February 2023 – Chopin – A Passionate Quilter From Texas

February 27, 2023

Back to Quilting and Plans for March 2023!

I am ending out the month of February 2023 by catching up on my posts (check it out) and what has been going on in our lives.

Now back to quilting, I have only had sporadic times to finish up cutting up the scarps of fabric left over from quilts made in the last few years! I was able to finish them up during last week (Do not ask what day as that is gone from my memory bank!).

Ahhh Finished!

And back to storage under my cutting table – great place to store things that won’t be used immediately!

Now for my plans for the month of March and beyond. Rebecca sent me 4 more of my quilts that she has finished – only 3 more to go! I received( 1) Brinton Hall, (2)Cozy Christmas (I made this quilt in 2004 with Robyn Pandolph’s Christmas Folk Art III and IV and a few pieces of Folk Art II. This is the first pieced quilt I had made), (3) Alexander Bean Pot, and finally(4) Stars Around the Garden! More beautiful finishes from a quilter who really cares about your quilts when quilt them!

Brinton Hall, Nanette’s Version!

Cozy Christmas – a Fons and Porter pattern in a November/December 2002 Fons and Porter Love of Quilting magazine.

Alexander Bean Pot – by Carol Hopkins

Stars Around the Garden by Bits and Pieces

I now have a total of 10 quilts that I need to square and trim and put the binding on, and then they will be ready for the hand work. I have worked out a plan that I believe I can achieve hopefully in the next 3 weeks. (giving myself some time). I have already trimmed and squared Irish Mist. She just needs the binding sewn together and then sewn onto the quilt. I hope to have this one done by Tuesday. If I can I will select a quilt a day to trim. square, select the binding and sew it onto the quilt. If my life were perfect I could be finished by the 14 of March (is that the Ides of March? EKK) which would be great. But not expected here. I am hoping to do a post each day that I complete a quilt and getting it back in the binding pile!

After I get the 10 ready for hand work, there will ONLY be 14 LARGE quilts to bind. Maybe I can finish them by the end of April. That would be wonderful as I am ready to make more quilts for Rebecca!

I am also entering 3 of my 13 quilts that Rebecca quilted in the San Antonio Quilt Show in September – more on that later!

Hey the good news for the day – I had been paying $6.23 a dozen for my Organic eggs – today they are now $4.83 a dozen – When the prices goes to $3.98 a dozen, that will save me about $40.00 a month on the food bill. For some frustrating news – our HEB has really upset La Vernia residents and myself. They decided to enlarge the SMALL store rather than building a new one across the street from the existing store. But NO they added a new parking lot away from the store, went out 50′ from the current store front and put customers in a mess for 14 MONTHS, and it is a MESS!

I have decided to drive to Floresville (about a 45 mile round trip) to get my groceries, and I already have made contact with them to order my monthly case of eggs and chips! They seem to be more organized than the LV store and a much larger store. The drive is through country roads which are very relaxing now that all the idiot drivers are in La Vernia and San Antonio. I may never use the LV store again! Their loss and I am sure I am not the only one going to do this to get away from their disaster!

Additionally, I have found a fresh meat market that is closer to us and we are trying a few cuts of meat, and if the meat is better, or just as good as Whole Foods, that means I will not have to do a 100 round trip drive monthly for our meat! See, I can find positive things in our lives! And remember EVERYTHING good or bad happens for a reason!

Hugs and have a wonderful week stitching. I am hoping to be able to enjoy reading everyone’s post, and doing more posting about my work on the binding binge! LOL

Hugs, Nanette

© Nanette Chopin Cook at Doitrightquilter.com 2022. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nanette Chopin Cook and Doitrightquilter.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Linking To: My Quilt Infatuation; Confessions of a Fabric Addict; Finished or Not Friday ; Em’s Scrap Bag; BOM’s Away; Sew Fresh Quilts; Crazy Mom Quilts; Oh Scrap; Scrap Happy Saturday; Slow Sunday Stitching Quilt Fabrication Mid Week Makers; Peacock Party; Design Wall Monday, Scrap Happy Days, Quilting Patch Linky Party, To Do Tuesdays

February 27, 2023

Post Number 667 – Guess What I have been Doing!

