Sister's Choice Quilts

Snowman Houses and a Blast From the Past

To say I am enjoying making these houses from the Designer Mystery 2015 BOM sew-along is an understatement. Each one of these blocks is a little work of love. Top row: Grandma's Cottage and an Apartment Complex. Bottom row: Post Office and Sweet Shop. If they look scroogey, it is because I did not lay them straight on the design wall, they really came out pretty good. Anyway, so much fun! I am really pleased with how well the mail box turned out. That scalloped edging on the Sweet Shop block was so hard!

Here is a bit of fun. My sisters were going through our dad's bedside drawer and discovered an undeveloped roll of film. Kate took it to be developed and found a bunch of photos from 1999 that my dad had never had printed out. The picture above is of my mom at her kitchen sink washing lemons she had harvested from the lemon tree on the sideyard. We have no idea what she was planning to do with them, and even Sara, who was pictured in some accompanying pictures where she was assisting my mom, had no recollection of what the plan was. What a blast from the past this was. At the time, Sara and Ahren and I lived less than a mile away and were hanging out at my parents' house all the time. This picture is a perfect example of what life was like back then. There was always some project or other going on at their house that we all pitched in on. It makes me miss them so much.

Hope you all had a great weekend. I spent part of it with my sisters and it was so nice to be together. 

Relaxing Weekend

Eva and I got the Halloween decorations put away and brought out a few Thanksgiving things. Daylight Savings Time started, so it feels like it is dinner time, but it's only a quarter past 3.  My photos are all kind of dark, and that is what it was like in my house at the time.

Eva's dad and his wife have gone away for the week, so she will be staying with us all week long. Yay! It's a treat for us to have her for so many days. Sunday we made cornbread and attended a basketball team pizza party. I did get some sewing done on Saturday and somehow managed to spend a heck of a lot of money on new fabric.

Aren't these just beautiful? They are selected pieces from the Isabella collection by Minick and Simpson. This summer there is going to be a basket quilt sew-along in faded patriotic colors and I had to jump on this fabric to be sure I got some before it sold out. That's what I told myself anyway. I will put it away soon, but right now I am leaving it out where I can fondle it.

How gorgeous is this large-scale print? It will be my border I think.

In other news, I re-made my Sewcialites 2, Block 2 for the third time. I just could not get the colors right. Here they are in order of my making them:

One, on the left. Two, on the right.

Final version. I sure can't keep doing three versions of each block. I need to get my act together.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Halloween and Block Re-Do

We had a wonderful neighborhood Halloween gathering at my son in law's house near us. The adults sat around a small campfire in the front yard and greeted the kids and their parents as they came by for trick or treating. Eva's dad lives in a neighborhood that goes all out for Halloween, to the extent where people drive from nearby towns to trick or treat. When we first moved here, we lived in his neighborhood and the first Halloween we had 283 kids came by.  I kept track. All the houses were decorated to the nth degree and many people, like our group, sat out in front of their houses to pass out candy. It was all very festive and fun.

Eva was dressed as a mermaid skeleton and in the picture above she is standing with her bestie, who is a spooky black cat. Those girls are growing up so darn fast. 

I remade the second Sewcialites 2 block.  I just didn't care for the way the large print was working in the design. 

Here is a comparison. I think I prefer the one on the right.

We had a big rainstorm today, with lot of thunder and lightening. I am glad it held off until today and didn't spoil the Halloween festivities. I curled up on my chaise lounge with a good book and had a perfectly cozy day. Hope your week got off to a great start.

 

Thank You To All For Your Kind Words

Thank you to all of you who offered such comforting words of sympathy for the loss of my father. It was so sweet to read your kind comments. While his passing was not unexpected at his age, it still leaves a great hole in our family. It also leaves a great hole in how I spend my time each weekend. I am so used to leaving home on Fridays to keep him company and care for him through Sunday. It was so difficult this past weekend not to be with him. Besides missing our conversations, I found myself checking the time often and thinking of what we would be doing at a certain point in the day. It will be a big adjustment not to have him around. 

I did keep myself busy this past weekend and found getting deep into the project of sorting out my neglected sewing room was a good distraction. I sorted out piles of leftover fabrics and did a major tidying of the closet. I will share all that with you in another post this week. I should have taken a "before" picture. It was a mess.

My quilter returned four quilts to me a week or so ago and I can't wait to share the finishes with you. She's had these for a long time due to her family making a move from South Carolina to Florida. So my quilts have had quite a journey. They even got to go through Hurricane Ian, but fortunately were not affected. Can you imagine? You send your precious quilts out for quilting and your quilter has to inform you "Sorry, my house was destroyed by a hurricane and your quilts too." Luckily that didn't happen. 

