Really!

I discovered yesterday that it didn't matter if I was ready or not, the leaves are turning color and falling to the ground.  There is a little flutter in my heart as I look in the rear view mirror while driving down the road and see them dancing behind me as I travel.  It is quite apparent that this year has flown by, and Mother Nature is not concern of my inability to keep up and wrap my head around the fact that my life this year has been a total whirlwind.  

Watching my four little grandsons grow is as most of you can relate a wild ride.  They are starting to become little people, you can see their personalities start forming, share experiences and enjoy them without all the work of raising children in todays world.  I had a "date" with the youngest one last week and it was pure delight as he blew kisses to the girls at the shop and announced there were "bock-bocks" (chickens) at Smith's Mercantile.  

This morning while listening to the radio while investigating the world online the woman doing the news had the nerve to say there are 97 days till Christmas.  What, less that one hundred day?  How can that be?  I have things to do, there is a garden to finish, tired pots of flowers that must go away, deck furniture, what happened?  I'm not done with summer!  There is so much I still want to do.

One of the events of this year is cleaning out my mother in laws house.  She had a 97 year journey and many blessings.  We found a quilt that none of us had ever seen.  It is a friendship quilt, with delicate embroidery of thirty women.  This quilt is in very good condition for as old as it is (we are thinking maybe ninety years) but there is no label, no note, and we will never know the story behind it.  A wedding quilt, perhaps it was made when someone moved away, we will never know.  But what I do glean from this is that women for many generations have been creating with fabric, honoring their friends and family with their efforts.  

We all quilt for multiple reasons, and one of the best is that it lasts, it is a labor of love, all those memories and stories are wrapped up in them.  Labels are a good thing, notes folded inside would be a good thing, and sharing is a good thing.

Recovery and renewal....

This has been a very challenging year for me.  The decision has now been made to recover, and get over it.  Renew my goals, make better use of my time and enjoy this position that I have in life.  Things are not exactly going as I thought they would, several bleeps on the radar, construction projects so to speak.  There are still mountains to climb speaking only as a metaphor  because that one is not on my bucket list.  But there are things to overcome, things that will challenge me, and hopefully things that when I actually do achieve that I will have that same feeling that reaching the summit awards.

So my commitment today is that each day will involve creating at least a few stitches that will be part of  the fiber of my being.  Helping to create something that will live beyond me, or at least bring me the joy of doing something that will stay done.  

It is interesting that at this stage of the game there is so much left to learn about myself.  

Who am I,  and why didn't I know these things about myself before now?

So in the next few weeks/months while my body heals, it is my hope that my soul will heal and become full again.  I am thinking that there is a lot of joy out there and the important thing is to touch it, appreciate it, and dig for more.  

SO.....today, I am starting a new quilt, paper pieced, of some very happy fabrics that surely look 

like summer to me.  They will make me smile as I stitch my way through my "summer vacation".

This is a picture of a quilt owned by my daughter.  This quilt has started lots of things.  First of all, I LOVE English Paper Piecing.  I find it relaxing, convenient, and most of all a very easy process.  Now you won't be finishing it overnight, but you have to remind yourself that it is the process you will enjoy.  The other thing that came to pass from this quilt is a relationship with a northwest company that makes the paper shapes for us.

My quilt like this is coming together very nicely, in fact, it is in ten pieces now.  So soon this vision will be a reality.  I admit to having an on and off relationship with most of my hand pieced projects, so when the get close to reaching the finish line it gets very exciting.

This one has been put on the shelf for a while do to Shop Hop preparation and summer in general.  But I have a goal and it will be done by the 1st of August.

EPP is a perfect anytime project, but I intend to sit on the deck this summer with my bag of pieces and thirty years from now my family can say, this is one Granny did.

I did it!

Amazingly I got something real done today, something that will last.

Yes, I did it, finally got the borders on a batik confetti quilt.  What a rush it is to get something ready to go to the shop to be quilted.  

I love the fact that while I still can't do a lot of things, I can sew.  I can create, I can make something that will last longer than I will.

What would my life be without fabric, color, and creating?  Hmmmm.... let's not go there.

I love batiks, their colors are so rich and deep, much better than these photos, but trust me, this quilt is so pretty.  I can hardly wait for it to be quilted.  Love the rich colors.

Two weeks......

Have you every looked back at your life and thought nothing happens, everything stays the same?  I do that all the time, feeling very much in a comfortable routine, work, grocery store, home, repeat.  I have to say that the last two weeks of my life have been very different as I am recovering (exceptionally well) from a hip replacement.  Two week ago today I had my hair cut very short cause laying around never makes for good hair.

We, (the girls at the shop) had been batting around the idea of moving things, like perhaps the civil war fabrics should go up front where there is more light, and then the batiks could all go where civil war was, and 30's where the batiks were, and it is non-stop from there.  Well, a couple of phone calls and we (they) were off to the races.  I feel pretty lame in this process as I was laying in the hospital and they were working themselves to pieces.  Now I wasn't there, but I have participated in this kind of process enough to know those girls rock!  That is hard work and I am just amazed as to what they have accomplished.

It is just so much more amazing in person I do hope you will come in and visit.  I have the privilege of working with a great team of women.  They work together, they laugh together, they pitch in for each other, and I can't imagine my life without them.  

So in the last two weeks they shop and I have both been transformed.  I will be back, not soon enough as I miss my freedom and the social aspect of the shop.  But I am trying to soothe myself with what I  have accomplished in the last two weeks, and some sewing projects are getting done albeit slowly.  It is  good to have a creative outlet and to be able to say I have at least accomplished something while healing.  Back to sewing on borders!

The Sewing Room

So interesting to me how life takes twists and turns and how you think that things will never change.  But they do.  Lately I have had some dramatic changes in my life dropped like a shoe that was stored on the top shelf of the closet.  Whack, right on the head.

This is when I crawl back into my comfort zone, start to cozy up my house, have dates with my grandsons and make sure that those around me know how much I love them, appreciate them and need them.

The other thing I depend on is my sewing room.  It is like being in my very own little "Panic Room", or "Bomb Shelter".  It is all mine, things are where I want them, and who gets in is up to me as well.  I used to call this a sewing "hole" because it is really a small space, but things have changed in there and it deserves more respect now.  It is truly my "happy place".

Just off the middle of the house my room sits and waits for me.  Every time I walk in there I can feel myself saying "AH".  Recently my little room has gotten a facelift and it is so pretty now, much more organized, and useable.   Still have some collections of fabric to put away, but it is a process.  And yes, I totally share this space with Fuzz.

Having your own space is important, no matter if it is a closet, or a corner, or the dining room table.  We all need a place to be ourselves, to be creative and sometimes just to hide from the real world.  My sewing room has seen me in lots of circumstances, it has been abused at times, but still is constantly there, waiting for me to walk in and it just makes me happy.

This is my inspiration.  This wall of organization!  This is the way I want to live.  I have done the footwork, the planning, the construction, and have enjoyed the appreciation of the accomplishment.  The interesting part that I didn't count on was the constant work involved in keeping things this way.

It is a process that has to become habit.  I know how wonderful this is and it works for this application.
AND I can achieve this in other spaces in my house, but the sewing room (hole) is a different story.

I have a very small space, right in the middle of the house where everything gets "dumped".  It is the "out of sight, out of mind" area.  There are no windows, just one door.  It appears that I need to give this area more respect.  To change it into my space for creativity.  I want to sew more, I feel the need to sew more, but first I have to once again, take care of my space.  

Time to weed out the things I know I won't do and the things I won't use again.  I have a busy couple of weeks ahead, but hopefully there will be some progress in there as well.