Stars or No Stars

I'm working on another 12 1/2" block.  What do you think?  Stars or no stars?  Stars of a different fabric / different color?  Felted wool was suggested but I don't know where to find any locally.

Thank you!

Visiting My Flowers

While working outside this afternoon I saw this interesting "creature" fluttering around a planter.

 I was able to snap a few pictures while it sucked from the blossoms.

Between goggling striped hummingbird and facebook friends, I learned it is called a White-Lined Sphinx Hummingbird Moth.  It was the first time I have ever seen one.  Several of my facebook friends have them around their flowers this year also.

 Last fall DIL-2's grandma was digging up one of her perennial gardens.  DH and I went out to dig up several varieties of perennials.  The problem this spring is that I didn't label them.

 For now I am waiting for them to bloom to know what is a flower and what could be weeds.

Haying TIme!

 Since we no longer have dairy cows to feed, we don't forage chop  or fill our silos  with our first crop.  This year we cut a couple of fields and round baled it  "green".  That means the hay was not dry when it was baled.  We did that so we were able to get it off the fields sooner.  We brought in a machine that wraps the bales.  The bales will ferment like haylage.  This winter  DH will feed it to the beef cows.

The round bales are hauled home from the fields on the bale wagon.  It carries 10 bales at a time.

The bales are made about 5 1/2  feet tall to be silage wrapped

DH loads them onto the machine that wraps the bale. There is a belt that moves the bales along.

Tonight they wrapped about 100  bales.  They will work at it again on Friday.

 

The only way I am going to become better at FMQ is to practice.  If you look closely you might be able to see the FMQ   stars and loops on this 10 1/2 in block.  I practiced drawing stars on a piece of paper.  Then looking at the paper I sewed on the block.  I made loops between the stars. 

I hadn't thought of drawing the stars on the square until I was finished!

   

Whew! I finished in time!

I finished the baby quilt just in time. The "Sprinkle" started at 1:30.   When I arrived home from church all I had left was to sew the binding.  Even with life happenings that interrupted my sewing.  I didn't know they had painted the baby's room blue with white polka dots!  I had planned a different pattern-but I know this one goes together quickly!

Thursday evening DS-1 came to the house asking if the cat that had been hit on the highway in front of the house had kittens.  He could hear kittens crying in one of the sheds.   DH found the four kittens.  We used medicine droppers to feed them on Thursday night and Friday morning.  A friend of mine has raised orphan kittens  so she was willing to take them.  They should start drinking out of a saucer shortly.  If DIL-2 wasn't highly allergic to cats, I think DH would not have been able to give them up. She will find homes for them when they are ready to go.

I Learned A New Term! "Baby Sprinkle Shower"

This morning I was invited to a shower for a 2nd baby.  It is going to be small with primarily family and a couple friends.  (I am blessed to be included)  While reading Sew Blessed's blog I read they had just had  a "sprinkle" for her daughter.  With the first child there was a Baby Shower. Now with the second baby they had a "sprinkle." It is even described on the web as "A Baby Sprinkle Shower."

I had intended on making a quilt for the new little guy to have ready when he is scheduled to arrive near the end of June.  So instead,  I need to get busy and try to have it ready by Sunday.   I am going to start right now.  The pattern is going to be easier than I first intended.   I will post my progress!

P.S.  Yes, the eagle was sitting in a pine tree just outside my kitchen window.  We see Bald Eagles quite often.  I  never get tired of watching the majestic way they fly.

Welcome to My School Day World

Often I refer to my classroom as "alphabet soup."  It the students have a disability with a letter they are in my classroom.  I teach in a small Northern Wisconsin School District.    We have about 650 students in our school K-12.  I teach students with disabilities in grades 3-6 with 18 students on my caseload.  I usually work with students who have  been diagnosed with SLD( Specific Learning Disability),  ADD/ ADHD (Attention Deficit Disorder/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder),  Mild CD (Cognitive Disorder), OHI (Other Health Impaired),  and Autistic.   Before the district hired an EBD (Emotional Behavior Disorder) teacher.  I also worked with EBD students.

I promised the students Banana Splits when we finished the MAP and Star Reading and Math computerized tests.

A special girl in my classroom is a Student with Downs Syndrome.  She has increased her skills leaps and bounds this school year. She has become verbal saying  the words, "Good girl,  go go go,  back pack, crackers,  mom, baby, and bike." She learned to ride her trike this year. A full time aide is with her throughout the day.

My 6th grade reading students were doing research on Dinosaurs of the three Mesozoic periods.  I used the Smartboard to direct them to a specific website on the laptops.  From there they found the information they needed to create posters. 

The 7 sixth graders will be moving up to Jr. High in the fall.  After working closely with students for four years it is sometimes difficult to let them go.  A new group of 3rd graders will be coming over from the primary school to join us.

Welcome to My World

The trumpeter swans have returned to the pond.  For my new blogging friends, we live in the country with a pond across the road from my kitchen window.  I enjoy sharing with you what I watch from the window.

 On Sunday night I worked on a second 12 1/2" block for the Red, White, and Blue Blog hop.  (check the sidebar)  This is the "Glory In Scraps" block from  Marcia Hohn's pattern site.

 One of my Quilt Shop Hop purchases was a GOOD pair of 4" inch scissors.  They were 25% off and I actually did need them!  They are great for clipping those extra threads hanging around. 