That is my Sewcialites quilt in the top photo, and this is a close-up of the quilting design we chose. Actually, my quilter suggested it, and since she probably knows better than I do, I went with it. I like it. In particular, I like how the quilting thread does not stand out too much. It's tricky when you have a light background with black fabrics in the quilt top.

I hope your week gets off to a good start. Wish me luck as I adjust to my new "normal".

John C. Shyne 11/26/25 - 10/11/22

My father passed away Tuesday, October 11, 2022. He was a few weeks shy of his 97th birthday.

He was a wonderful man. He was a Stanford professor for 25 years, then started up his own successful company with several colleagues. He traveled all over the world and took his wife and daughters with him on many international trips. He was married to my mother for 57 years and had five daughters, nine grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. In 1976 he rode his bicycle, solo, across the United States, from Chevy Chase, Maryland to Palo Alto, California. He was an avid reader and passed his love of books on to me and my sisters.

Throughout his life, he was a kind and generous man. A loving parent, a good teacher, and a wonderful provider. As one of my sisters said, he gave us everything we could ever possibly need or want. He was respected by his colleagues, loved by many friends, and cherished by his daughters. It has been an honor to have him as my dad, and a privilege to care for him and keep him company in his later years.

I miss you Dad. 

Taking a Little Blogging Break

I am going to be taking a little break from blogging until the last week of September. When I return I hope to get back to my usual quilty and bookish content. 

Things have been rather hectic in my personal life these past months, with many family responsibilities vying for my time. With luck, things will settle down a bit over the next few weeks and I can get back to my hobbies and other interests. Thanks for your patience, and I'll look forward to "talking" to you again the last week of September!

How's It Going? It's Going

We are making some changes in my father's domestic arrangements that we hope will make things more comfortable and accessible for him. We have set up a television in his bedroom for one thing. Along with a comfortable armchair. One of my sisters ordered a smaller "adjustable bed" for him. He can raise the head of the bed up for a more comfortable sitting position, which hopefully will also enable him to sleep better. So far, he doesn't seem super impressed, but we have our fingers crossed that these improvements will help him recover from his recent fall. My other sister is taking him to see his doctor today, and it will be so helpful to have her evaluation. We are thinking we need to hire a caregiver to come in daily to help with hygiene matters and other things.

How about some fun quilt-related content?

This pattern, "Lady Tulip" is by Laundry Basket Quilts. I bought it, not to make the quilt as pictured, but for the block patterns contained in it. I seem to make so many sampler quilts lately, that it is nice to have options for other blocks if I don't care for the ones offered in the sew-along. These blocks are all 6", except for the one in the center, obviously.

I recently bought this new Lori Holt book, "Scrappiness is Happiness", which has 32 ideas for scrappy quilt projects. Who doesn't love a scrappy project?

Lastly, I picked up this book by Anna Dineen called "You've Got a Point", which looked intriguing.

I haven't bought this one yet, but I will, just for the quilt on the cover. It is the latest from Red Crinoline Quilts, "Tucked Away Treasures".

If I ever have a chance to start a new project, there are plenty of ideas here!

Hope you are all having a good week. Wish me luck with my dad. I'm up to care for him this Friday through Sunday.

Life is One Big Juggle Lately

Life seems to be one big juggle lately. I am trying to get all my work assignments for September done this month (along with my normal August workload) in anticipation of being in Ireland next month. I've been trying to get my clothes planned for the trip, an activity I normally enjoy. Lastly, my father's recovery from his recent fall is not progressing the way we had hoped. I won't go into detail, but it has been a challenge for my sisters and me.

Anyway. Would you like to hear about my travel wardrobe? I love putting together clothes for a trip. I pick a basic neutral and one or two accent colors. I seem to always pick black as my neutral, and am switching things up this time. This time my neutral color is navy. Navy handbag, navy shoes, jeans of course, and tops in cream, navy, light blue, and grey. I am really pleased with the way things have come together.

I am usually not much for busy prints, but how pretty is this blue floral sweater? It goes with dark jeans, mid wash jeans, and white jeans. It is lightweight and I can push the sleeves up if it's warm (but I'm going to Ireland, so that's unlikely). I love it. I got it from Talbots.

This slate blue sweater and knit pants are from JJill. The sweater is also lightweight and will be comfortable to wear on the plane and when I am lounging around the house or a hotel. The top and pants are an exact match, which isn't showing up so well in the photo. The top is oversized and the pants have an elastic waist. Yay.

