Till the cows come home...

I don't know why I named this post what I did.  I guess it was the only thing that came to mind when I thought of what I was going to talk about. 

It's been a long, long time since I posted last.  Things have been busy.  Most importantly I became a Grandmother.  Lilly came into this world on March 20th.  Kristen, our daughter and Lilly's mom, had a hard time of it.  Long story short, the birth ended in an unplanned c-section with lingering issues.  Everybody is doing just fine now but I was called in to help out for a while.  I didn't mind a bit.  Kristen and Lilly are doing wonderfully!

I did get some rug hooking done!  I would like to introduce Indiana.  I took the picture of this cow several years ago in Indiana while visiting relatives.  She's been "on the list" of  to-dos for quite a long while.  Needless to say she's done except for the framing.

Introducing Indiana...

A change of pace...

I spent yesterday inside. It's unusually cold for March here in NC.  We even had a few snow flurries in the air.  Not typical March weather for us.  I'm glad to see the extended forecast has us going up into the 60's for next week.  

Back to my inside story.

I'm going to be a Grandmother any day now. Our daughter is having a baby girl and we couldn't be more excited!  To the point... I was in one of the local quilt shops a few weeks back and saw a really cute Moda charm pack.  Perfect colors that match the color scheme our daughter had done in the nursery.  I snatched it up and came home to figure out how I was going to use it.  I did some research on baby quilts (Google is awesome). I decided I really liked the looks of the pinwheel quilts.  Again, google is awesome, I found a youtube video on how to make pinwheel blocks.  Amazingly simple. 
Needless to say I pinwheeled away yesterday.  Did I tell you I used to sew. 

Lily's quilt

My very first quilt that I quilted for our daughter circa 1984

And yes, I will eventually hook a rug for her.  That's going to take a bit more thought.

To border or not to border...

I've decided to border.

At last post I was deciding whether or not to add a border to the current rug I was working on.  Well, I decided, it needs it.  I just felt it 'floated' without it.  I've got two sides done and it shouldn't take me much more time to finished the other two sides.  Straight line hooking goes pretty fast.

I'm not sure what I'll be working on next.  I'd like to get back to some animals so I'll have to pull out some of my reference photos and see what strikes my fancy.

Dad is back to about 95% now.  Much better but still gets tired easy.  At least we're not having to stay with him 24/7 anymore.  I call 2 times a day and stop over once a day. 

Good progress on the rug and a bit of bird watching

Dad's getting better but in baby steps.  Still very tired and napping a lot.  While he's been napping I've been hooking away and watching the birds outside the kitchen window. 

The rug I'm working on is a project from teacher's workshop I acquired some years ago.  I pulled it out because it is very straight forward to hook.  I had gotten the horse hooked way back but hadn't decided what to do with the rest of it.  I had a lot of leftovers from other projects laying around and I wanted to get them used up.  I threw a bunch of medium to medium/dark values of blues and blue-greens into a pot and overdyed them with Prochem 401 to "marry" them together.  I've gotten a lot done in the past week.  It  helps that I'm using a #8 cut.  I'm thinking I may add a simple border. To me, it needs it to "set the rug down".  It seem to float a bit for me as it is.  I'll make a final judgement when I get the rest of the background hooked. 

I managed to get a picture of the male bluebird as well.  I guess I'm in my blue period. 

A Stressful Winter

It's been a long time since I've posted.  Things have been better.  We moved into our new house in mid November. Stress number one.  My dad became ill and ended up in the hospital the day before we closed. He was in for 6 days and they never did figure out what caused his problem.  After he got out I was traveling back and forth to his house twice a day to tend to him, a 40 mile round trip. Stress number two.  He eventually got better. Christmas was coming and I hadn't even thought about shopping.  Stress number three.  Last week dad started feeling lousy.  We got him to the doctor's who sent him for some tests.  The diagnosis is pneumonia.  He's on mega antibiotics and we pray he'll bounce back soon.  I'm staying with him to keep watch and make sure he eats and drinks something.  Stress number four.

 Enough of my problems.  The sun is shining today and the outlook is for some warmer weather.  The bluebirds are starting to nest in my dad's birdhouse.

 I did manage to design and put together a new applique pattern between Christmas and New Years.  Here it is... 

I also pulled out a rug I started a few years back and am working on that as dad sleeps.  It is a good stress relief to pull some loops.  I don't have a picture right now but will post one when I do.

VAE entry receives award

I found out last night that my entry, "Bowl of Eggs", received an Honorable mention in the Visual Arts Exchange exhibit, Home and Hearth.  It was nice to see that a fiber piece, mine at that, received an award. 

It was a beautiful evening to be out and about in Raleigh last night.  People were everywhere.  The galleries were busy.  It was good to be a part of it.  I wished I had taken my camera.  I know, you're probably thinking why didn't you take pictures with your phone.  Well, I'll tell you.  My phone is so old it doesn't have a camera.  Maybe I'll break down and get one, someday.

"Bowl of Eggs" juries into VAE show

I just received word that one of my still life pieces, "Bowl of Eggs" was juried into the Visual Arts Exchange exhibit "Home and Hearth" opening this Friday at 6:00.  Stop by and see it in person if you can, First Friday in Raleigh is always a good time.