What a difference a week makes!

The view from my kitchen window tonight, May 5.

Last week we had 3-5 inches of snow/ slush.  Or as Kasey said, "It was slushing again today."
Sunday was a beautiful day and later this afternoon the sun again came out.  We will take it as the rest of the week is to be raining.
                Tonight there were 14 deer in the field grazing on the fresh growth of alfalfa.

Yesterday afternoon I made a birthday cake for the granddaughter of a very good friend. When Sue saw the Barbie Princess cake I made for one of the girls she asked if I would make one for Emma. She was named for her great-grandma who is like another mom to both DH and myself.   Emma was thrilled.  It took some convincing for her to understand it was a cake to eat.

I had another IEP (Individualized Education Program) meeting  after school today.  It was my 19th this school year.   I need to complete the paperwork for several that have been held the past month.  The average IEP is about 12-14 pages.  There is a an annual IEP meeting for each student through the school year.  The IEP team consists of the parent/ parents, general education teacher,  any related service provider ( Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy,  Adaptive Phy. Ed, Speech/Language Therapy),  principal and/ or director of special education, and myself.

I became very good friends with my seam ripper on Sunday night.  For some reason I couldn't put the right pieces together for the Christmas Tree Skirt.  I am sure I ripped about the same block several times.  

A few Tidbits...

  This past week we had another snowstorm.  This is a picture of recess on Tuesday.

We did decide we would rather have 3-4 inches of slushy snow than tornadoes!

       The elementary secretary at school is retiring.  She is a very good friend.   However, our friendship is based at school and I know it will not be near as close once she is no longer at school.   She is a major Wisconsin  Badger fan.  I am making her a lap quilt from Badger fabric.    The fabric on the right is the backing.  I have a few more strips to sew and the borders.

    A Special Ed. teacher, who is a close coworker and friend, is moving to western Minnesota  in June.  I have taught with her for 14 years.   I know she has received awesome quilts from another friend, so I am making a Christmas Tree Skirt to give to her.  

     The son of a close friend is getting married in June.  The shower is in two weeks.  I am working on a Christmas Tree skirt for them also.  I have started the strips for the skirt.

     Perhaps, I am just feeling the overload of the end of the school year.  Several IEPs to complete and parent meetings in the next five weeks.   It will definitely be a marathon day and night. 

    My quilting is my way of letting everything go on my mind.  Maybe I just need to listen to "Let it Go" from Frozen!  
  The kids love this movie!


   When all is said, this is the best part of life.  The girls have been here the last two Friday nights while their mom had hair appointment clients.   They are all Papa's girls!

     




  

   

What a difference a week makes!

It wasn't just my imagination or complaining, it was an "old fashioned" winter.  Our last snowstorm arrived  a week ago Wednesday and Thursday (April 16 and 17th) with 18 inches of wet snow.  Our area received a record snowfall this past winter.  We received 120.4 inches of snow.  The previous record was set in 1898-1899 when 95.5 inches was recorded.  We blew away the record by 25 inches!  No wonder we had 8 snow days and two early release days!  That is a record also.

I had the kids for the snow day from school on April 17th. It saves them having to ride 35 minutes to daycare on bad roads.

These were taken today. Colby's first time big enough to climb the slide by himself!  He loved it!  Wouldn't let me turn him around to go down.  Simply climbed up and turned around to go down backward!

It has been crazy at school the past month.  It won't end for several weeks.   I have started a Wisconsin Badger lap quilt for a friend at school who is retiring this spring. 

God Bless,
Linda

One more finish...One more Badger Win!

 

Another Wisconsin WIN!  WooHoo!  At this rate I will finish more quilting projects!

Tonight I finished a baby quilt for a baby whose Grandma died after a valiant battle with cancer seven months before her first grandchild was born.  I promised her I would sew quilts for her grandbabies. 

This is for the second little guy who arrived a few weeks ago. 

 

Hopefully this will be our last snow of the spring!  (I don't really believe it. )It kept snowing about two hours after this picture.  We received about six inches of slush. As six year old Kasey and I were driving home in near white out conditions she said, "Grandma, I think it will be winter eternally!"

This is Spring?

The calendar says it is spring.  However, it definitely doesn't look like it at our home. We had another 10 inches of snow this past week. 

 

Tonight while watching the NCAA March Madness, I was also sewing at the dining room table. I have finished two more baby quilt  tops that I had started earlier. 

Our neighbors are expecting in May.  One of them will go to Jerry & Haylee's 

new baby.

With the Badgers wining tonight.. I will have another night of quilting when they play in the Sweet 16 next week! 

Go Badgers!!

National Quilting Day!

Finally after several weeks away from my sewing machine I was able to spend a few hours quilting!

My first project was to finish a very belated graduation gift.  Last spring I gave her a gift bag with three of the blocks.  I took it back to sew all the blocks together and quilt it.  I delivered it yesterday.  She loved it!

  I had previously started each of these baby quilts.  I sewed on the boarders of the Lil' Cowboys quilt.

The Pinwheels and Prairie Points quilt needed the prairie points sewn and the the borders needed to added.

