HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE MISTER!!!

March 5, 2013

Well we celebrated the mister's birthday this sunday and it was so much fun. Kendall made her famous rainbow cake and it was as delicious and moist as it looks!

 

it was so nice to show everyone the progress we've made on the house. we actually have our master bedroom almost totally done! (just the inside of the closet and the curtains to be finished). we can't wait to sleep in the bigger room! i am making roman shades for it and have them half way done. i hope to finish them today. i think that i am more excited over the prospect of having a rod to hang our clothes on. wooooooooooeeeee! this is the mister painting or coat closet. i've really been cracking the whip this week!

 while he's been busy with that i have been spending my time writing to people about my mother's passing and going through her things and working on kendall's birthday quilt. the top picture is of the mister playing vanna chip. i always ask his opinion on things and then (he claims) that i do what i want. can i help it if he hasn't said what i wanted to hear? i only have a few more weeks to get her quilt done. yikes! of course it would have helped if i hadn't decided to take the darker colors out of her quilt. i will be making a lap quilt out of them (see the bottom picture). the colors don't look much different but with the darker values, it changed the whole flavor of the quilt. kendall specifically asked for pastels and soft colors and i do want to give her that. she has great taste and knows what she wants. i love that in her. i am actually happy that i took the darker colors out because i think its going to make an awesome lap quilt. i should mention that i have never made a quilt out of solid colors before. i have actually rarely used solids in my quilts. i swear that i chose this style because i wanted to buy material and i didn't have enough solids in my very large stash to make a quilt with! i do love my material. just looking at it makes me happy. thanks again, amanda of crazymomquilts, for the tutorial on this pattern. it is fun to do.

 

on the animal front, my suet cakes were a huge success! i am making a second batch today. we are expecting another large (possibly) snowstorm starting tomorrow and i want to make sure my bird buddies are well fed. i gave the mister a really nice bird book for his birthday. we will both enjoy it. we think we're going to get into some serious birding once this house is near finished (i don't think it will ever be completely done!).

this is a beautiful small deer nibbling on the deer block we put in our back yard. recently, we've had two deer that are so big that i at first thought they were female moose. it was 3am and the moon lit up the back yard. the mister says no, it must have been deer but the jury is still out on that! we do have a very large moose that wanders through our property. his hoof prints are huge. one day we followed his prints to our garage window. he must have peeked in to see what was going on! we finally saw him at dusk one evening 2 summers ago. he stood on the other side of our car. we could still see his whole head with a huge antler rack on it. he calmly watched us watching him for a few minutes and then, without a sound, slipped into the woods. we didn't even hear a leaf rustle.....amazing! hopefully our front porch will be built and we can sit there on a balmy summer evening and watch the wildlife saunter through.

i have given up cursing for lent (its harder than you think) and so i am grateful that there is such a thing as lent so that i can give up this nasty habit. my cursing is mostly made up of words like OH CRAP, SON OF A B...., SH......, etc. i have thought more than once that it would have been easier to give up candy, like i usually do. i thought, this year, i'd give myself a challenge in honor of my mother, who never cursed. so this one is to honor the season of lent and you mom. i know you're smiling down on me thinking about how i was born with a spicy mouth. my son andrew is just like me in that respect and when he was voted (at the age of 8) of having the worst mouth in the neighborhood he smiled from ear to ear. he, in adulthood, has been able to get his cursing under control, so mom, send down your good vibes and help me through this! i am, as always, grateful for my whole family. they are so thoughtful and sweet and most of them never curse! i am also very grateful for my husband's good nature and good health. happy birthday mister! xoxo nancyb

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

 

Well, i had a very busy but successful week! Paxton seemed to truly love his quilt or was it the junk food we bought him to go in his "man room"? i think he loved both :>}. the quilt looked great on his bed. his grandfather tucked a few 10 dollar bills in the pockets and i tucked a note for him in one of the pockets. the nicest thing about our grands is that if we had given him just a dollar in a card i would have gotten as nice a hug and thank you. they're so sweet!

i have been working on kendall's quilt. i was loving it but all of a sudden it wasn't flowing like at first. after changing the blocks around a few times i made a decision to make her a whole other quilt! i finally figured out what the problem with this quilt was. if you look at the bottom row (not a great picture, sorry!) and see the really dark colors..........they were changing the whole persona of the quilt. i took them out and as you can see from the top picture it is back to look bright and cheerful again. our kendall is a very happy and energetic girl and i want her quilt to reflect that.

