Budding Artist Among Us

Does it get better than this ?~!

Missing Tony

My younger brother would have turned fifty-one today had he not been struck down by a heart attack just before his 48th birthday. He is missed so much by his wife, three daughters, grandkids, nieces and nephews and by his brother and me. I'd like to remember him here.

Jodell and Tony married for over thirty years-childhood sweethearts.

Lynda, Mike, Tony and Cathi in Midwest City OK Aug 2008 to bury our sister Teri.

Mike and Tony

Teri cracks Tony's back for him.

Tony holding Cheyenne, his youngest daughter.

Tony and Teri (both gone now) in Tony's home in Park Hill OK on one of Teri's trips
home from Moscow where she and her family were missionaries.

That infamous hair of ours !~!

Tony and Danyelle, his middle daughter. 

I love and miss you, my brother,
thanks for all you did all those years for the parents.

Happy Birthday, Bob Dylan

Dylan turns 73 on Saturday, May 24th. Bob Dylan has been one of the most influential figures in folk music and popular music and culture since the release of his first album in 1962.

May you see many more birthdays, Mr Dylan, 

you have changed the world with your words.

For that I thank you.

Memorial Day Weekend Round-Up

Purple Blocks is finished except for the embroidery stitching I want to do before I send it to her. Her birthday is July 8th so I have a month or so to get it finished.

Linking up with My Quilt Infatuation's Needle and Thread Thursday.

Here are some progress shots:

Not sure how much more I will do but I've ordered some good needles that won't tear up my fingers like the ones I am now using are doing.

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Ordered a 20-strip jelly roll of solid pastels for Karen's quilt.

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Got nudged by Montsho about her quilt too. I need to get it together with this one. I promised her an African themed half-size to adorn the foot of her lovely bed. Now she has been married and I still must get it started. Come on idea-machine, do  your stuff !~!

Montsho owns two businesses: Divine Touch, and she is the nutrition consultant and massage therapist with hands from deep in the earth's memory of how we are supposed to feel and function. I receive from a session with Montsho blessings in my body, my heart and my spirit. I am enlightened, enlivened and enriched by her tender and knowingly firm manipulations and generous outpouring of genuine love and care for those under her care. I have been a loyal client for over a decade and it is to Montsho I consistently return for care I can get nowhere else.

She is also co-owner in a lovely shop, Essence Unlimited in East Oakland, that sells delectably scented soaps, lotions, oils and all that fun stuff. She and her son, Santiago Bryant, are having a great time with their newest endeavor. Stop by 3340 East 12th Street, suite 16, in Oakland and welcome them to the business world with a purchase to help them get their feet under themselves.

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  Montsho and her amazingly gorgeous smile that burns deeply inside her soul.
  Gentle, loving, compassionate-would that the world be comprised of people like 'Sho,
  what a different place it would be. I'd vote for her for Mayor of Everything !~!

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I ordered a book, Super Quick Colorful Quilts, with simple patterns that show off your chosen fabrics with large cuts and so I look forward to that. I purchase fabric for the patterns or pictures or depictions on it. The thought of cutting it into unrecognizable pieces leaves me cold so I create designs that showcase the fabrics. Straight lines, square corners, large slabs or stripes with accents of small solid strips intermingled are the major design elements in my work at this stage of my life.

So I am off to the sewing machine, ironing board, and rotary cutter. Ideas aswirl, fingers feeling good. Slept for about nine hours and that always helps with my internal ability to create satisfactorily. Sleep continues to be my most restorative self-care; and the easiest to give myself so I have NO reason not to do just that.

Be safe this weekend. Don't drink and drive. Cook your meat, if you must eat it at all, well done and save the e coli for another day.

Thanks for stopping by; I know there are lots and lots of blogs, I am but one in a sea. Thanks for bobbing by and stepping ashore for a brief visit.

Flower Asks-found on Tumblr

• Daisy:How old were you when you had your first kiss? I do not remember-early teens I would guess, some forty years ago now.
• Carnation:If I handed you a concert ticket right now, who would you want to be the performer? Martyn Joseph
• Jasmine:What color looks best on you? Purple
• Foxglove:Name three facts about your family? We're a blended unit. We've weathered some serious shit. We'll make it tho.
• Allium:What's the best thing you can cook? Lasagna
• Orange Blossom:If you could pick the gender and appearance of your child, would you? Yes
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• Calla Lily:If you died right now, what song would you want to play at your funeral? Imagine sung by John Lennon himself please.
• Poinsettia:Favorite holiday dish? Candied sweet potatoes with no marshmallows.
• Oxlip:Would you ever get into a long distance relationship? Yes. I currently am involved with two women several thousands of miles away.
• Primrose:Favorite kind of soup? My own Homemade potato/ham chowder using a quarter pound of butter in a pot of soup.
• Daffodil:What's the most thoughtful present you've ever received? An endorsed paycheck to spend as I pleased.
• Rose:Are you currently in love with someone? Yes, still in love with my husband of nearly thirty years.

