had a Hammer" and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" and "Turn, Turn, Turn" and countless others?????

Anyway...so the journeys continue....inch by inch...step by step....life journeys, quilting journeys, spiritual journeys, crafting journeys....

We had a GREAT weekend in middle Tennessee...I mowed and mowed over our rough ground and was thankful to be able to do so in spite of the pain. Thankful because after my auto accident of 8 years ago "they" weren't sure if I'd be able to walk again and thankful because my sweetie Evan has difficulties thanks to a knee replacement and now rheumatoid arthritis! This for a man who's in the construction - or should I say DEstruction - business after giving up a teaching career as band director and choral teacher to rejoin his father in business. (Evan does a fair amount of blasting in the scope of his utility work, therefore the DEstruction comment - teehee) ANYWAY - got lots done and managed to still spend some time in the pool! The water is a little cool (74 - 78 F, which is cool unless you're doing laps) but feels soooo good to my feet and legs.

I've been inspired by some little doll quilts seen on various sites like Calamity Kim's and am itching to get started. In the meantime I'm trying to finish up some quilt postcards - will try to get a pic or two in here. In the meantime, here is something I did on perforated paper whilst bedridden after the above-mentioned wreck. (designed and charted it myself before stitching)
Don't know why the picture came out in the wrong place!! DRAT!!! I do fairly sophisticated IT things at my work with complicated medical software, but I'm a doofus newbie trying to manipulate a blog! Patience, please....
Gratitudes today:
  • the smoke around is from far away and not from nearby fires and heartache
  • my little Carolina wren still sitting on her eggs in my backpack on the porch table!
  • the Canada geese on the big pond who still have their 4 babies (nearly grown)! This is the first time in years the parents have managed to help the babes evade the dreadful snapping turtles who grab the goslings (or baby wood ducks) as they swim behind mommy and daddy! (the goose and gander actually marched them over hill and dale literally between ponds at least 4 times this year)
And, thank you, Covered Porches, for your supportive comments. I'm learning from you and others.
Life is wonderful!









Tuesday, May 22, 2007

It's Ugly, but it was Fun


Not quite sure why I even scanned this, other than we had a new multi-function machine and needed (at least I thought so) to test the scanning part. You know, like when as a kid you had some change in your pocket that cried out to be spent. This little orphan block was handy. That's why it was scanned and was available to put here in the blog. So I did. I had been playing with doing "wonky" stuff with no pattern or clear plan after poking around in Gwen Marston's book Liberated Quiltmaking and used some scraps bought at the local quilt store back when they sold bags of pieces and strips left from the making of kits, etc. for $1. (No, those pieces aren't dirty - they're batiks!) Great stuff for experimenting with because you had no real investment! And I even got some cool Jan Mullen pieces and some reproduction fabric pieces that way, too. It was an educational process, too, because I learned that taking 1/4" out of two sides of a strip doesn't leave you much sometimes! And I didn't pay any attention to how it was placed on the scanner, I realize, from looking at it....it's sideways.....I had no intention of the center piece looking like an outhouse! (maybe only folks from the hills of Tennessee would even think about that . . . teehee)


And so we travel on.



Gratitudes of the morning:


  • the sight and sound of all the birds as they go about their morning routines


  • the mist over the pond


  • the sunshine on the trees of the hill opposite my window (it will be here shortly)


  • the fact that God gave us this gloriously beautiful place to live when He could have given us flat and grey and we wouldn't have known the difference

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Journeying means . . .




LIFE itself is a journey, rather than a destination - we're all somewhere on the journey. There's no such thing as "having arrived" - duh! We're going from being young to being older, we're a bit further down the road toward heaven, etc. Hobbies like quilting are journeys, too - you have an idea or see a pattern, you fondle your fabric and pull out bits and pieces and make some cuts....then you put some of them together and marvel at the wonder colors and patterns produce! You still don't have a quilt, though - you're on the journey to a quilt, and it is wonderful. You pick an embroidery project like the wonderful Crabapple Hill patterns...you transfer the pattern and find the floss....and enjoy the stitching - again, it's the journey you're on and the journey you're enjoying.
I love the commercial for some kind of celebrity cruising where after having folks comment on their special celebrity treatment there is the man, obviously back in his everyday environment at the window saying, "I look on this as a temporary exile." Well, that's exactly what it is!!! We're here on earth temporarily! We don't live here forever - we're pilgrims on a journey. And, O, how sweet it can be! I am so blessed with my family, my church family, the beautiful spot on earth where we live...and on and on!! Yet wonderful as this is, it's nothing to compare with what's ahead! The journey is often wonderful, sometimes very, very difficult....but it is leading to the best of all possible destinations.

Here are a couple of pics . . . I hope . . .

The first step


I've been enjoying a number of blogs lately and just decided to take the plunge myself! I'm interested first in being a woman who pleases God, but I'm also interested in quilting, embroidery, and crafting. Not to mention gardening - or attempting to garden in a small way.


Just to get started, I'm going to attempt to include a picture of part of our front porch, showing a hanging fuschia that was home to a family of Carolina wrens (they raised 2 sets of babies there!) and wishing you could smell the heavenly scent of the mimosa trees. I'll have to take some pictures of needlework stuff, too! Forgot about the light string - much to the dismay of my husband and daughter, I like to leave some of the Christmas lights hanging on the porch because the birds enjoy them so much. The birds will perch on the light strand while deciding which feeder to visit or which flower to visit....even the hummingbirds perch there. I love to watch and listen to the birds...love to heady fragrance of the purple petunias which are a MUST for the porch every year. The red thing is a bench I made several years ago for flowerpots to rest on during their winters in the house. The porch is a wonderful place to let cares and stresses float away on the breeze and let the wonder of God's creation wash over me.


I hope somebody sees this and comes back to check on me!