 

while trying to decide if i should make kendall a different quilt i got out 2 unfinished 1930's quilts. these are the colors kendall likes. i put nora jean to the task of choosing which one was better for my granddaughter. nora looked at them for a long time and then went underneath them to check out the backs (boy, she's a tough judge!) and then finally decided on the one i was leaning toward. she settled on it and promptly took a long nap. if you think i'm kidding about her making a decision for me i have to tell you, she almost always naps on the other side of the couch! well, the next day i went back down to my sewing studio and figured out what was really wrong with the quilt i had originally started for kendi. i took out the 6 squares that had the really dark colors in them and i'm back to happily making squares for the first quilt that i started. this episode has a really good ending though because now i want to finish these two 1930s quilts. they'd make great summer quilts for my beds! maybe i'll finish one for my son and daughter in law. i think they're due for a new quilt!

on the homefront, we got a ton of snow and so have been vigilant about keeping our birdfeeder and suets filled. i tried making my own suet cakes and they came out really good. i used the plastic containers from the suets we bought and it made it so easy. we have our deer back and they  are enjoying the deerblocks. this year we are seeing the birds, squirrels and a turkey pecking at the blocks. this last picture is the sunset that we see each evening in our back yard. the outline of the mountain is nh's mount chocorua. i've read where they've minted a quarter with chocorua on it. i've got to get me some!!!

well, today i am ever so grateful for the beauty that surrounds me. i am especially grateful for the mister who bought me yellow roses (i'll tell that story some time), a new cutting board, some quilty basting spray, a magazine, some good and plenty candy and a really cute card for valentine's day. since he has to work today from 6am to 7pm i'm making him a heart shaped meatloaf (i stole this idea from my sister) with baked potato and carrots and raisin filled cookies for dessert. i'll wait to eat until he gets home. we'll open a bottle of wine and we'll eat in front of the tv to watch american idol and i will wait on him hand and foot. yesterday i made him, FROM SCRATCH!, cinnabons for him to take to work today......that way he'll think of me allllllll day. happy valentines to all! nancyb

February 6, 2013
Where Have I Been?

MY MOM

Well I am back and haven't given up on my blog just yet! i have been very busy with my mother. she went into congestive heart failure in october and slowly but daily went down hill. She died on January 17th. since we moved up north it was an almost 2 hour drive each way and i visited her almost daily. i have no regrets about that because my mother was such an interesting, funny and busy person. my sister, brother and i (as well as many others) will miss her greatly. i know that my life and personality has been shaped by the kind of mom she was. her love of crafts was unfounded. in 2009 her nursing home entered a blanket she had knitted for my brother (she almost always gave away everything she made) into a yearly contest that the state has for senior citizens. there are 12 winners (one for every month of the year) and she was chosen as Miss April! they had a wonderful dinner and award ceremony for the winners and i was so proud to attend. what made her knitted blanket so special was that each colored square had a state knitted in garter stitch. despite the fact that she had no vision in one eye and diminished vision in the other, she was able to follow the patterns for the states. her determination to not just DO things, but to do them well really allowed her to live the life she wanted. she didn't let anything get in her way when she wanted to accomplish something. I also have to add that the nursing home (Revera Nursing home in Rochester NH) always encouraged and helped all residents to get involved with as much as they were physically able. if they couldn't do it themselves they would find someone to help them. my mother was there for 12 years and my siblings and i have not one complaint about them. that, i think, is saying something! they were kind and so caring, not just to her, but to us also. it helped us immensely. it's a hard thing..this dying but we all have to go through it.

meanwhile..........while i was busy traveling to the seacoast and the mister was working, nora jean kept herself busy with her favorite tv channel.......animal planet. her favorite shows are about cats in the wild but she also watches bird shows with great interest.

