today marks 15 years since my grandma died.  it’s hard for me to believe in some ways.  that woman was such a vital part of my life, although i didn’t know it at the time (unfortunately).  it may sound silly to some and rude to others, but the last time i was at her grave was the day she was buried.  i just couldn’t bring myself to do it….until today.  it was hard and there were tears shed, but i’m so glad that i went.

grandma… i miss you.

i’ve been back hitting the books the past couple of weeks, so that whole having time to stitch thing has had to take a back seat…again.  but, i did get a chance to get into the kitchen and bake for no other reason than wanting to;  that’s always a plus!  it was a classmate’s birthday, and i decided to surprise her.  of course, you can’t take 1 cupcake into a room with 36 other students and expect them to be happy about it, so i made some for everyone.   she was surprised and pleased, which pleased me.  win/win.

i did finish my stone tree border before classes started back up, but upon further observation, decided that it needed something more.  took me two weeks to find the time to get this little bird on, but on it is and i’m calling it done.  after a period of not knowing whether there would be more borders for this quilt, i’m now sure that there will be.  hope to get rolling on them this weekend (hope, hope, hope).

and finally, something that just made my whole month…a post card from gwen.  my spot is reserved for next september!  extremely excited on one hand, but as i look ahead to september 2010, i can’t help but think of all the studying and tests and papers and care plans i have to do before then.  geesh…makes my brain hurt.

yet another block inspired by cold mountain’s ruby, a gal after my own heart:

“there was not one thing in a place like france or new york or charleston that ruby wanted.  and little she even needed that she couldn’t make or grow or find on cold mountain.  she held a deep distrust of travel.  her view was that a world properly put together would yield inhabitants so suited to their lives in their assigned place that they would never need nor wish to travel.  folks would, out of utter contentment, choose to stay home, since the failure to do so was patently the root of many ills, current and historic.”

here in the northeast last weekend, we got our first little taste of winter.  it wasn’t pretty.  cold, windy, snow, freezing rain, ice…blah.  so, when the weather made an abrupt change these past few days, i knew that we had to get out and really soak it in before winter comes back around and set up camp.  care to come along and crunch through the leaves with us?

can you smell fall in the air?  that musty, crisp scent that makes me think of pumpkin pie, apple dumplings and coffee.  okay…now i’m hungry.  but really, it’s a comforting scent to me.  makes me think of snuggling under quilts in front of a fire with a plate of gingersnaps (there’s the food again!).

as the girls and i made our way through the crunchy, carpeted woods and came upon the footbridge, something seemed familiar.  it has been a couple of years, and there were less leaves though.  i thought about how my life has changed in the past 2 years.  change can be tough, but this has been a good change, and i know that i’m heading in the right direction.

i couldn’t help but relate this autumn walk to our human walk.  we ventured out yesterday in hopes of soaking in the beautiful day…just to enjoy it while we still could.  we need to soak in every day as if it is our last…live it to its fullest and savor every last drop.

here’s hoping that you get out and soak in today.

the events of the past several days are prime examples of why i don’t firmly declare, with full conviction, that i will do nothing but sew/quilt.  life laughs at me with a snort and says, “ in your dreams, girlfriend!” 

things were going well up until friday afternoon, then it just all fell apart from there.  over 14 hours of saturday was spent shopping.  i know, poor me.    several more hours of sunday were spent doing the same, but  the good news is, almost all of my christmas shopping is done.  oh my goodness gracious, that feels wonderful.  the little bit that is left to do can be done while i’m in my jammies here at home. 

honestly, it was something that was planned beforehand.  i really dislike trying to shop with crowds of people, so i usually gather everyone’s wish-lists in october and head out to the stores.  yes, not only am i the planner extraordinaire, i try extremely hard to get those plans taken care of well ahead of time.  my dear husband, on the other hand, is the type that lives life by the seat of his pants…and seems to be quite happy with it at that.  for instance, he is known for doing his christmas shopping on december 24th….something that would make someone like me a frazzled, hysterical mess.  this year, however, he decided to mix it up a bit (there’s that living-by the-seat of his pants thing again!) and did a little bit of christmas shopping on saturday as well.  that little tidbit was enough to make me stop and stare.  imagine my surprise when *i* was the lucky recipient!

just goes to show you that people can change.   i had asked for a gps system for christmas;  he goes and buys me a suv  that has gps installed in it already!  go figure.  don’t get me wrong, i’m not complaining…not at all.

so, christmas shopping just about wrapped up and i still have 6 more days off from school.  still plenty of time to take care of those odds and ends that i’ve wanted to wrap up…like working on that bucket list of mine.

