Category: quilting

Blended family · Casa de Ortega · grief · Life after loss · quilting · Widow · Wife

Oh Boy! Good Mail Day!

Wild Rose Quilter4 Comments

The rest of the fabrics I ordered to go with the ones I pulled from my stash for soon to be Baby Z’s quilt arrived today! I have to get these washed and pressed so I can get started cutting my squares! I’m so excited to see how this comes together! 


If you’ve read the previous post, you know I’m planning to make a chevron quilt. The light gray print on bottom will be the background for the zig zags in the other colors. Then there may or may not be an appliqué added on top in the darker gray in this next photo. 


Either way, I can’t wait to work on it! I absolutely adore this next piece of fabric. I only ordered one yard to use  in the  light blue zig zag, but now I think I must get more because this fabric just needs to be the backing also!! I was going to make the backing from the light gray print, but I’m just too in love with this blue and all the sweet sayings in it. 


I needed a dose of  pretty fabric “medicine”. A dear friend passed away yesterday. He was like a brother to my late husband, who passed away five years ago this past May. I think a wonderful reunion is happening on the other side. 

And, my new Prince and I took his young prince back to the  airport today to fly home to his mom and stepdad. We really enjoyed the past two weeks with this sweet young man. I’ve only known him for two years, but our relationship has come very easily. We seem to have bonded well. I already miss having him here. I know Efren does! I wish he didn’t live ten hours away from us, so we could be together much more often. I snapped some pics of him and his dad before we left. Love these guys and I’m thankful to have them in my life now. 

family · quilting

Wrapping Them in Love

Wild Rose Quilter2 Comments

Isn’t that one of the best things about being a quilter? Being able to literally wrap your loved ones in something you made with love!? These photos from my daughter-in-law of my sweet grand baby C snuggled in the quilt I made him made my heart melt. 

His big brother C sleeps under this quilt I made for him and I love how it looks on his bed. 

I now have a plan for Baby Z’s quilt, and am anxiously waiting on an order of fabrics to arrive to go with the pieces I have pulled from my stash so I can get started on the piecing. This is the bedding his mom bought for his crib. 

It looks like it was made to go with C’s quilt! What a coincidence! So, I decided that baby Z’s quilt will  be a chevron quilt, and after perusing different ways to put them together, I ran across another tutorial video from Missouri Star Quilt Co. that uses 10″ squares and finishes out at just the size I was wanting to make. They use layer cakes for their tutorial, but I couldn’t find one with the colors I want, so I will cut my own 10″ squares from yardage I have chosen. I also plan to embellish it with some appliqué that goes with the theme my daugter-in-law has chosen for his baby decor. Can’t wait to see how it turns out! 

Blended family · nature · quilting

Sunday Stitching with a View

Wild Rose Quilter2 Comments

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This was my view this evening as I sat in my lawn chair and worked on hand stitching the binding on this one. I made the binding Wednesday, and I’m proud to say I’ve made good progress in the snippets of time I could find to spare for it. My goal is to have it finished before this week ends.

Last night, my 5 yr old grandson joined my husband, my 16 yr old stepson, and me for a sleepover at Casa de Ortega, aka Mammy’s house. I had chosen “Grammy” as my grandmother name, but it came out of his mouth as mammy, and it stuck. He has a Mimi, a Memaw, and a Meemaw, all on my daughter -in-law’s side, so it was really no surprise when he pronounced Grammy as Mammy. I had always heard that basically you can choose whatever you think you want to be, but your first grandbaby will call you what they call you and that’s that, lol.

After we dropped him back home to his mom and dad this morning, we spent the whole afternoon into the early evening out at a local lake, with one of my brother-in-laws and part of his family, and my mother-in-law. It was an absolutely beautiful day for some fishing, kayaking, and just sitting enjoying the beauty around us.


We don’t get my stepson nearly as often as we would like, because he lives 10 hours away and so we have to make the most of the too short visits we get. It warms my heart to see him and his dad having a great day together.


I hope your Sunday was blessed and have a marvelous Monday tomorrow.

WIP Wednesday 
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WIP Wednesday 

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Since it’s Wednesday, I’m happy to say I  actually pulled another WIP out if the closet today. All it needs is binding. I now have the binding made, pressed and ready to attach. 

A simple jelly roll 1600 quilt, but I really love the fabrics in this one and the quilting on it with the red thread. Looking forward to having it finished! 

I’ll leave you with some random photos I took on a little outing to a local lake. Just because they made me smile when I saw them tucked in this tree. Mushrooms. 😊


quilting

Absolutely Ridiculous…

Wild Rose Quilter4 Comments

…that it took me so long to put the final stitches in the binding of this one. 