this is what i've been working on since my mother passed. it is for my grandson, Paxton's 14th birthday. he and his sister got new full size beds for christmas and i thought it was time for new quilts. this quilt was huge and HEAVY! the center patches are cut out from old jeans that the mister and i have worn. i wanted it to be boyish but not babyish. i cut out a patch from my  light jeans for the far left corner......i will write the date and info on that patch. on the far right, i cut out a pocket from the mister's jeans that has his wallet imprint on it. i will tuck some money from the mister in that pocket. the next picture is the mister helping me sandwich that monster. boy, we were both soaked with sweat when we finally finished! that is the only part of quilting i don't like but that is because it is so hard to do. my hq16 quilted it beautifully. i made very simple cross hatch lines on it. it was too big to get fancy with and he, at 14, doesn't like frills. that's all that was left to do after i sewed on the binding was for nora jean to break it in. she put as much kitty love in it as she could and i thanked her profusely for the cat hairs.

i am working on my granddaughter, Kendall's, quilt next. i am using a tutorial from amanda jean at crazy mom quilts. i am using all plain mostly kona cottons for it. these are the colors she wants in her room and i figure we can pick out a nice print for her curtains. it will be as big as pax's but it shouldn't be as heavy because i'm not using any jeans! i'll post my progress in the next blog. her birthday is next month and i'm determined to finish it for her. btw, go to amanda jeans blog.....its really great! she is a prolific quilter with a wonderful eye for color and patterns. thank you for the tutorial amanda!

well, that's it for now. i will be writing much more often now. today i am grateful for all of my family and friends. i am glad my mother is at peace and that i was able to share her last days with her. i am so very grateful for father dan. his kindness and enthusiasm warmed my heart and was much needed. i am especially grateful for the mister's support during this sad time and of course, the comfort of nora jean.
i'll write again soon, nancyb

What a BUSY November!

November 30, 2012

my mother turned 85 this month and we all went down and celebrated her birthday with her. the nursing home that she's in has a really wonderful craft fair every year and this year it was the day before her birthday. the food that they were selling was outstanding! huge whoopie pies and homemade bread to name a few things. most of the people you see in the pictures have worked in the nursing home the whole time my mother has been there (12 years). it is amazing to me that in those 12 years i have only good things to say about the nursing home and the employees. they are so caring and add little touches to the residents lives that make them feel like they have a home. i am so grateful to them for that.

this picture is of me, my son andrew and my mom. it is thanksgiving day and the mister and I and andrew always go to dinner at the home with my mom. it is such a great meal and for some reason i don't have any pictures of it. i know i took some! they set up round tables with nice tablecloths and placetags (we buy tickets) and volunteers serve us our beverages and desserts. it is buffet style and the chefs stand at the buffet table carving nice slices of turkey and ham and wonderful mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and about 5 different veggies. at the end of the meal they go around with trays of different types of homemade pies. my mother had two pieces! she is well known for her sweet tooth and they happily gave her what she wanted. it was a nice time. after that meal we go to the mister's brother's house and have another thanksgiving meal. he is an outstanding cook and he and his wife always put on a wonderful meal. its quite a festive day for us!

i do have to add that as we started out on thanksgiving day and came to the end of our street i always look for the chickens that are at the farm we pass. (i want chickens some day). that day they were in the middle of their large pen. i said to the mister, "huh, all the chickens are huddled together in the middle of the pen." he replied absolutely straight faced without missing a beat, "oh, they're probably holding services for their departed friends". i was still laughing miles down the road. the mister is a very funny man!

I think i have mentioned that my favorite quilts to make are I SPY quilts. every child that i have a special place in my heart for, has one. when the mister & I went to our good friends' daughter's wedding, their twin grandgirls were there (and in the wedding looking soooo adorable). they are 4 now and i realized on the long ride home that i had never mailed them the I SPY quilts that i had made them last winter!!! our house was so unfinished and unorganized that i'm surprised i got them done! well, i cleaned off the nora jean cat hairs and mailed them off that week! i've made so many of them that they are easy & fun for me to do. I love fussy cutting the squares and do that when i need some quiet and calming time. i have boxes of fussy cut shapes that i pull out when i'm in the mood to put an I SPY quilt together. it is also fun to look for interesting material that i can use in the quilts. i can usually get 5-10 different hexagons out of a piece of material.  these quilts are so much fun for young children. i have two "grandma" quilts that i keep at the house and the grands still sleep under them when they stay over. when they were little, before they would go to sleep i would play games with them using the quilts.....who can find a monkey first? who can find a picture that matches the other quilt? can you find a picture that doesn't match any others? they are 13 & 11 now so they don't play with them much but they do sleep under them.....sigh.....all grown up almost!

