Hexagons and Yoyos

When Mom, Linda Branock, died, I pretty much quit quilting. She had helped me get started on this, so now, almost 4 years after she died, I am working on the quilt she wanted to see me finish.

I have it laid out, and I am working to applique the blue hexagons onto the brown and lavender frame strips. I sit on the floor to stitch it. Yep, it is killing my body, but I don't want to lift it and have the edges to shift. I used spray baste (and pins), but you never know. 

It took me a minute to figure if I wanted the brown or the green frame (you can just see it at the sides of the blue hexagons), but I think the brown looks really good. Both the brown and green are from Mom's Lilac Hill collection of fabrics. (http://www.unitednotions.com/fcc_lilac_hill.pdf)

That was a lovely line of prints. (*sigh*)

 This is a close up of the hexagons (they still have their papers in). I was considering a faded text fabric, but when I put it on the design wall, it looked wrong. Maybe I'll use it in the borders. I have not decided about border fabric, but I laid some portions out (first photo) to see what might go.

AND here is the yoyo shawl I am calling finished. It has 966 yoyos. Don't ask how long it took me; all I can say is "years."

 Holler at me....I don't know if anyone still reads blogs. I do sometimes!

One Month

Embrace beauty in all its textures and layers, in all its time: past, present and future.

I have been taking time to make adjustments, sob my guts out, and absorb the silence in my home. I stay busy, but in the non-busy time his absence is like grey fog seeping into my conscience. It happens less now than at first. 

One night I heard his car door slam shut like he was coming home from being out. When we're  asleep, do brains select random noises from the past to play back?

The love seat and coffee table from the living room are now in the bedroom where I can read in the evenings. The big screen TV is, and always has been, too close to my chaise.

I cut out a new quilt, but I haven't found the discipline to put it together. It is for a special friend who has helped me through all this, so I will work on it during Thimbles Summer Stitch (In). Pat, if you are reading this, this year it is a Summer STITCH, not Stitch In. We'll have fun either way. I will be there if I can get vacation time.

I'd like to secure these yo-yos to this hand-dyed background.

That would be good. 
AND look what I found in the process of spiffing up the sewing room.

 Two of Mom's patterns we occaisonally get asked about. The Dresden Hearts pattern was published in 1989, and the rug pattern in 1986!

Cleaning the sewing room is a start.