At least it’s finally finished. I love the way it looks on my pine log bed. We will enjoy using it. The pattern is Quarter Log Cabin from Eleanor Burns’ Still Stripping book. Two finishes in a week! That hasn’t happened in so long that I can’t remember when it happened last. 

quilting

Peaches!!

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It’s Cunningham peach truck day here and I have already made it out to get some. I look forward to their arrival every year. So good! I love to just eat them fresh, but a few of these will find their way into some cobbler. 😋


I leave shortly to make the two hour drive to the nearest airport to pick up my stepson for his summer visit. He lives in Texas, also, but the opposite end. The distance between us is a 10 hour drive. We could drive to Canada and across a few other states to get there about as quickly as to him, in the same state. Seems crazy, huh? That’s Lone Star life. I better get going! 

Blended family · family · freehand quilting · longarm quilting · quilting · quilts · Wedding · Widow

I Have a Finish!

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Oh it feels so good! I finished Baby C’s quilt tonight. I can’t wait to get it washed and take it to him. ❤️


I love the 10 Minute Block pattern and tutorial. Such a fun, fast and easy pattern. 

I have so many WIP’s waiting in line to be finished, but first, I must start a new quilt! Because somewhere near the end of October, there will be another sweet baby boy for this Mammy to love! I’ve been looking over patterns the past couple of days, trying to settle on one. It definitely needs to be another fast and easy! 

The wedding, by the way, was just lovely. My new husband and I sat on the front row with my step-daughter and her husband and the other two sets of grandparents, with one chair  left empty for the grandfather that was there in spirit and in hearts. It was sweet. It was beautiful. It was perfect. 💙

Blended family · daily life · family · grief · love of my life · quilting · Wedding · Widow · Wife

Family, Past and Present

Wild Rose Quilter4 Comments

Today, we get ready to watch my oldest “step”-grandson (from my marriage to my late husband) marry his sweetheart this evening. It will be a fun wedding, cowboy style, in the pasture with reception dinner and dancing to follow. These moments and days are bittersweet. These are the days when my past life and present life collide a bit more, and emotions tend to be more unpredictable. It’s now five years post loss. Greg’s absence is always more “acute” at events such as this. This is his first grandchild getting married. I know that my stepdaughter will very deeply miss her father’s presence at the wedding. Tonight, my new husband will accompany me, and sit on the front “family” row, as the place by my side now belongs to him. I am so thankful that he has been welcomed into the family with open arms, and that I continue to be a loved and special part of my late husband’s family. And, that he also has welcomed them into his life. Our blended family is quite complex. On both sides. I am so blessed and thankful for this new love and this precious man to share my life with. There was a day when I couldn’t imagine it, and now I cannot imagine not having him in my life. I believe he and Greg were just both meant to  have a place in this journey that is my life and in my heart. Thankfully, there are no limits to love and no limits on how much or many our hearts can hold. 

daily life · quilting · quilts

Finally Friday 

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It’s been a busy, busy week for me, but that pretty much seems to be the norm anymore. I was out of town from early Sunday morning until late Tuesday evening for a work conference with my job in criminal justice. I’m thankful that I now have Fridays off from that work, as I am also now the full time office administrator for mine and my husband’s new  oilfield related business. I worked on that job all morning here in my home office. Now, laundry is washing as I sit on the sofa and happily do a bit of hand stitching on Baby C’s quilt binding. I’m on the downhill curve to a finish! Yay! 

It’s a perfect day for it, too. The view from the sofa is rain on the windows with the sound of softly rolling thunder serenading me in the background. It’s nice to slow down for a few moments. Have a blessed Friday!

daily life · longarm quilting · quilting

Bird Watching and Quilting

Wild Rose Quilter4 Comments

It looks like the little bird will be ready to try out his wings soon.



It has done well in my makeshift, substitute nest. Mama is continuing to watch over from above. 


I finally finished the quilting on Baby C’s quilt. Baby C will be 2 in September. 🙄 Anyone want to start a pool on whether I get the binding finished before he is 3? I had better because grandbaby boy #3 is due to arrive in October! 

I finished all the freehand quilting in the blocks this weekend. When I had my A1 upgraded 2 years ago, I also added the computerized Quilt Butler system. It’s a little embarrassing to confess that I have not taken time to play around with it and learn how to use it. The past couple of evenings I watched some instructional videos on the YouTube site and felt ready to give it a shot. So after work tonight,  I started small, just putting a simple design in the diamond shapes. It went very smoothly and I was tickled to death with how they turned out. I finished all the diamonds in no time at all. I’m excited to learn more and use it more. It can’t do as much as some of the more elaborate systems, but it’s more than I had and will add some more options to my quilting. Another tool in the sewing box. 

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