Mom's Flowers

 
My Mom has a green thumb and has always had flowers and plants. She has such a pretty yard with all her flowers.


 


The front and side yards have lilac bushes, mums, pampas grass, roses , what she calls a cabbage plant and morning glories. Her neighbor has a rose bush that she would love to haul over the fence and take care of.  

 

 

The back yard has a variety of different flowers and containers from an old wringer washer to large cut tires. She has roses, hens and chicken plants, and many other varieties. The most impressive is the Century Plant that bloomed this year and has been in the back yard for years. It grew to about 18 feet high and a new one is now growing beside it. Once it starts growing, it grows very fast.

My sister June took the pictures of the Century Plant as it grew and bloomed.  Now that it has finished, they will probably need a chainsaw to take it down. It is starting to lean over but still very solid.

 Over the years Mom has given us plants and starts off hers. I tell everyone she sends a get well or sympathy card with them 'cause she knows I will kill them. It's not ALWAYS been my fault – some just won't grow here.

Family Visit

We had a great trip to Amarillo this last week.  We did have a bit of wind against us but that big Ford diesel got pretty good mileage pulling our 5th wheel.

It was so nice to see Mom and everyone. Mom is doing well for her 85 years. My father-in-law is a few months younger and said he will call on her for advice when needed. :)




We visited with all four of my brothers, Robert (who drove in from New Mexico); Joe Pat; Tom and his wife DeeDee and grandson O'Neal and Harold and his wife, Pat. Unfortunately, I forgot about my camera and did not get pictures of Robert or Joe Pat. Maybe next time!


Also saw four of my six sisters: Faith, and her husband Fred; Barbara, and her husband John; June and Teresa. Missed getting a picture of Faith and Fred as well this trip.

While in Amarillo. we decided to get shingles vaccinations.  I have been around people who have had shingles and know they are extremely painful. My older brother had them and said a vaccination is well worth WHATEVER you have to pay for it.  So Mom, my HD and I all got one. Their arms did not get sore, swollen, red, itchy or warm. Mine was all the above - but is clearing up just in time to get a flu shot.  Hopefully it will only be a bit sore as in past years.

I hope we can visit more often with everyone. We have always lived a distance from everyone and missed out on many family gatherings.

Quilt Tops in Progress

These are a few tops I have started and will post more when I get back to working on them. I think I have too many irons in the fire right now.

Ebay Embroidered Quilt

I found some embroidered blocks on ebay to make a quilt. They were stitched together so I had to separate them for my needs. It was a bit difficult since the machine stitch used was very fine but I got all twelve apart and put sashing between them, using brown strips and yellow sparkle corners. The colors used in the embroidery are very bright and colorful with orange and yellow flowers, trimmed with brown and green. I don't usually use those colors so finding fabric in my stash to go with them was a challenge but I used solid orange and yellow for two borders with a white floral between them.  I have a large stash so I don't want to purchase anything until I reduce it considerably.

Pastel Baskets and Dresden Quilt

This one is a preprinted fabric that was begun by someone else and given to me. There were a couple of bad places around the edges that looked like the quilt may have had a fight with the dryer and lost. With some coordinating fabric, I cut out the bad places and replaced them. Not only did I get the quilt top but the coordinated backing fabric was there as well.

 

Pastel Dresden Large and Small

This fabric had large and small dresden plates in the same basic fabric colors as the Pastel Baskets quilt top. I cut them out and appliquéd them to the included quilt top fabric alternating the large and small plates. I found a pastel soft stripe fabric in my stash that went well for the wide border.

 USA / Texas Bandanna Quilt

I have always wanted to make a quilt using bandannas. These were perfect for this project. I used the following designed bandannas: Texas, USA and Confederate. I plan to make borders using navy and maroon with a patriotic print fabric between the two.

Country Quilter

I love the panel that is the center design for this quilt. It was an apron but since I don't do aprons, I cut the bib off, reusing the borders from it at the top. I think the ooordination blocks of brown and gold really set the center off and the teal border just finishes it off.

The Band aid is off . . .

Feels like I have worn a band aid on my nose forever. It started with a trip to see Dr. Scott Miller, in the MetroPlex, on June 10th, who removed a growth from my nose and did a biopsy. I had the growth come up just a month earlier, thinking it was a pimple or a boil. I unwisely waited to do anything because we were to attend our son's wedding in Bulgaria the end of May. The biopsy revealed it to be a squamous cell carcinoma, so Dr. Miller referred me to see Dr. Patrick Walsh, a MOHS surgeon. Dr. Walsh had done surgery on my HD's nose a few years earlier.

On August 10th, Dr. Walsh did the MOHS surgery, he took a sampling and checked it in the lab, finding that he needed to take another sample. After the second one, he got all of it. The wound was pretty deep and has taken awhile to heal but finally, today, I got to leave the band aid off.

Now it just has to heal completely and hopefully the Mederma cream Dr. Walsh recommended will help minimize the scarring. It looks so much better than it did right after he did the surgery. There is a small indention – more of a flat spot but not nearly as bad as I was afraid it would be. My “trouble maker” friend at the Senior Center told me just to fill it in with a little play dough!!!

Guess I will probably have a small “beauty spot” or a battle scan. When people asked me what happened to my nose, I told them I had a fight with two dermatologists and they won. Actually, I am the winner by catching it early, knowing what to watch for now and heeding warnings to use sunscreen and wear protective clothing when in the sun.

I am very pleased with my doctors to go from this after the surgery:

 to this:

 

Sh h h h h -Santa's helper has been busy.

Check out my handmade outfits for the American Girls' Bitty Twins, (Jackie and Jack).
Jackie's outfit, in red and blue, consists of a dress, panties and a hat.

Jack's outfit, in red and blue, consists of pants, shirt and a hat. Running short on fabric, I made his blue outfit using a print with solid trim.

My model's name is Giggles and is such a happy doll. Also shown are some clothes I made for her and a few extras.
Some outfits were made from an old twin size bed skirt. The dress and skirts were super easy to make since most of it was already done for me.