Kasey stayed with us for  a week while her parents were on vacation.  Her blankie is six years old.   Several years ago we started sewing patches on it as it would wear out.  I didn't realize it was going to be around this long.   The blankie had developed holes in the patches.  She decided I should cover all the patches.  I took this picture before we covered them up.  She picked out all the patches from my stash as we sewed them on.

It felt SO good to sew again!

More winter!

                                  

                                Last weekend we had another snow storm!  It moved in on Thursday night with snow and wind.  Everything in Northwest Wisconsin was closed with the area sheriff department urging people to stay off the highway.

 We used the tractor and loader to clear out our driveway.  DH also started up the John Deere Bulldozer to push the snow back.  He needed to use the dozer to clear a path to feed the cattle.

Several machine sheds, garages, and decks have collapsed under the weight of the snow.  DH and DS-1 spent Sunday afternoon trying to shovel snow off our biggest machine shed.

Farm Taxes are completed!  That means--out comes my sewing machine!!  I need therapy time.

Last Sunday afternoon we celebrated Jessa's third birthday.  All she wanted to eat was the "Blue Cake Grandma made."

 

It seems unreal to think Kylie is six months old already.

God Bless,

Linda

Wisconsin Recess

Finally an outside recess.  The weather in northern Wisconsin during January was too cold to allow the students outside most days.   If the temperature is below zero they stay inside.   Today the temperature is 10 degrees with no windchill.  They were loving it!

 We were closed due to extreme cold temperature and windchill four days in January.   In addition to the cold weather there is an extreme shortage of LP (Propane) to heat homes.  Before Christmas we paid $1.17 per gal to fill our tank.  Currently the price is over $7.00 if you are able to find it.  The dealers are expecting cash on delivery and will only drive to a tank if the tank is down to 10%.  Many families have their heat turned down to 60-65 degrees.  

This morning I saw a house fire in an older home that was using a space heater to heat the home. 

We are all ready for spring. 

Cold Weather Quilting & Treasures Part II

As is with most of the country, IT IS COLD.  Most of the churches were closed on Sunday.  Schools were closed today and will be on Tuesday also.    I have taken advantage of the time!

 The flannel quilt is for a little guy who was born in September.  With everything that happened during September, October, and November, I didn't sew his quilt.   The back is a gold minky. I was pleased how well it went together.   I will take it to a baby shower on Saturday at his grandma's house.

The shower Saturday is for our neighbor.   The dad-to-be is like one of our own kids.  It is exciting.  I finished a quilt top I had made last summer.  I didn't think I dared go to the shower with a quilt for the baby not here yet and not take a quilt for the baby already here! The fabrics are Darlene Zimmerman retro fabrics.

One Man's Trash....turned into treasures for me.  When working a cleaning out my MIL's house in November my BIL would sort through things to be put out for pick up by a local charity.  He happened to mention he put out several tins of buttons.  I said I would take them.  I went over to the house that evening.  In the stack of things to go to charity I found what I consider treasures.

One of the items was this old wicker sewing basket.   When I opened it I found several projects that were started.  Also were crochet hooks and embroidery hoops.

There were several boxes of crocheting threads.  When looking through one boxI found an envelope containing several crochet hooks and two tatting shuttles.  I took them back to the house to share with my SIL.These are a few of the hooks and the shuttle.

Tomorrow I will have one of the grandkids so he doesn't have to ride 45 minutes to day care in the cold.  I plan to spend time quilting on a overdue graduation gift.  It is the largest quilt I have used free motion with my DSM.  I will be very glad when it is finished! Amy,  do you recognize the blocks?

               Stay Warm---forecast for morning is -45 deg. wind chill. 

    God Bless, 

   Linda

Happy New Year My Blogging Friends!

 

We have big plans for New Year's Eve.  DH is already almost asleep on the couch watching college football bowl games.  I am getting ready to pull out my sewing machine to work on one of the three baby quilts and one twin size that I need to finish in January.  

It has been a busy week.  Our sons and families were here for breakfast on Christmas morning.  To make it easy we had Belgian Waffles with maple syrup from friends and strawberries from the strawberry patch of another friend. 

                      We even managed to get a picture of all seven grandkids at one time!
                                                       It was quite an adventure.

 

 May God Richly Bless you in the New Year,

Linda

Treasures Found-Part One..

I spent many  hours during the month of November on Saturdays and  week nights after school working with DH's  brother, his SIL  and DH's sister going through my MIL's house.  She was a "saver', there are years of cards, newspaper clippings, and things to sort through.

On the bottom of one cupboard were quilts she had tied made of old wool and flannel scraps.  The other families each took 2 or 3 of these quilts.  At the bottom of the cupboard was another quilt. It is completely hand stitched and hand quilted.  There is no batting in it.

                              

Also found in a drawer were 20 Dresden Plates.  They are sewn by machine, pressed and ready to be used.  They are sewn with  old flour sack or chicken feed sack fabric.  They are machine stitched with the edges sewn by hand.  The other eight are like these.

These four pieces were with the Dresden plates.  They are of the same fabric. 

We found a box in a closet with another set quilt blocks.  These are completely hand stitched.

Does anyone have any advice or guidelines for using new fabric with these very old blocks?  We don't know who sewed any of these blocks or the red and white quilt.  It isn't the type of hand work my MIL usually did.

Next time I will post more of the treasures we found. 

God Bless,

Linda