Things I Like Thursdays Feb 27

Greetings!

Thanks to Lee Anna for encouraging us to appreciate the good side of our days by posting our “likes” each week.   So, here are mine:

1.  This fork included with my salad from the Safeway deli. (Ignore my wrinkly old lady fingers, please).

It was about 4 inches long.  Hysterical. Needless to say I grabbed a regular fork when I got home.

2.  Quilt Con.  I like to spend time browsing through others’ hard work!  If you need some inspiration check it out in Austin Tx:QUILT CON.  It’s a quilt gathering of vendors, designers, etc. for modern quilters.

3. Fresh Flowers.  I love flowers and miss having a  garden but this old body doesn’t cooperate for all that work.

Carnations are my favorite and usually the pink ones.  These mini red carnations spoke to me to come home from Safeway-$6 for a big bunch.  I love smelling them and seeing them in my kitchen.

4.  Sewing again.  My daughter needed a quilt for the top of her bed in our “cold” winters (It’s all relative-haha).  She gets cold easily and has been using several of Thomas’ quilts I made him on top of all the other bedding she uses.  I was surprised.  So, I agreed to make one more large (for me) quilt.

I’m calling it The Manor.  It took up most of the couch!

The colors are very muted which is what she wanted-tan, cream, lavender and blue with a light gray border.. The border grays are from Kona(Ash Gray). The top is 60 x 70.

Here is a closeup of one of the printed blocks.  The layer cakes were from Quilter’s Garden Patty Cakes by RJR Fabrics. 

Luckily I had a backing in the stash - a pale gray with little flowers Petite Veranda light Grey.  I have no idea where I got it.

This was quickly sewn together for the top but life got in the way till I could find time to sandwich it.

Here it is being sandwiched on my small kitchen table with 100 pins.  I hope to quilt in the ditch or tie it this week. It felt good to sew but doing the sandwich was a killer on my back.  I need an assistant. Haha haha

Hope you enjoyed a peek into my world! Have a great day.

Mary

Things I like Thursdays Feb 20

Greetings!

We are almost back to normal temps -80’s but a cold front is moving in this weekend.  I’m sure the “snowbirds” are confused with this year’s weather but I suppose it’s still warmer than other climates. Due to the cooler winter than normal, we are overcome with weeds!  I try to keep them less than quarter size so they can’t be seen by the HOA police. I’ve weeded 6 times this month.  That’s never happened in the 5 years we’ve been here.  And it’s not even Spring yet.  I also had to spend a day trimming the big artificial orange tree in the backyard. Those oranges are not edible but birds pick at them and so they fall to the ground.  It’s a mess. Anyway, that tree is trimmed and mostly free of the oranges.
Why would you plant an “artificial” tree?  Crazy.

I am needing less oxygen than 2 months ago so we are on a good path to healing.  Thank God.  It was quite the picture of me trimming the tree while carrying oxygen on my shoulder. Ugh.  I’ll be glad when I no longer need it.

Regardless, I have a few likes to share with you today:

1.  Bluebirds in Love?

I love this painting in my doctor’s office  but I am curious as to it’s meaning. Why does one bird hold a lock and the keys are below them?

2.  Vera Wang’s perfume-Princess.

It is such a pretty container.  The name is kinda silly but the scent is so soft and lovely.  Of course, there is a story. I was waiting to have blood drawn at the lab and an older woman came with her walker and sat down next to me to wait her turn.  Her scent was so cool!!  I waited awhile and finally asked her what perfume she was wearing.  She was surprised but happy I asked.  When I was done at the lab, I went to Walgreens, checked it out against several others and I bought the same fragrance as that woman.  What a great advertisement for others. Here’s the list of ingredients (not counting alcohol,etc) apple,mandarin,apricot, Tahitian tiare flower, chocolate, vanilla, amber and musk.  If I’d known that, I probably would have bought it anyway.  LOL. I haven’t bought perfume in many years so this was an extravagance.  But, I’m worth it. I love smelling it everyday.

3.  Phoenix Suns pillow for Thomas.

  Due to his cerebral palsy, his legs don’t stretch out completely and so he needs a wedge between his knees when he sleeps but if you’ve ever seen the wedge it’s awful. So, I made a pillow cover for a 15 inch soft pillow instead.  He loves it and it’s his favorite team.


