Meet Betty's Blues

Allow me to introduce you to another scrappy creation.  This one has an unlikely beginning.

A couple years ago my sister got a phone call from a young lady who knew she was a quilter.  The lady's mom had been a quilter too, and had left behind a boatload of fabric, patterns, and tools.

Would my sister be interested in taking the stuff and sharing it with people who could put it to good use?

I ended up with some of it.

Of course, I also have drawers, boxes, bins, and bags of scraps and cut strips already.  But among the gift fabric, I found a little plastic recipe box that had units pre-cut and pinned together. Obviously Betty had had a plan for these 4 inch squares pinned with 8 smaller matching squares.  I wonder what it was that she wanted to do?

I didn't have much to go on, but I cobbled this together with my already cut scraps and had enough for 25 squares.  This is as far as it's gotten, and I'll probably add a dark blue border to what is there so far.

I hope Betty would like it, even if it wasn't what she had in mind.   What do you think?  Leave a comment.

...Singing in the Dead of Night....

I seem to recall odd song lyrics at odd times...

And alas, I don't recall what bird was singing in the dead of night, either.  But one of my favorite things about spring is bird watching in my yard.  I don't see many exotic species here.  We have resident mourning doves,  nuthatches, chickadees, blue jays, and cardinals year round.  I am always happy to see them.

I rejoice when the hummingbirds return in the spring.  This year I saw them earlier than I ever have.  Since I try to keep track I know this.  This year it was May 12th, and last year, May 20th.

But this year I have a favorite, nesting in the maple tree on the lot line.  It isn't a beautiful bird to look at, but I love to hear it.  It is a catbird.

I can't quite figure out how to get the picture to show up here.  But you may check here to see one.

My catbird is an excellent mimic and sits up there singing everyone's song for long periods at a time. To me, it is delightful because I don't have to be peering out the window, I can just open it and listen.

A lesser delight is a blackbird family nesting this year in the sagging soffits of the neighbor's garage.  They had nested there before and one owner who lived there made good repairs and the blackbirds had to find new spots that year.  But, sad to say, they have returned and they are noisy neighbors.

That's all the news from my yard for today.  I do have some activity though.  I bought bagged soil to fill my planters and shortly I will go and buy flowers, plant them, and say a little "Chipmunk Discouragement" rhyme.  Wish me success.

See you soon.  Leave a comment!

The Most Beautiful Days

I am pretty sure that this week is always my favorite week of the year.  Suddenly all the fruit trees are ready to bloom, the lilacs are blooming, and I can smell lily of the valley as I sit outside.

This morning I saw something I've never seen before.  I had four hummingbirds at a time at my feeder.  Usually they are fighting and chasing others away.  Could it be that this year's babies are out of the nest already?

That seems unlikely to me, but I have much to learn about birds.  I have found a wonderful site on Facebook recommended to me by one of my faithful followers.  You need to be approved to join, but it is called Backyard Birdwatchers.  People with amazing cameras and skills post their bird sightings and I am learning a lot of interesting things, and seeing pictures of birds that I never knew existed!

My friend, Lucy, told me yesterday that at their home on the lake shore near Crystal Falls, they have orioles, indigo buntings, and woodpeckers of every size imaginable.  What a treat!

I will share with you a couple of my yard's delights.  (That doesn't include my vegetable patch which isn't ready yet.)

These are my lilacs just teetering toward full bloom.  My sister will visit tomorrow and we will have to stay indoors because lilacs give her a tearing head-ache.  Rats!

And my other joy is these sweet little violets which are spreading all over the yard.  Other people try to get rid of pesky plants that spread but we say, "Bring 'em on!"  

At one point Good Guy was rooting for the invasive plants to crowd out the grass.  Now we have another person take care of the lawn, so the invasive plants don't have to work quite so hard.  

It is hard to appreciate what a delight it is to see all the places they have spread, since you can't be out in the yard with me, happening upon them here and there.  But trust me.  It is giving me great pleasure.

I hope you are enjoying spring at last.  I know some of you are having summer already, but I can wait.  I'll try to love it enough when it comes.

Have a great weekend!

But It's Summer!

I was afraid this would happen.  (Do not think that I'm complaining about the lack of snow--now that Memorial Day has passed.)  But for a few days it seemed as though we had bounced from winter to summer.