another thing i finished this month was a sweatshirt for my sister. i bought a sweatshirt from a thrift shop and trimmed it and added a zipper and pockets. i made one for my mother for her birthday (again that would be with the missing thanksgiving pictures) and my sister talked about how she still wore the one my mother made her many years ago. these are so comfortable and great for wearing around the house. while i was working on it i could not keep nora jean from laying on it. when it was finished i dehaired it thoroughly and draped it over the back of the kitchen chair so that she couldn't lay on it again. i went off to do something and when i came back she was on the table leaning against the chair with her tail draped over the sweater. i mailed it to my sister with my apologies for the cat hairs. i told her that nora wanted to put as much love into the sweater as i had because she really does love her "aunt beth". i mailed that yesterday and she should receive it tomorrow. i am counting on her not reading my blog until after it arrives! it's a surprise!

 

i am quite proud of myself for solving a problem we had with blue jays. they had taken over our feeder, not letting all the little guys in. i put my feather duster in the window and spent a morning shaking it every time they went to the feeder (there were 4 of them and they were big!). the nuthatches, chickadees and finches weren't bothered in the least by the feather duster. it has been 2 weeks and i see them in the trees but they haven't been near the window! i think the (color at least) reminds me & them? of the barred owl that we have in our back yard. oh, btw, we saw our piliated woodpecker for the first time in a year! it was nice to see that he's still around!  nora jean jumped on the table and posed for me while i was taking the pictures. she takes her jobs in this house very seriously!well, i'm off to sew in my "studio". the last item on my "have to do list" are some curtains for my french doors. i'll take pictures when i'm done. even though i make nice curtains, i really do hate to make them. they are a pain in the neck but i have to say they come out looking really nice and will last for at least 10 years and longer if i can help it!

lately i've been thankful for everything that i have. sometimes i forget all the things i have and concentrate on all that i want or don't have. i have all of the important things and i hope you do too.
i'll be blogging again really soon in honor of my son andrew's birthday.

until then, hugs and good thoughts, nancyb

A Prolific Quilting Week!

November 10, 2012

 

This is the first quilt that i totally finished this week. it's called the "mile a minute" quilt (i think) and it's supposed to take you less than an hour to sew the top (after cutting the strips). you can make it with a jelly roll but i used my accuquilt go and my 2.5" die and my own stash. it took me about 3 hours to do because i really took my time, listened to an audio book and just sewed. it was fun. now the back took another 3 hours because i decided to use up the leftover material and make a scrappy back. then for the quilting! i never know how long it takes me to do quilty projects because i'm always stopping and interrupting my work. this time i listened to the audio book "a separate peace". it was 13.5 hours long and i finished my quilt about 15 minutes after the book finished. i haven't used my hq16 for a LONG time and it took me a bit to get back into the rhythm of things but it was like getting back on the horse. the quilting totally makes this quilt interesting. i did free motion flowers on it in different sizes. i also used the frixion pens to mark it and with a touch of an iron the ink was gone. so to sum up, this lap sized quilt took 2hrs(cutting fabric) plus 3 hrs(sewing top together) plus 3hrs(back and sandwich) plus 14hrs(quilting) plus 2 hours(binding) = 24 hours to make this quilt! wow, that's the first time i've ever kept track of how much time i've invested into a project! the missouri star quilt company has a tutorial to make this quilt if you're interested. this quilt is going to one of our best friends' daughter who is getting married tomorrow.

the second quilt i finished this week is the modern? quilt that i've been working on for the past few months. this is for the same family. their son was married in september and we were not able to attend the wedding. this took me much less time to quilt because i did straight lines. i used my hq16, my frixion pens for marking and i free motion quilted it. i don't think it took me more than 4 hours to quilt it. piecing the top and the back took much more time than the mile a minute quilt. i used my fancy stitches with some variegated thread i had and it added some pizzaz to the back. i think if i had kept track i would have found it took about the same amount of time for this quilt. i am lucky that i like all the processes of making a quilt. i think they will both like their quilts. the mister and i do!

as a bridal shower gift for both of them i made a sewing kit. i put scissors, pins, needles, clips, buttons, thread, a pincushion that i made and the most important item.....iron on hemming tape. i can remember i could have used that more than once when my family was young and the mister and i were working many hours and running around for our 3 sons. i made it so that they could take it if they were traveling or stick it in a drawer when they are at home. i hope they like it and find it useful. i am thinking of making some for gifts for my sons & daughter in law. i used my joannes coupons for the items and really didn't spend too much on it.