Well, I am alive and fairly well, but oh so tied up with Unforeseen Requirements. I wonder sometimes if I am the only one who runs into problems at times. It looks like February has been taking me away from well planned plans since the last time I posted! I also do not like the number 666 and realized the other day that my last post was 666 since I started. Well this post gets me out of that mess! LOL All I can do is apologize for not having the time to keep up with my email and reading my favorite Bloggers’ Posts!

The first week of February was a week of “more tree cutting”. We have been in an extreme drought due to 3 years of good ole’ La Niña! This has caused us to be in an extreme drought and when that happens trees die and we have tons of trees. Last year we had over 45 trees that needed to be cut down in order to avoid a problem with high winds and dying trees that could damage our roads or the House or Studio. We hoped that we would have rain that could at least stop the problem. But it did not happen! So this year another $$$$$ to have the front area cleared 5 to 10 feet away from the fence line. We have a great guy (very expensive) that does our tree work, but this time we had him leave the wood from each tree stacked and they chipped the little limbs and branches and blew them back into the acreage! Saved some $$ on by doing that.

Then we contacted a company to replace the existing fence (very old) for the front of our 5 acres. Wish I could live that week over, but what happened bit us. We hired 2 guys who were willing to charge a low fee for doing the fence plus all the wood that was left from tree cutting. WELL, about 2 days into this it was obvious they just needed the wood to sell to BBQ Restaurants and knew nothing about doing good fence work. I have accepted that when we “fired” them from fence work that they still wanted to cart the wood off – so we accepted and paid them for the work they had tried to do! LESSON LEARNED! That was on Friday the 17th. On Saturday morning I called the local Hardware store and they recommended someone to get us out of our fix! We were so blessed, Kevin came at noon that day, started cleaning up the mess and by Monday morning we had our new fence! YEA. He did a great job and did not overcharge us. In fact, he is the nephew of a retired Fire Fighter that Clay worked with during their career in the SAFD! How about that one.

Then this last week, nothing went well. Too many problems with Caremark again, Doctor issues, and a few other problems. If that was not enough, how about the weather on Wednesday being close to 100, then down to 50 or so degrees for 2 days and now back to the 90’s. Yesterday I felt fine until the 30 MPH winds hit and boy this time Mr Menieres, Mr Migraine, and Ms Fibro all hit me at one. I was lucky to know who I was.

But today I am feeling more like myself, but still have a problem with “changing Heart Doctor problems” for Clay. It should work out BUT who knows. Things are changing. If you go to a group of Specialists and you have a falling out with the first one, they can ‘NOT RELEASE’ you to go to another doctor in that GROUP because of EQUITY! BRANDON’S DOING! Well, only 22 more months of this Communist Country! Republicans, Independents, Conservatives had better get their minds right for 2024! (OK enough of my opinion on that!)

Here are a few pictures of the stacks of fire wood that we have remaining.

And here is the new fence line. We used Horse fencing and ran barbed wire on the top and bottom.

In the end, all has worked out. Yesterday the individuals are now beginning to pick up the wood and haul it off. Each stack that they take makes it worth the $$ (small amount) we paid them for their inability to do our fence! You can see how the drought has impacted this area of South Texas. Many dead trees, but now they can fall and be left to Mother Nature!

Have a wonderful week and enjoy stitching. I am now going to do a Quilting Post! Hugs

Hugs, Nanette

February 12, 2023

Slow Sunday Stitching – 12 February 2023

And here we go! I have now recovered from eating the wrong food – a teaspoon of Ketchup every day for a week and a piece of Clay’s birthday cake, along with some green beans – Will I ever learn? Successfully back to walking – I did slack off 2 days – not feeling that well, guess I was just tired from all that fun and games in quilting those UFO quilts.

