Little Dutchess

 Well, I have had a hard time dealing with letting go of the little girl as I sometimes called her she did take a lot of our time going for walks three times a day. It was good to get out and now I don't think I have been out of the house since Christmas. hard to believe 

Here are a bunch of photos to overload the page of a little dog that was dearly loved by all her people. 

Now once the world has unfrozen she will be buried with her previous owner as she was just on loan to us for the last two years.  They have been waiting for her and so then as time goes on, I hope to add a new little doggy to the family as I miss having her around and another will not replace her but will add some extra in the house. 

Moving forward on City Square

 I started this quilt in July and it is now the end of December and I am on the 2nd to last border. only have some flying geese blocks to go and maybe an additional fabric border that is to be decided maybe it will be a solid black border and that will get a fun quilting design in it. The pictures below show it at its point now of progress.  I had an interruption in November we lost our little Yorky Dutchess she was rehomed to us after her previous Mama passed away. That made the middle of November a hard month. to finish off.   So not much progress happened on this quilt for a while. Plus there were a few Christmas projects that got in the way of this quilt top too. 

Saturday Fun

 Today was a fun day, sewing with friends. As part of NorthEast Iowa Quilt Guild It was raffle quilt, sewing  day. The quilt is in its final leg all that’s left is the outside border. 

The pattern is a Scott Flanagan done in blues. If all goes well, it should only take one more sewing day to finish. The pattern was the summer free pattern sone in 2024 and we received permission from the designer to make the quilt and use it for our raffle quilt for the show in 2026. 

New things

Gee it has been a while. I have retired it wasn’t totally my plan but I was only thinking about working one more year and so I decided it was a sign that it was time. 

This happened in June and I was rather heart sick over it but then I decided to let it go. Probably the best decision I’ve made. So I been floating around to different things worked in my quilts started a new project working on a Scot Flanagan summer quilt and am about 3/4 of the way done on that it is being stitched with black and white and a few grays. I am trying to take most of the fabric from the stash. So far that has been working I did end up getting a couple yards but the rest is coming from the stash and I think I have the background from the stash too. 

Asked about doing some teaching at the local library but that just didn’t seem to be a need, that they had so I moved on from that. Then I got a phone call from a friend and she want to sell her longer was I interested. 

So that is the newest adventure I am going to owen a Nolting Pro 24 quilting machine. I went to a classes put on by Nolting and had a wonderful time meet some new people joined Tik Tok.  So now I need to keep working on the emptying of the space

Now I am rearranging the house spreading my sewing space out to two different rooms one for quilting and one for piecing. In that whole process I want to replace the floor in my current sewing room as it needs a full upgrade. So that means emptying it down to the walls. I really should consider purging some things too. That is going to be the hardest part. 

March 24, 2023

 Well today was my last day of radiation happy to no be driving back and forth to LaCrosse everyday. It seem like forever then it was like oh last week last day. 

So now I have figure out the work thing and get that rolling again so ready to not be dealing with health issues for a while. 

Not sure this adventure ever totally goes away as much as you hope for cure it isn’t a for sure thing. Then what in life is a for sure thing. 

Feb. 28, 2023

Welcome to the last day of the month. 

 I was watching the Quilt Roadies on YouTube and fell in love with this design and Anna is doing a sew-a-long. So I ordered the patterns Forest Park Friends there are 10 of them. I found some quilt fabric that looks like linen the pattern suggest Moda Crackle Line 5746 I did find a piece of it but not sure it was the right fabric as I did not have the pattern number and it was a lighter cream I decided to go with a more tan/brown fabric also to be like a linen in look but not in weave so that is my new project I washed the fabric and will be doing the iron on transfer that comes with the design it has a cute test print too so I will do the test print and if the iron on transfer works as I hope this will be fun. 

I have made other patterns from this designer Kathy Schmitz 

Fall Harvest

Winter Wonder

Spring has Sprung

Summer Sun

These four season small wall hangings were given to our son and daughter-in-law. I am very tempted to make them again as I really like the look of them. 

Plus I have a Santa embroidery by this designer also I cannot find it on her web site so maybe it is a retired pattern. 

Along with the Forest Park Friends she sent along a cute little booklet for special occasions and another pattern Simple Tidings that has twelve little designs to celebrate the year. This design ends up being 32x35 not sure if I will do it or pass it on.  The freebees/gifts were fun to find in the package and the Forest Park Friends were on sale if you purchased the whole grouping. 

Feb 27, 2023

Back in Jan I found out that I am in for another round of radiation. This time I am doing 28 days of treatment and so far, have 9 of the 28 days completed so only 19 more to go. This has been a long ride and has had its bumps, but it has not been an awful time. Sort of scarry when you talk cancer and always a wonder if they got it all and where I stand for the future. 

  The future is not something I can control so for now deal with the treatments and then get on with life. That mean for now driving back and forth to LaCrosse and then hopefully going back to work. I don't foresee this being a problem, but I guess time will tell what happens down the road. 

I am about done with the Puppy Love quilt it just needs binding cut and sewn on. I did a bunch of straight-line quilting thru out the quilt and then an end-to-end quilting motif on my embroidery machine on the green border. I learned a fair amount about lining up the border.