Thoughts of a Grasshopper

  Our State Fair was virtual this year. I've always wanted to enter a quilt in a show but I'll be honest, I'm too lazy to sew the sleeve on the back of the quilt for it to hang. The fact that it was virtual and you sent in one picture and it was the people's choice worked for me.  The quilts entered were amazing. There is a lot of talent and skill out there. Needless to say, my quilt was not the winner. While they did post the name of the winner, we have no way of knowing which quilt was hers. I'm sure it was lovely and perhaps one of the quilts I would have voted for. 

I had only intended to make the pumpkin boxes pictured below but I went ahead and did the cat and witch hat. The packages held two Lindor Lindt truffles perfectly. I'm not sure who I'll be passing the Halloween treats off to. Perhaps neighbors. My husband already took a few into people at his office. I'm still not back to work, maybe next year. I usually skip the September box because I'm not good about shopping for something to fit in the packaging the month requires. I really liked the plaid pattern and my daughter was going shopping so I asked her to swing by Target for truffles. So happy they fit well. 

About 15 months ago a friend gave me his wife's fabric. She had passed away from cancer about 6 years ago. He requested that I make a quilt for him using her butterfly material. I cut the pieces a year ago in June. I sewed a few blocks together in August. Life got busier than usual and it sat on the shelf above my desk, a constant reminder that I needed to finish making this quilt. This is the second project that I completed because life slowed down due to COVID. I still have a quilt to make for his son, but he told me I can take my time. As did Ralph, but I wanted him to have his quilt as soon as I could make it. I share the above picture, not to show how horrible I am at taking pictures with my phone but because it captures the colors of the quilt better than the above picture where they seem much darker.  

I'm sharing this card long after I made it. I'm not listing supplies as it was from the Good Morning Magnolia Suite from the 2019-2020 catalog.

I ordered some Mix Tiles for our wall. I wanted to change out the four pictures and the vinyl phrase above them. For a long time, I've wanted to have pictures of nature there. the hard part would be choosing which ones. I couldn't decide if I should focus on bird pictures, flowers, etc. Then I learned of Mix Tiles. They are repositionable and come with the double-stick foam tape already attached. They were running a special and I decided to give it a go. I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning finding the pictures that would end up on our wall. Part of that was because I didn't know if the shopping cart would empty if I went to bed and continued the next day. So I continued. This wall has pictures of all the states we've lived in and some special places we've visited. My son and his girlfriend decided on the layout and put the pictures up while I made dinner. When it was done, I thought it matched perfectly with a wall hanging that hangs on the other side of ...

Let me tell you a little story. My friend's father passed away several years ago. Her mom was in the early stage of dementia. She had the task of packing up her parent's house and move her mom here. In talking about all she had to do, she mentioned her grandmother's genealogy. Loving family history like I do, I offered to scan what her grandmother had. She had mentioned there were a lot of pictures and documents. I was okay with that. She again tells me there is A LOT. I thought to someone that doesn't do genealogy a bin would seem like a lot. Wow! I misjudged this. She and her son delivered 13 boxes to me in October 2018. She wasn't kidding, there was A LOT!!  I began by taking a quick look in each box. I pulled a lot of duplicate items that ended up being a box of "trash" but I let her decide whether she kept those items, sent them off to family or disposed of it altogether. (This is long so here is a picture of fruit pie I made. Could have baked a littl...

  I've been sewing masks for over a month and have made over 250 (I stopped counting). The pattern requested is slower going than others but they sure have a nice finished look about them. My favorite mask I made is one of the ones my husband wears (the mask on the right in the picture below). The sewn masks are the AB Mask for a Nurse by a Nurse pattern. Google it. After several weeks of sewing the style above, I was introduced to a mask from t-shirts. I dug out some of my older, thicker ones that could stand to be retired and cut some out. I have a stack of them by the door and in my van for something quick if you forgot to wear one. I round out that center point for the nose. The original pattern was higher up on the cheeks but I found it best to snip down a little for the eyes.

The first positive thing from the closure due to the COVID pandemic is that I finally cut the fabric I bought last fall when Bonnie of Quiltville shared the color palette for the mystery quilt. Nifty wave look going on. The amazing part is that the top is made up of the block above and sashing.  This is the second mystery quilt from the past 7 years that I've managed to sew. I bought the fabric for the 2018-2019 quilt and never cut the fabric. I didn't want that to happen again, and this closure has provided the perfect opportunity to get busy with it. I just need to quilt and bind it now. Love how it turned out.