My Tulips Died! Post Number 706 – 22 April 2024

Well, it is a pretty day today and so great to see the Sun this morning and weather in the 50’s. Nice, but it won’t last long here in South Texas. We have had some rain off and on, but not enough to really clear the drought problem.

Things I have learned about aging since the Thumb Journey….. I can now understand why older individuals tend to “give up”, “sit more”, and “so nothing” at the age of 79! The 4 months of Recovery time was harder on me than I expected and the loss of my desire to do anything but sit and do hand exercises all day long. It took a toll on my creavity and energy and has caused some Depression!

I will also have to admit that I have really had to push through the desire to just sit and be brain dead and continue walking each day without reaching my Goals. But I have made it through it all and climbing out of the depths of ” I WANT TO DO NOTHING”.

I am still not doing my mile in 20 minutes, nor my one and a half mile in 30 minutes. I can do the mile in 22 minutes and the other in about 33 minutes, but I am not happy with this. So this week I am going to walk a mile and push myself to attempt to get back to at least 21 minutes. I will take a short 3 minute break and do the other one half mile. I will say that the easy way out would be to just quit walking or just do a slow walk, but I know I can get back to where I was before the thumb problem and the depression sitting around doing nothing but watching TV brings to me.

Now, let’s pick up where I was in my early April post. I was so excited about using up the fabrics when I found the Tulip Garden pattern. BUT, after I had finished the 2nd border things went South on this one. The Designer of the pattern made a mathematical error on the first border, which threw Border Number 2 totally off, not to mention the remaining borders. I worked with it for 2 days realizing that I would have to totally re-write the pattern. I tried to work with the Medallion and how to best proceed by re-designing the remaining borders, ignoring the original pattern. I could not envision any way to make different borders fit the Medallion, so I was done with this project as I was just not in the mood. This is the pattern.

This is what I came up with after trying 3 different borders. I had problems with the “dot” fabric and the “border” fabric. As you can see in the bottom left corner. I needed to pass this challenge on to someone else to play with it and gifted it to Lori since she does better with scrappy quilts!

I was so disappointed when this all happened as I was trying very hard to get back into the quilting groove and this was not the quilt to make that happen. I often will gift fabric to other quilters when I realize I am DONE! It is my way of sharing.

So after that lovely experience, I decided to finish In My Garden which is now called Bunnies in My Garden! After putting the blocks together I then had to determine how I would do the border. Dawn Heese designed the pattern and had a scalloped border, but I did not feel that that type of border would fit my fabric selection. I called Jaydee and we had discussions on types of borders that I could consider. She thought an 8″ Piano Keys border would work as it would give the effect of a fence. My final was to do a green 1″ border and 5″ Piano Keys. It is always fun to bounce quilting ideas around with Jaydee since she has been quilting many more years than I. Yesterday I finished Bunnies in My Garden! I am so pleased with it. The colors I selected are cheerful and bright and different from the original pattern. I started this project in May 2022. I should have finished it in 2022, but instead I worked on getting the 30+ quilts quilted and finished! I believe by the time I finished that project I had burned myself out for quilting. (Then the thumb went ballistic).

This is the pattern by Dawn Heese.

And here is my Version of her Quilt.

I am working on my Mode Christmas SAL embroidery blocks – hoping to get them done in the next couple of weeks. They too have been around way too long. I also need to visit Celebrating Mary Brown, a project I started back in September 2019. WOW I am in shock – cannot believe it has been almost 5 years when I was so excited about this project. BUT again I had no idea that Cataract Surgery in October, Clays hand accident, Clays Heart Valve Replacement and a year full of dealing with 3 insurance companies would be coming my way!!!! I call it “Life”! Here a picture of the pattern and where I was in the project when I had to quit working on the quilt in 2021. I had finished 16 blocks. These are the corner blocks and I hope to be able to complete it in the next year. This will be an evening project along with some embroidery, cross stitch, and hand quilting mixed in.

I have all the fabrics needed to finish this quilt and looking back at all I have done since I started quilted in 2001 I am amazed. I really need to throw this depression out of the house and resume with my love of quilting! It has also been 10 years since I started my Blog. I am very happy that I did start blogging as I can go back and see what Life was giving Clay and I and all the projects I have worked on. Great history for me! Maybe I will now begin to become the Happy Quilter again with tons of challenges ahead.

I am now going to consider my next project, but it will NOT be from a FREE pattern! I have so many that I want to make and have plenty of choices. We have to make a run to SA at noon so today will not be too productive unless we are able to get home by 2 or so.

I wonder how many other Quilters are out there that are having some depression with how our world is going to Hell! I have had to just listen to notifications on my iPhone and only watch the News if something happens. I will continue to pray for President Trump’s safety as I put nothing past Democrats now. The countdown today is 207 Days, 6 hours, 59 Minutes, and 55 Seconds. I pray that we make it.

Have a great week, I am now anxious to get back home from SA and select a pattern to start making during the day. A Wedding Ring, Another Feathered Star, or any pattern that will challenge my skills as a Quilter.

Hugs,

Nanette

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