Rebecca just sent me a picture of Brinton Hall. I loved this quilt and wanted to make it as close to the original as I could, but as I moved toward the outer borders, I opted for floating Stars and Squares in a Square (SnS). Rebecca did a beautiful job. Tomorrow I will be receiving the 2nd set of 3 quilts finished and she only has (ONLY) has 7 more to go since I sent her Capital T quilt last week.

I have finished more of the quilts I quilted. I cut a 2 inch or 2 and 1/8th inch strip for my binding. This way the binding is the same on both sides. I started doing this when I made my first show quilt in 2005. This quilt is called Southwest Texas Stars

Rosemary Young’s BOM.

Red and Green Easy Peasy – fabric from New Zeland. The binding for this quilt is bias binding quilt cut at 2″.

2013 BOM –

I have 2 more to complete and then I will start on the 7 in the “room I never go in”! LOL I need to finish Boo’s and Bats and RSC Scrappy Quilt!

Well, that is all that I have been doing this week and today I will be working through my scraps from various quilts, cutting the pieces into different cuts! Here is where I was last post. I have completed the following.

All my Moda Marbles fabric are from the 1997 Patrick Lose collection. The fabrics are no longer available but I have a great stash that I built up when I first started quilting. The Moda Marble Mates are no longer being produced and now the Moda fabrics are so heavily over dyed and ravel so bad I do not purchase them anymore, so I am blessed to have the stash (not pictured) I have when they were made in Japan.

This is what I will be working on today. Hopefully be done before the Super Bowl Game!

Have a wonderful Sunday and if you like football, enjoy the game!

Hugs,

Nanette

February 7, 2023

To Do Tuesday – 7 February 2023

Happy Tuesday! I have finished all quilting (16 projects) and only have 3 more quilts to bind. Now that does not include 4 that have been sitting around since before I re-did the binding on them. Then Rebecca sent me 3 quilts last month and then 10 more will be forthcoming later. Those quilts will have to be squared, trimmed, and binding sewn on, so I will have plenty to keep me busy the next 3 months.

I did a post on Sunday that shows where I am in my “cleaning up ALL UFO’s” project. I already have a large stack of Churn Dash blocks that I made last summer that will be made into a quilt top, BUT not until I finish other things.

As an update to my Sunday post above, I have finished Rosemary’s BOM (the red one) and the box of scraps that I was working on Sunday are now cut into usable pieces for a quilt someday!

Goals for the next week will be to complete the “scrap cutting” project and more work on bindings in the evening and when that is complete, I have to dust my 2 rooms. I just cannot keep putting that project off. It will take me most of a day to do that deep dusting job.

Oh, here is a picture of Clay’s Birthday Cake from Whole Foods – it tastes just like cakes used to taste 27 years ago! NO GMO’s! Purchased 2 roasts and we divided them up into 6 meals and having roast for supper this evening. (I mortgaged the house for them!) LOL

Tree cutting has started, they took down one of the 45 foot Black Jacks and working on the other one today. Of course that is not all the trees that will be coming down on our property this year. But as soon as they are finished with tree cutting we will have our new fence put up! YEA!

Have a wonderful week!

Hugs,

Nanette

February 6, 2023

Slow Sunday Stitching and More Projects To Do

Morning to all! Back to the walking now that I have finished quilting for awhile! Weather was cold and wet then we had 4 days of sunshine and think it will be sunny today (Monday). But rain back Tuesday and Wednesday which is great because we are in such a drought. Our favorite Tree Guy whom we love to support is coming today to start working on the areas that we want cleared. We will then put up a new fence (about 400 feet) in the front – Should all be completed by 1 March!

I wanted to take some time to show you what Clay came up with to assist me in binding quilts – especially the larger quilts that Rebecca is working on. It is a small portable table (and yes Clay has modified it). Looks like a mini ironing board, but it works great and takes the weight off my left shoulder when I am putting binding on a quilt.

Clay also put a plastic wire covering on the edge of my quilting table. I found that the sharp edge prevented the quilt to smoothly move over the table while sewing. It is stuck on with tape!

I did finish going through all of my quilts, putting the Utility quilts (fun ones) in the closet. During that fun, I realized that I have another new project – making labels for over 20 quilts that I did to do when I completed them. (Just remembered – add 13 more when Rebecca finishes). Maybe all the “LITTLE THINGS TO DO” will keep me from making another top for awhile. LOL.

