The house of interesting chandeliers…..

On our return trip from Texas, we stopped by Hattiesburg, Mississippi to visit our friends, David and Lyn. They have recently purchased a new home with a gorgeous wrap around porch…..

……complete with some very interesting light fixtures.

This one was my favorite and was over the dining room table……

This one hung in a very small guest bathroom…..

….and this beauty was in the Master Bedroom…..

I have never seen chandeliers painted black, but it was quite effective!!!

We had a wonderful, if very short, visit with these dear friends!!!

Change of pace

While Michael was gone last week, I had planned to work as hard as I could on the Flower Pot quilt, hoping to have a fair amount of the quilting done before he returned. But, then came the opportunity to have lunches and dinners with various friends so I enjoyed the time of catching up and relaxing with them.

Then I got to thinking about one of my daughter’s friends who has recently been diagnosed with Breast Cancer. She is about to go thru extensive Chemotherapy followed by a Mastectomy and then more Radiation. As I thought about her, I knew that I wanted to make her a quilt.

I dug into my closet and found a group of blocks that I had started playing with back in January. See the original post here.

I cut some additional navy rectangles and started sewing like crazy to get a top finished……

I added one navy border and then started thinking about a second border…..

I really liked the top left fabric so I cut another border with the idea that I would add yet another Navy one to the outside. However, I really liked how it looked with just the narrow border and then bound with a bit wider binding.

Here is the finished quilt…..

It is my hope and prayer that it will provide warmth and comfort during the next months of her life!!!!

Enjoying our Elders…..

A couple of weeks ago we spent the evening with a wonderful couple, Harold and Harriet W.

They are both in their 80’s and have lived a full and varied life. They both have PhD’s and were involved in education for most of their lives.

Early on in their marriage, they lived for about 18 months in Alaska. Harriet has written a book that is based on the letters that she wrote to her Mother during the time away. It was a very interesting look at life in that frozen world!!

Harold has written several books about his time in the Air Force and is in the process of publishing yet another book about his life.

They both have a great love for God and have spent their lives honoring Him in the things that they do.

WHAT A GREAT INSPIRATION!!!! Michael and I both want to use their lives as a blueprint and hope that we are still active and vibrant as we get older.

Thanks Harold and Harriet for allowing us into your home and for sharing your life with us…….

Quilt From a Friend….

Two years ago my friend, Pat Kools, passed away. Since Pat was so active in the Charity work of our guild, her children decided to give us a bunch of her quilts that we could either use as charity quilts or sell and put the money towards the charity projects.

I was fortunate to purchase one at our last quilt show…..

This simple little piece is hand appliqued and hand quilted, but there is very little quilting on it.

My original thought was to add a lot of quilting in the background, but as I hung it up to photograph I realized that it hadn’t been basted well enough and that it would never hang flat.

SO….now I am thinking about taking out all of the quilting, re-baste it and start over with hand quilting and possibly add some beads as well.

We are spending 5 weeks in China later this year and I believe that it will be the piece that I take with me.

I am looking forward to working on this piece and will enjoy fond memories of my friend!!!

Dye day with Deb

Back in January when there were inches of snow on the ground, my friend Deb H. and I got together to do some fabric dyeing. We had a need for a certain type of background fabric and our goal for the day was to make this fabric.

We originally thought of snow dyeing, but decided that 1)….it would take too long, 2)…..we didn’t have the best paints for it, and 3)….there was such a heavy crust of ice on top of the snow that it would take us forever to gather what we needed.

So….on to the next possibility…..

We taped the PFD fabric down to the plastic covered space and sprayed it with a good bit of water…..

We then went to the paints and started mixing colors, using mostly Setacolor and Dynaflow paints…..

Next step was to apply the paints to the fabrics…..

We rolled the fabric…..

And then unrolled it to reveal the final surface…..

We put them outside to dry (or rather freeze), sprinkling some of them with salt to enhance the texture…..

I forgot to take a photo of the fabric after it had been washed and ironed, but suffice it to say that they will be perfect for our intended project……if we ever get around to it!!!!