oh yes i am!  i’ve wanted to go for quite some time, but never got my act together soon enough.  can september 2010 come quick enough?  i think not!

so, now that all of that is taken care of, i’m ready to get into what i really set out to do during my break…quilt!  first though, i had to make this bag that i’ve been itching to make for a little while now.

my sewing machine was very happy to see me again and told me that we really need to do this sort of thing more often.  i couldn’t agree more!

several weeks ago, i had full intentions on working with my sugar loaf quilt and get those borders sewn together and on.  i truly looked forward to it and diligently counted down the days until i could turn on the machine and have at it.  yet, here i am, 3 days into my break, and i haven’t even touched the quilt yet.

all summer year, my brain has been niggling me about something…something that i didn’t want to think about.  i tried hard to shove it back further into the gray matter, but it is persistent.  i knew that if i pulled it out and gave it what it wanted (center stage), i’d end up in a hyperventilating heap on the floor…so that was out.  while weighing my options (or hiding from it…however you want to look at it), a quilt was born.  i was unaware of this surprise delivery until just a few weeks ago, when it just plopped onto my lap out of the blue.

at first, i reprimanded myself for letting my mind wander.  at the time, i had 20 chapters of pharmaceutical drugs (including all of their side-effect and how to administer them) to cram into my head in a week.  i didn’t have time to be thinking about quilts!  it was a persistent little bugger and kept nagging away at me.

as you can see, i caved.  the center is already all put together and now i’m working on one of the borders…the stone tree border.  yes, a stone tree. 

i can’t tell you, at this point, what the other borders will look like, or if there will even be any more.  me, the planner extraordinaire, and i haven’t got a clue.  that’s how this quilt has gone from day 1 though.  i pull together the jumbled, niggling thoughts in my head (that are screaming at this point), and sew.  and even though those thoughts have a theme, they are different each day…heck, each minute.

that’s the best way i can explain it right now since i’m still working it out..or rather, working through it.  for now, just know that my stones grow on trees.

yes, it has been awhile.  no excuses other than just incredibly busy with school, studying and life in general.  last night i had a huge final and my clinical assessments.  this morning, i am feeling a much, much lighter load on my shoulders.   i finished up the first level of my nursing classes with straight a’s, and i now have 12 days to catch my breath before starting into level 2 on october 26th.  my thoughts?  who needs to breathe….i have quilting to do!

be back soon…with pics.

there was a pause during august in the making of my cold mountain blocks so that i could get the sugar top together.  it’s been a nice change to work with them again.

to me, the character that has the most depth in this novel is inman.  not that the other characters aren’t important or enjoyed thoroughly, but a lot of our journey is with inman while he tries to find his way home to cold mountain.   the obstacles he has to overcome and the delays that keep him from continuing;  it’s heart-wrenching at times.  this next block is based on one of those delays…when the home guard find him, take him prisoner and start marching him, along with dozens of other prisoners, in the opposite direction.  back to the war that is slowly killing him.

” like the vast bulk of people, the captives would pass from the earth without hardly making any mark more lasting than plowing a furrow.  you could bury them and knife their names onto an oak plank and stand it up in the dirt, and not one thing-not their acts of meanness or kindness or cowardice or courage, not their fears or hopes, not the features of their faces-would be remembered even as long as it would take the gouged characters in the plank to weather away.  they walked therefore bent, as if bearing the burden of lives lived beyond recollection.”

since starting nursing school back in march, i’ve really struggled to try and find time to get some stitching in.  even though i am loving school, i’ve been laden down with loads of school work.  let me tell ya, nursing school ain’t for sissies.   the need to stitch hasn’t disappeared, it’s just that time is so very limited.

i started hand-piecing this quilt about 3 weeks into classes last march, knowing that the only way i was going to get some stitching is was in those few, “lost moments” that randomly appear.  i carried my little hand-piecing bag with me almost everywhere.  even if i was only able to sneak in a dozen stitches here and there, it helped that creative side of my brain to calm itself down a bit.  and those dozen or so stitches taken at random all added up over the months to form units, and then blocks and full rows.  finally….finally, we have ourselves a top.

and a wrinkled one at that (*note to self:  gotta schedule in ironing time*).  i’m really happy with how it has turned out.  five rows wide and 7 rows long.  once the borders are done and added, it should measure out to be big enough to fit a double bed (not that we have one of those here…obviously it grew a bit from my original plans!). 

at this point, it is folded up and rests upon my sewing chair.  i don’t have enough spare moments that is needed to sew up the borders at this time, so it waits.   hopefully come mid-october, when i have my end-of-level break, i’ll get a chance to break out the machine and have at it.  it’s been a patient quilt.

today, i’m thankful for…

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2.

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4.

how about you?