Goodbye

I remember when I was a little girl and my Dad would take my family to my Great-Grandmother’s house in Tennessee. My Grandmother, Maw, would cry when we got there and would cry when we left. As a kid, I never understood that. Why did she cry? Well, now I get it. I cry with joy when my grandchildren come and cry with sadness when they leave. It is always hard to say goodbye to those you love.

How do I say goodbye to the man that has been with me all my life? I lost my Dad last Friday (February 23, 2018). My head knows that is the way it should be—he was in a lot of pain the last few months—but my heart just wasn’t ready to let him go.

My Dad was not a perfect man, but he made many positive changes as he grew older. He was there for me whenever I needed him. He attended EVERY important event in the lives of his grandchildren whenever he possibly could. He loved my step-mom deeply, remaining patient and loving in dealing with her Alzheimer’s. There was nothing he loved more than his family.

These are pics of my Dad with my children and their children. You can tell by the big smile on his face that he loved the “little ones.”

I love you Dad. Goodbye.

Creative Void

I haven’t gotten much creative work done in the last couple of weeks, but one of the habits I’m tracking in my Quilter’s Planner “Habit Tracker” is to do at least one blog post a week. Well, here it is.

My sister and I are dealing with our aging father. She is staying with him (and our step-mom who has Alzheimer’s) right now. I’m SO thankful she can do that. However, I feel guilty when I’m not there, I feel very emotional and inadequate when I am there, and I worry about him ALL the time. I’m having trouble sleeping, and I’m having trouble concentrating.

When I come home from being up there, I am emotionally and physically exhausted—nothing like my sister I’m sure. I find myself playing “mindless” card games on my iPad (just to take my mind off things) rather than working on my MANY in-progress creative endeavors.

It is REALLY hard to see a man who has always been SO vibrant, active, strong, and proud deteriorate before my eyes. Here are a few pictures of Dad and Helen with my grandchildren from better days.

Dad and Helen with June Beth.

Dad and Helen with Cade.

Dad with Asa Gene (his latest namesake).

 I love you Dad.

Slow and Steady

I have been home a bit more than usual this month, so I have been working on my latest project. Here are some of my progress pictures.

And here is a picture of some of these pieces put together.

As you can see from this picture, not all of the pieces in the collage have been added to this yet. I’m not sure how many of these “circles” I can fuse together before I start placing them on the background fabric. The piece is starting to get heavy and is somewhat delicate. I don’t want the weight to “pull” it apart. There are always problems to solve when making art. Sometimes the solving is fun, but sometimes that is the part I hate the most.

Progress on the “Forever” Hexie Quilt

My friend (Lora) approached me at the end of last year and asked me if I had finished my hexie quilt. I let her know I had finished the hand stitching on the quilt but didn’t have an idea for finishing. 

I was worried about the spikey red pieces on the center of each side and just wasn’t sure what would work for finishing.

She said she had been thinking of it and thought a mitered ombre border might be interesting. I thought so too, so I went to her house (where she had some ombre fabric), and we auditioned it on the quilt. We both agreed it was a winner, so I got online to find a fabric I thought would work. FINALLY, the fabric arrived, and Lora and I set up a date that we could get together and add the borders to the quilt. (She offered her expertise to teach me to make the weird angled mitered corners I needed for the quilt.) I just got back home from that work date.

Here are the borders on the quilt. (They will be trimmed and evened up at a later date.)

 
What neither of us took into account is how BIG the quilt would be with the borders added. Before any trimming (which will be done AFTER the quilting), the widest part of the quilt measures a whopping 128 inches! (It is SO big that I can’t even come close to photographing the whole quilt. The left and right sides are folded over in this picture and the bottom is resting on the floor. I think you can get the idea, though.) I’m not thrilled about cutting off ALL the black of the ombre fabric (which might happen if we cut it down to 120 inches which is king size). Luckily, I don’t have to worry about that yet. My next “job” is to hand appliqué the hexagon quilt to the borders. (Right now, it is just basted to the borders.) I’ll keep you apprised of the progress I make on this.

Oh and for those of you following my progress on using my Quilter’s Planner...so far, so good. I have written lots of things down, checked a lot of things off,  and have followed through on using it (and doing a daily Instagram planner challenge) for the last month. I pretty proud of myself!