4.  Blue Dresden pillow cover for my daughter.

This was a left over block ( 15 inches) from quilt I made for her headboard 5 years ago or so. I found it in a bag and decided to spend a day putting it together.  It turned out so pretty.   it’s been good to get back to sewing this week.  Next on the que is a quilt for her bed.  Something easy and simple. I have so many layer cakes that need to be used so maybe I’ll spend the day going thru stash. 

It’s been a good week for me (not counting any news on the tv) so I’m glad to share these with you.  Hope you all are enjoying it too.

Join.us at Lee Anna’s site: Not Afraid of Color for more.

Take care.
Mary

HAPPY GALENTINES DAY!!

I like Thursdays Feb 13

Greetings!

Happy Valentine’s Day tomorrow!  It’s been raining all night but going to clear up today.  I sleep better when it’s raining (barometric pressure).  But, I like the sunny day for driving.  Just sayin.

Thanks to Lee Anna, we are listing our “likes” each week which causes me to focus on good stuff in these chaotic times.  It’s a good thing,
Here  is a short list of my likes:

1. Chicken Marsala.

This was so easy and so good .  I used one jar and 4 skinned chicken thighs in the crock pot on high 3hours.  Istarted to buy skinned deboned thighs but they were $6.99 a pound!  Say what??  So I found regular thighs and skinned them myself at $1.99 per pound. If you grab the skin on one edge it clears the thigh pretty easily.  I don’t like fussing with raw chicken but it went pretty quick.  This sauce was perfect for me. If you wanted, you could add more mushrooms.

2.  Valentine mini quilt

It’s about 12 x 20. Thanks to Roseanne at Home Sewn by Us, I was finally inspired to sew.  It’s made from scraps which took forever to coordinate- one afternoon.  The next day I was able to sew and the 3rd day to quilt and bind .  I say day but it’s really only in the afternoons.  Speaking of binding:

I forgot to measure for the binding! This is all I had for a scrap.  Score!  I enjoy looking at this Mini quilt in my living room. Thanks Roseanne for the squirrel.


3. My 2 great granddaughters in these t-shirts.

In case you can’t read them they say they are going to be big sisters.  Very cute.
 so, it’s been a better week. I hope you are enjoying yours.  Check us all out on Lee Anna’s site:  Not Afraid of Color.

Take care
Mary

Things I like Thursdays Feb 6

Greetings!

I can’t believe another week has gone by!  I have spent most of my time emptying my PC and setting things up on my IPad.  I deleted a lot of photos-several hundred I’m sure.  I also got a new phone last fall and needed to set the old one back to factory specs so no one could use it and finally accomplished that today.  I still have not sat at the sewing machine since October but hope to soon.  I did however, paint this week -a present for my daughter for Valentines Day. More on that later.

Here are just a few likes I could come up with:

1. Cleaning out my photos on the old PC and setting them up in the IPad.  Editing is completely different on the IPad.  I have to edit 3 and 4 times to get it right.  Luckily, I only have a few this time. Heehee. I have been taking notes when something works and googling a lot of questions.

2. Lavender plants are going crazy!!

The branches are almost 30 inches long.  I hate to cut them but I must because we are having a freeze tonite and the sheets will crush the longer ones.  It’s so weird -we went from mid 70’s Sunday and tomorrow will be in the 50’s. But, these smell so wonderful.

3.  Valentine painting for my daughter

It’s 11x 14 so kinda big (for me) but I wanted to use the paper she gave me for Christmas. Each year I try to give her something for Valentines so this is what I thought of instead of a quilt or pillow.  She has a crazy house but you can feel the love when you are there.

4.  Sam Elliott-doing  anything. But especially in this Doritos commercial at the Super Bowl:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6qchztaw9g&feature=share

I sure hope this link works.  Lil Nas isn’t too bad either.

5.  Playing Solitaire on my IPad.  I am NOT a game or cards person but for some reason I’ve gotten hooked on playing this especially at night when tv is boring.  I’m so bad that I had to google how to play solitaire. So sad.

Ok peeps.  This has been fun to share with you and hope you enjoy this peek into my world.  Please join us at Lee Anna’s sight for more:Not Afraid of Color

Take care.
Mary