Wow!
Where did this whole month go?
It was just Christmas and New Year's celebrations!!!
I've been relaxing and taking time
to reflect and appreciate all that I have.
we now have two new babies in the family.
They are my great grandchildren.
Grayson Edward and Everleigh May.
I had planned on showing pictures of them but,
I can't get the pics from my phone
to upload to my computer.
I need one of my grandchildren to help me,
so I need to wait 'til one of them are free...
So, this is what I am working on now.
I started making this quilt about two years ago,
and knew that it would be a long-term project.
It might even be longer than that.
Anyway, I have started doing the hand quilting on it.
I saw a "new" method of quilting
called "big stitch" that appealed to me.
Since I don't have room here to try to quilt this on my machine,
and it wouldn't fit anyway, I decided to do it this way...
So here it is on the end of my dining room table.
It's big... 86" square.
 |
| They say to start in the middle and work your way out to the ends. |
 |
| Here's a closeup of the patches. This is called a postage stamp quilt. The patches are cut at 2", and finish up at 1 1/2". |
 |
| This is a look at the stitches. I need to do them both ways, so the quilting ends up at approximately 5" square all over. |
 |
| The tools that I am using... |
 |
| I am using # 8 DMC cotton perle thread. I will keep you posted on my progress. I also have two pillow shams to do, when I get the quilt finished... So now for some flowers... (below) My Amaryllis is blooming again. So reliable every year. Just like clockwork! This one was growing on it's own in a corner of my workroom. It couldn't wait for me to start watering it. It started on it's own! Now I have an offshoot from the main bulb that has flowered for the first time! And these are the flowers from the "baby" bulb! |
 |
 |
| Here they are a day later! So big and beautiful! |
 |
| This is the bud on the "mother" plant. Waiting to see how many flowers it has this year. |
 |
| And my orchid flowers are back. They love this east window where they live. So pretty... The weather has been great here in New England this winter. We've had snow a few times, but the ground is bare now and temps are reasonable. So far, so good! We do have February and March to get through though! haha Who knows what they will bring with them! We will wait and see! I am anticipating maple sugaring season, which will be coming up in about 2 or 3 weeks! I'm hoping for a lot of sap this year! The temps are about right now, but it's still a little too early. So that's about it for now. I hope you have a lovely day, wherever you are! 'Til next time, Love ya, Jean |