This cream sweater is the same as the slate blue one above. I love a scarf to change up the look of an outfit. There are several shades of blue in this one, which makes it look nice with jeans of different shades. A scarf also elevates the look of a super casual outfit I think.

So, there are a few of the items I'll be packing for my trip to Ireland in September. Nobody seems to dress up much anymore, so I expect jeans will be fine for most of our activities. We have tickets to a couple of theatrical performances, and I do have a slightly dressier outfit for those occasions. On a side note, in the first photo, the navy rain jacket on the far left is from LLBean. It folds up teeny tiny into the left side zippered pocket of the jacket! Great for packing and for tucking into your purse just in case. 

Playing around with clothes for the trip is fun and has been a nice distraction from the more serious things going on in my life right now. 

Ups and Downs

I forgot to show you this new little table topper last week. It is made from some older Sandy Gervais fabrics I had in my stash. It's been over a year since I made it, but I think I may have used one of two charm packs to make it. I don't recall using an actual pattern. I think I just made half square triangles in two sizes and put them all together to form this design. I can't even recall where I got the idea.

We had quite a weekend. My father fell on Wednesday. He wasn't badly hurt, but could not get up. His fall detection lanyard didn't go off for some reason. He was alone and my sister didn't get to him for a couple of hours. He was helped up and seemed shaken but not injured. That night he fell out of bed and did himself some harm. He must have pulled a stomach muscle in the first fall, which made it difficult for him to get comfortable in his bed. In his struggle to position himself he slipped onto the floor. This time he scraped his elbow up badly. My nephew was with him right away and called 911. After two CT scans, an MRI, and examinations by emergency room doctors, he was pronounced not badly hurt and sent home.

The thing is, when a nearly 97-year-old person falls, it is a big deal. He was fortunate not to have broken anything but definitely pulled muscles and got bruised up to a degree that means he now needs assistance with every single thing. He can't sit up unaided, he can't stand up without help, he can't swing his legs up onto the bed or a footstool...You get the drift. He is also not eating much and is unable to sleep well, therefore is up half the night needing one thing or another. 

My sisters and I are with him 24/7 now. We are hoping his appetite improves and that his muscle strains get better, but in the meantime, it is a bit of work and we are quite concerned about him.

I bought this adorable Coriander Quilts pattern "Fly Away Blackbird" a week or so ago with the idea I want to make a table runner with these cute bird blocks. I love the yellow and grey Buttercups and Slate fabric, also by Coriander Quilts, but it won't be available until sometime in September. Oh well, no time to sew right now anyway.

Eva starts school this week and is so excited to see all her friends again. It was my husband's birthday yesterday and we had a quiet celebration. I will have my turn with my father this coming Friday through Sunday. As you can see, things are a bit of a mix of ups and downs right now!

So I Made a Pie

I am staying with my dad a few extra days this week. One of my sisters is moving into a new house and my other sister and I are covering for her while she gets settled in.

I am always trying to come up with menu ideas that appeal to my dad. He has a very small appetite, and doesn't care much for pasta or carbohydrate-laden dishes such as casseroles, Mexican dishes etc. He's a meat and potatoes guy, and loves his veggies. 

Yesterday I decided I'd make him a chicken pot pie, and it was a big hit. I had fun making it, and he seemed to enjoy eating it. I used half a rotisserie chicken for the meat. For the veg, I diced a potato and a carrot which I boiled for a few minutes (4 or 5) in a pan of water. I diced half an onion and a celery stalk and sauteed them in 5 T of butter. Once they were softened, I added 4 or 5 T of flour to the onions and celery. Once that was kind of pasty, I added 1 1/2 C of chicken broth and 3/4 C of milk and whisked it around until the sauce was nice and thick. I added salt, pepper, a bit of Lawry's seasoning salt, and some thyme. You could add frozen peas at this point, but I don't like 'em. Put the drained carrots and potato in the chicken mixture and stir. Mix it all up and pour it into a pie dish lined with one Pillsbury pie crust. I carefully placed the second crust on top and crimped the edges. Make a few little steam vents. I then baked it at 425 for 30 minutes. 

I was worried the bottom crust would be soggy, but it wasn't.  I was quite happy with the result. It was super easy, and wasn't even really a proper recipe. 

I'll be home Sunday, and we plan to celebrate the 4th with our son-in-law, who always does a BBQ. Next week, get ready for some sewing posts, because I have some catching up to do!