DH called just after I finally arrived home from school to tell me he had another field to disc before he came home.  So instead of having left over swiss steak and potatoes at home I took it to him in the field.  The yellow dome on the top of the tractor is the auto-steer guide.  It is a type of GPS that operates with a type of computer in the tractor.  They program it for each field.  It guides the tractor down the field .  It works great when planting.  It prevents planting over ground that was already planted and helps maintain straight rows.  Now understand that is totally my interpretation of what I have been told. : )

DS-1 called while I was on my way home from feeding DH.  He asked me to stop to complete some paperwork he needs to have in the mail.  I was thrilled to arrive at the field to find DGS-2 in the tractor with his Daddy planting soybeans.  Notice his John Deere blankie on the floor of the cab.

 Don't all farmer boys wear their John Deere shirts when farming with Daddy!

I am so blessed.  Now to face the dishes and the laundry. 

 If I hurry I may find time for some quilting!

Happy Mothers Day!

A Mother's Day Prayer for You
May you have all the joy your heart can hold...
All the smiles a day can bring...
All the blessings a life can unfold...
may you have God's best in everything!


Have a Wonderful Day

Erma Bombeck's Mother's Day Column 1995

Erma Bombeck  was a columnist and author.   Most of her books and columns were uniquely humorous.  The following is  a column she wrote the year of the Oklahoma City Bombing. 

If you don't want to read the entire column,  please skip down to my comments at the end.

If you're looking for an answer this Mother's Day on why God reclaimed your child, I don't now.  I only know that thousands of mothers out there today desperately need an answer as to why they were permitted to go through the elation of carrying child and then lose it to miscarriage, accident , violence disease or drugs.

Motherhood isn't just a series of contractions.  It's a state of mind.  From the moment we know life is inside us, we feel a responsibility to protect and defend that human being.  It's a promise we can't keep.  We beat ourselves to death over that pledge.  "If I hadn't worked through the eighth month."  "If I had taken him to the doctor when he had a fever."  "If I hadn't let him use the car that night."  "If I hadn't been so naive, I'd have noticed he was on drugs."

The longer I live, the more convinced I become that surviving changes us.  After the bitterness, the anger, the guilt, and the despair are tempered by time, we look at life differently.
While I was writing  my book, I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise, I talked with mothers who had lost a child to cancer.  Every single one said death gave their lives new meaning and purpose.  And who do you think prepared them for the rough, lonely road they had to travel?  Their dying child.  They pointed their mothers toward the future and told them to keep going.  The children had already accepted what their mothers were fighting to reject.

The children in the bombed-out nursery in Oklahoma City have touched more lives than they will ever know.  Workers who had probably given their kids a mechanical pat on the head without thinking that morning are making phone calls home during the day to their children to say "I love you."

This may seem like a strange Mother's Day column on a day when joy and life abound for the millions of mothers throughout the country.  But it's also a day of appreciation and respect.  I can think of no mothers who deserve it more than those who had to give a child back.

In the face of adversity, we are not permitted to ask, "Why me?"  You can ask, but you wont get an answer.  Maybe you are the instrument who is left behind to perpetuate the life that was lost and appreciate the time you had with it.
The late Gilda Radner summit it up well:  "I wanted a perfect ending.  Now I've learned the hard way that some poems don't rhyme and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end.  Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what is going to happen next.  Delicious ambiguity.


One of the biggest fears of mothers who have given back a child  is that the child will be forgotten by others. If you know one of these mom's, please send them an email,  give her a call or better yet a hug.  Don't think you will make them sad.  They are most definitely thinking of that child today.

Thank you!

I did it! I appliqued!!

Attempting to applique has been a mental block of mine.  Now I feel like a baby who just learned to walk--all excited--until I look and see that everyone else already knows how to walk.  But---I did it!  I know it is very simple, but this may just be the beginning!

This is my first flimsy for the Jane's Red, White, and Blue Blog hop the blocks need to be 10 1/2 or 12 1/2 unfinished.   I hope this will be acceptable.  When I looked back at the Table Toppers from Madamme Samm's hop. I think "Oh My what did I get myself into."

I hope to quilt this piece this weekend and add a hanger sleeve on the back.  This pattern is from Marcia Hohn Quilters Cache.

It was a beautiful spring day in Northern Wisconsin.  The temp reached almost 70 deg.  It is hard for students and teachers to focused on days like this!

Things I learned tonight:

1.  Don't trim until you make sure the block is together correctly.  (Double check the instructions.)

2.   Don't trim in an attempt to make things right.  (Pinwheels looked great until I trimmed it too much.)

3.   Don't start something when you are tired.   ( I should have known better.)

On the Positive side:

1.  I know what not to do next time.  (It will go much quicker since I won't make the same mistake again.)

2.  I needed a place to practice free motion quilting. ( I will do some experimenting.)

3.  At least I did spend some time sewing! Yep!  Even if I made huge mistakes...It was good to be sewing.

4.  I am anxious to see what the complete pattern will look like...I quit with it when I made so many mistakes.   It needs another wider border with four smaller pinwheels in each corner.

Night all!

Grandmas Understand

All grandma's understand when you receive a picture like this you just have to share with friends! Grandchildren are one of God's greatest blessings to us!
Shortly after this was taken he said, "Bunny water?"  DIL-1 and the photographer ran quickly before he put it in the water with the ducklings!

 Of Course!!