I have completed 4 of the last 9 quilts I quilted.

There are 4 more to complete. I will finish the red quilt today! There is nothing like tacking down binding on a red quilt, with red binding, with red thread! Talk about the blind leading the blind!

This is my current project – something I have not done in a few years – Going through scraps and cutting them in different sizes! I am calling this my Recoup from Long Arm Quilting Project. Besides the ones on the table (from York Lodge and Stars Around the Garden) there are 4 more buckets (on the long arm table) and one drawer to go through. After making a quilt top I put the scraps in a plastic bag and then go through them. Well, that drawer is also full. I am organized, but it appears that I need to really clean this mess up. I would love to make some quilts using the pieces up, or maybe I will gift some to others. Who knows, but as long as I am doing my 10,000 steps (including the 4500 during my walk) I can justify sitting in a chair during the afternoon.

A week ago I noticed this flower in the back yard. Clay caught a butterfly buzzing around it and snapped this picture! He is so good at taking photos. I am not as good! I put it on my iPhone for wall paper!

Well, today is taking a trip to San Antonio, Whole Foods. I have been craving a good roast and hope to find one that I would not have to mortgage the house to purchase! LOL. Then a trip to the Post Office and a quick stop at UPS.

And lastly I want to wish my Clay a Happy 79th Birthday! It is hard to realize that we have know each other for 70 years, and married 27 years this year. Hum, I don’t feel any older, but guess I am! We grew up on the same street, went through school together, lived life and he found me in 1996! How blessed we are!

Hugs and have a great week,

Nanette

February 1, 2023

OMG and PHD for January 2023

Winter time in South Texas. We need new weather forecasters, Sunday it was 88 degrees and then on Monday it was 38 and has stayed in the 30’s and will be in the 30’s until sometime tomorrow IF they have it right. They have missed the boat for the last 2 years! Today we have mild ice on our trees, rain, and the Pines (about 85) have ice. Hate to see this and hopefully this will end tonight – Prediction for tomorrow 60 – today it is freezing – go figure. I am using my walking time to catch up on emails and posts and working on lovely Income Tax.

Rather than re-hashing what I have been working on in January and what goals I have accomplished this month can be found here where I have listed all the quilts I have quilted this month. I am now left with 10 quilt tops to hand quilt and this will be a project started slowly and probably take some time. I will decide if I select one to start on next week.

Saturday I finished the last of the tops that I was quilting (13 were sent to Rebecca for E to E quilting and she does an exceptional job to finish my quilts)! Check out the latest finish here.

Sunday I finished going through my fabrics in the Studio by putting back all the fabric I was pulling making backs for the 10 quilts I did. My room looks so neat and back in order, just a few more things to relocate! You can see I have 2 large rooms to play in. So spoiled.

I can finally see this wall without all those quilts that were hanging around to be quilted! LOL

Monday was back to walking and working on paperwork.

Tuesday morning I went through all my quilts, moving some to the overflow room in the house where I keep extra fabrics, yarn, embroidery thread and now folded quilts. I have found about 25 that require Labels (won’t let this happen again) and this is the room where I am putting the 13 quilts that Rebecca is working on. So far I have 3 from her to square, cut binding, and hand sew the binding with 3 more coming in a couple of weeks. Then there are 4 more waiting for me to bind from November/December. They are all large quilts. This was also my goal for January.

Of the 9 that I quilted, I have 3 finished binding, 2 that I am working on, and 3 that I need to cut the binding, sew them together, then sew them on the quilts and yup – they will be put with the other 2 that I am working on. Lots and Lots of hand work, but that is fine as all my quilts are quilted!

My one goal that I have not accomplished is to dust both rooms in the Studio, but I will put this one in my February to do list after I have finished the binding on the last 3 quilts!

For February I will start with adding binding on 3 quilts, dusting the Studio, and working on bindings.

Have a wonderful February and enjoy stitching!

Hugs,

Nanette