It is cooler now and more like spring with lilacs blooming today and the woods here are full of trilliums.

So why am I knitting these?

Because, my dears, the memory of this past winter is still fresh in my mind.  The beaches opened at towns on Lake Superior and there is ice floating in the bay.  I don't mean slush, I mean Icebergs!

Plus the fact that I have huge stores of beautiful warm woolen yarn and I am pledged to make a dozen pairs of mittens during the summer.  These beauties (she said modestly) are only pair #2, so I have considerable knitting to do.  I'm making these for the reservation foster kids.  It is easy to do small things for the little kids, but the teenagers might need mittens as well.  I will see how much of my wool stash I can use in this way.  I might even branch out and use a new pattern, wild woman that I am!  However, one advantage of doing these is that they are portable and if I know the pattern, they don't require too much concentration.  This will leave lots of time to contemplate the ice floe at the beach.  

Chuckle....

Comes in Handy

I have been retired from nursing for a long time.  I have not missed working as a nurse, though I have sometimes missed having co-workers.  I have worked with some really terrific people in the past, in all areas of service in the hospital.

But this past week has called old skills into service---a little bit, at least.

I was expecting to serve as a driver and friend to a friend who underwent surgery.  That's pretty easy and only took time, of which I have the usual allotted supply.  No sweat.

But when she went home after one day, she was needing to have dressings and drains tended to.  I got to check almost every day, though she did well without any complications.

Then tonight a neighbor called and asked me to teach someone how to give injections to her elderly father.  Off we went to meet another person and do our best to put him at ease and help his daughter. This dear man has had lots of experience with the medical community in his long life.  I wasn't causing him any distress.

More challenging are experiences that loved ones are having with people close to them.  There are people in various end stage scenarios, people too young to go, or too unexpected for us to comprehend easily.  Sometimes all you can do is listen and let people talk it through for themselves.

At this stage of my life-----as a granny-----I value the skills I learned working with hospice care.  I know lots of people who are bereaved or expecting to be bereaved.

Life can change really quickly.  Savor each day together.
Just sayin'.

Give it to the Busiest

I haven't been reading many blogs since many of my regular stops "are no more", but I do check on Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville which is a treasure trove of information for this quilter.

Bonnie is a whirling dervish of activity.  She writes books, she travels to give classes, she posts to her blog daily and sometimes multiple times, with pictures of what is happening in her classes.  She is tech savvy and has harnessed social media to keep quilters interested and informed.

You know the old saying, "If you need something done, give it to the busiest person you know."

After having a busy week, I realize how much of a slug I usually am.  It is an eye-opener, to say the least.

I'm not making any promises, but I'm here today. Plus I realize that the more often I post, the more I have to share.  It's like reconnecting with an old friend.  If you talk often, you have a lot to say, but if you only chat now and then, it's more difficult.

In the "thread-bending" department, I'm knitting mittens to use up some wool and just to have something portable to take with me, and piecing flannel for baby quilts for the reservation.  More about that later.

Thanks to all our veterans, past and present, and another big thanks to those who are serving now.  We truly do appreciate all that you and your loved ones have sacrificed.

Bumble Bear

Meet a part of one of this month's quilts.  I fell in love with the print fabric with the little trees, birds, deer, and bears printed on it.

I got it all pieced and looked at the print again.

About the only no-no in sending things for the children at Pine Ridge Reservation is that we avoid owls, a harbinger of death in their belief system.

Hmmmm.

As I examined the print more closely what did I spy but a little owl sitting up in one of those trees.

Awk!  That will never do.  So I needed to do a remedy in about three different places where another bird----rather too large for the space-----covered the place where the owl used to be.

Lesson learned.  Be sure to examine cute fabrics closely at the store, or,  for sure, before you decide to use them for the reservation projects.

In knitting news the Eternal Orange socks for Good Guy are progressing at a rather slow pace.  I will finish the second sock this weekend and proceed to the third.  (The first sock is too tight.  He thinks it's okay, but I think it isn't.  If I need the yarn to finish sock three, I will rip it out.)

So much of it is done that I will wait and see if I've bought enough yarn for two full pairs of socks.  But GG's socks come first.

I hope this isn't my only April post.