nora jean took a real liking to this quilt and whenever and wherever i set it down she plopped on it. the other quilt she didn't really bother with. i wonder if she could see the colors better on this one? i know that cats can't see all colors. she was quite miffed when i shooed her off  of it and jumped back on the table several times and laid back down on it. usually she just strolls off kind of like she didn't care anyway. i was trying to clean the cat hairs off of it so that i could take pictures and then wrap it!

well our weather has been quite blustery but not really too cold. we love it like this. we've been bringing wood in and stoking up the stove. this year, with the extra insulation we put in last spring, it has been keeping the house pretty toasty. we've had some very aggressive bluejays that have been taking over the feeder. bummer! they're such a beautiful bird but they're not into sharing!

well, this week i love: weddings, windy weather, birds, QUILTING, the mister and of course nora jean. have a great week and i will too. nancyb

Who's cuter? Nora Jean, Mr. Evening Grosbeak or my sister?

November 1, 2012

I can't believe it's been so long since i've written! my mom is still hanging in there but was so bad that my sister flew out from wichita kansas for 2 weeks to help me and my mom cope with this. mom has made a feeble recovery for now but still remains pretty frail. it seems my sister's visit really bolstered her spirits and gave her the strength she needed to pull through this latest setback. if anyone wonders how much a visit to a loved one (friend or relative) means take it from me. it really helps. attitude is everything in life. keep a good one and you'll have a happy life.

 

 

i need everyone to tell me who they think is the cutest. #1 nora jean took her normal position on a pile of freshly laundered quilts (they were wallhangings and table runners) that i unpacked to use about the house. i left the room for 5 minutes and when i came back she had settled herself in for a nice nap. i have to tell you that she takes her job very seriously and if i (as politely as possible) remove her from the newest project she is totally insulted and sulks for quite a bit of the day. the second picture is of an adorable male evening grosbeak that spent 2 days at our feeder with 3 female grosbeaks. he would catch our eye in the window & tap on it before he hopped over to the feeder. he obviously is used to feeders and people and cats and kept us quite amused while he was here.#3 is my sister laughing at herself. we got up late (7:30!) one day but i insisted that we go by the beautiful covered bridge up the road from us to take pictures. her hair wasn't dry so she kept it in rollers for the 2 hour ride to visit our mother. i assured her that NOONE would care or probably even notice her rollers up here in the north country. we are all very casual. just as we parked our car to take pictures a tour bus of senior citizens pulled up. as people were getting off the bus my sister greeted each with a smile and pointing to her rollers, apologized for the state of her hair. people smiled and walked off to see the bridge.she didn't even realize that she was doing this until i pointed it out to her. she & i and the people getting off of the bus had a good laugh over this. she's going to kill me for putting this picture on the blog but it was too cute not to. besides, i'm her baby sister and she forgives me everything.

i haven't had much time to quilt but am determined to finish this one! this is the front and the backof my still unnamed modern-like? quilt. the back looks kind of like a modern quilt, don't you think? i'm going to try to sandwich it today and start quilting on it tomorrow. i have an hq16 which nora jean loves to sit on while i quilt. i haven't used it for some time and i'm afraid i'm going to be quite rusty.   i promise i'll show you the finished results.

going down to my sewing studio has been so calming for me. i can't wait until i can do a little bit (or a lot!) of sewing every day. in our old house, i had such a nice setup. i was able to just walk in the room and work on a project. some times it was only for a few minutes and other times longer but i didn't feel hurried when i was in my room. it always settled  me. hopefully when my studio is all put together i'll have the same sense of order. the mister and i have been planning how it will be when we start putting the finishing touches on it. it will be a while before it is done but i enjoy just daydreaming about it. one of the nice things about it not being finished is that it gives me time to decide how i want it set up. i don't plan on moving anything once it's done! i really hate decorating! it was nice to have my sister see my space because she does like putting a room together and has had several good ideas for me to follow. well, my bread just beeped and is done. time to get back to my chores.
today i love, my mother, the mister, nora jean and especially my sister who came out here when both our mother and i needed her the most. i love the fact that i didn't think of my sister and i as the same age as the senior citizens getting off of the tour bus.  i also love a good attitude and getting things done! have a great day and i will too! nancyb