February Blog Hop

 I saw this calendar at the Gathering Place, and really liked it.  I decided I would make it and started with February for the blog hop.  The theme was "be my baby tonight" and I wanted to do Valentine Day things.  I thought it turned out pretty cute.

Robin took these photos of Jeff and I, and I didn't get anything made with them before Christmas, so decided to do it for the blog hop.  Love how it turned out.

Surgery

 I know this is sort of gross, but...it's life.  I had carpel tunnel surgery done on both my wrists on Friday, along with injections in both thumbs for arthritis.  My thumbs have been giving me a lot of trouble, and while I was having the surgery, Dr. Crane said they might as well give me the injections.  I guess they aren't very comfortable to get, so while I was out they did it.  The wrote on my wrists, my thumbs, and my knee with sharpie.  I guess Dr. Crane likes to make sure he's doing the right thing.  I had my wrists and knee bandaged up until this morning when I took everything off.  It is pretty uncomfortable, but not too bad. I guess everything will take time, but so far...so good.  You can see how my palm is black and blue.  Most Dr.'s cut clear through your palm, but Dr. Crane just makes a little slit in your wrist and goes in with a scope.  I only have one stitch in each wrist.

 I had an ACL done several years ago (by Dr. Crane) and this staple had backed out and was bothering me.  He said they might as well take it out while I was out also.  I guess he had a pair of vise grips on it, another pair of pliers, and was hitting it with a hammer trying to get it out.  It's huge!  I never would have guessed.

You can see the "yes" to the right of the photo.  Not pretty, but now maybe I can kneel down.  My leg hurts almost as much as my wrists do.  I'll be glad to get going again.

Busy Sewing

 I have the chance to get another quilt done this year, so I jumped at it.  I still have alot to do before I have one done for every grandchild.  This time though, I had a very tough time picking a quilt pattern that I really liked.  I got out all my quilt books (this is a very small portion) and poured over them.  I picked my fabric, and still couldn't decide what to make.  But finally just went for it.

 I like this selection of fabric.  I bought it a couple of years ago, and just hadn't used it.  I've decided I really need to start using what I have stashed before something happens to me, and Danelle and Stephanie have to come and clean out my closets...they would wonder what the heck I was thinking...When I finally decided on a pattern, I had to go buy some background fabric anyway...a cream color.

 I went through several sheets of paper trying to figure out what to cut and how much and what order I wanted the colors to go in.  Making a quilt top is quite involved and takes alot of planning.  At least it does for me.  And even then...it's a roll of the dice.

 Here are some of my pieces.  All labeled with the letter they represent.

 I started sewing blocks, and discovered that I cut twice as many as needed on some of them...I forgot that you sewed them and then cut them in half...so I may be making another pinwheel out of these colors.

 Anyway, I have it put together except for two side.  All the pieced to the left.  I have the top and bottom on, and just need to do the same thing down the sides.  When it's all finished, I'll post another photo where you can see the complete pattern.  But I'm pretty happy that I got this much done. 

This Friday I'm having surgery on both wrists, so I'll be out of commission for awhile, and I wanted to get this done before then.  I also got a project done for the blog hop, so I'm doing pretty well.

More of those Grinch photos

We had so much fun on Christmas Eve, especially since so many people dressed up and posed for photos and were willing to have fun with us.  Thanks to our family.  You are all so awesome.

Ten things

I went to a website for a class tonight, and found something that was very interesting to me.  I would like to do it, and I'm going to write the ten things here for all of you.  Maybe you'd be interested in answering these also.  It may take me awhile to come up with the answers...but that's okay.  I can just picture a scrapbook layout with "me" as the star.  I never do layouts about me, but I think this one might be fun.
Here you go:
Ten: "esstentials" that I can not scrapbook without
Nine:  Words I love are:
Eight: Things that make me smile
Seven:  Things I love about my "everyday" life
Six:  Places I'd love to visit before I die
Five:  Things I do everyday- without fail
Four:  Websites/stores that I frequent
Three: Photos I love
Two:  Decisions I've never regretted
One:  additional & very important thing you should know about me

I can't wait to write these things down and record them for my kids and grandkids.  Maybe it's time to scrapbook some of the things that are important to me so they'll know me a little better.  Boy, would I love to have something like that from my mother, grandmother and further back.  Wouldn't you love to know what your great-great grandmother found important, what she did everyday, the work that was expected of her, her life in general?  I would give almost anything to know things like that.  We have very few stories or photos of my family of long ago.  Jeff has some books and life stories, but we've never had much of anything. 
I accept the challenge!

Quilt time

Doris  called and told me that she would do another quilt for me if I would get the top sewn together real quick, so I got out the fabric that I want to use, and have been going through magazines trying to find one that works with it.  So far, I've found lots of quilts that I like, but not the ONE...the one that says...pick me for these fabrics.  I guess I've got to decide soon though, because I've spent a week looking at everything so far.  Tonight...I'll decide and get started.  Yeah.... another quilt this year.

Another day

This fall, Jeff took Mom and I up to North Heglar to pick chokecherries.  We got around 5 gallons, and mom steamed them and made a concentrated juice.  For Christmas, I made syrup from it, and put it in pint jars.  I then cut circles of flannel fabric to go over the top, and made these labels.  For a couple of the gifts, I added a pint of frozen raspberry jam and put the two jars in a black metal jar holder I picked up at WalMart.  For the people at work, I just gave each of them the chokecherry syrup.  They really turned out cute I thought.  I miss judged how much syrup it would make though.  I used three quarts of juice, and ended up with about 9 pints and 1 quart of syrup.  I finished giving the rest of it to Sally and her mother when they came out Friday night. 
The cool thing is, we had fun taking mom to pick the berries, and I got some nice homemade gifts from it.