• Ansonia:Would you ever become a vegan? Yes
• Peony:What's your favorite hot beverage? Hot Chocolate 
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• Tulip:For your birthday, what kind of cake do you ask for? Cherry Cobbler from Ikedas
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• Myrtle:Do you like going on airplanes? No, I find them overcrowded with crappy air to breathe and I detest the TSA treating me like a criminal every time I go thru security.
• Hibiscus:Did you ever play an instrument? If so what? Clarinet
• Zinnia:Who was your best friend when you were six years old? My late sister, Teri
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• Poppy:What color was your childhood home? White with red trim
• Hydrangea:Starbucks order? Hot chocolate-full fat milk, whipped cream on top
• Violet:Do you like where you're from? No, that's why I left the Eastern part of the country and came west to Northern California
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• Locust:What was your favorite book as a child? Mrs Mike
• Rhododendron:What's the scariest dream you've ever had? Losing all my teeth
• Queen Anne's Lace:Would you rather carve pumpkins or wrap presents? Presents-less messy with greater chance for creativity in my skill set
• Magnolia:Favorite kind of candy? Bit of Honey
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• Aster:Would you rather be cold or hot? Hot
• Marigold:Do you listen to what's on the radio? Not often
• Heliconia:Do you like when it rains? No, it makes my body hurt too much.
• Azalea:What's a movie you cried while watching? The Visitor
• Dandelion:Do you think you're important? Not in the big picture, but to my immediate circle I know that I am.

source: oxlips

Frankie's Quilt--Layout Contemplation

Atop the light blue linen that will be their base-the squares display
their varied colors and styles. No two even close to alike !~!

A Few Baby Boy Pics for the Weekend

Lego makes a great breakfast. Check my grip on my spoon, tho !~!

What's your dining pleasure ?~! The chef is in the House.

He's clapping cuz we're going outside.
I found a folded Sassy Ben in the pocket of his thrifted shirt !~!
I'm clapping about that...

Friday Morning Adventures

You Make Me Feel Like Dancing

Learning New Techniques

The sewing field rings with ways to accomplish tasks related to the endeavor. I have read thousands of pages of blogs and books, articles and manuals, novels and instruction sheets and still I find new ways that women, usually altho men do quilt too, have devised of doing particular tasks.

Case in point: I am creating a quilt for a graduate who's on her way to Massachusetts for college in the fall and I want to send her off with a nice piece that she wont be ashamed to have on her bed or chair in her dorm room and later she can take with her to her new home. I decided what I would do-many blocks, various sizes, with "made fabric" wherein one sews together scraps until a piece of "fabric" the correct size is attained. So I have been making those blocks for a couple weeks now and then since they vary in size by and inch or so in any direction and wouldn't look good all pushed up against one another I decided to float them on pale blue heavyweight linen. So then the next problem was the raw edges and how to deal with them. Several solutions came and went in my mind: turning the edges under and sewing them down; leaving them raw and fringing them; encasing them in bias binding tape and then sewing them down to the linen background. None of these really seemed to be right. Then today, as I am perusing how others label their creations I came up on a paragraph by a woman named Penny from June of 2012 with the ideal solution for my problem:

     "Rather than try and turn under a quarter inch before hand stitching the label in place, I face the label with some stabilizer. Stitch the stabilizer to the front of the label using a quarter inch seam all the way around with your machine. Then slash the stabilizer and flip it to the back of the label encasing all of your seams. As the stabilizer is now on the back of the label, there is no need to stitch up the slash where you turned it inside out. Stabilizer is so lightweight that it adds very little bulk and can be attached to your quilt by hand stitches or machine. I usually machine stitch labels on quilts that will be frequently washed."

The two bolts of 36 inch wide muslin under my workbench suddenly became the Cloth of the Hour as I realized that this could work for my current quilt dilemma. So I cut muslin in the correct size, stitched it all around and neatly sliced it in the back. I turned the pieces right side out and ironed them crisp. Delightful solution !~! Thank you, mysterious Penny, whose name was not clickable so I couldn't follow you to your profile. If you read this and see yourself please comment and tell me so I can properly thank you for this ever so smart solution to the Label discussion and also to fixing my dilemma with the quilt applique. 

The square before I sewed the muslin onto it.

The Cat helping show you the finished blocks with muslin sewn on
and blocks turned right side out.

"I will watch over them while you sleep tonight, Mama."

New Pillow-All From Stash

My first try at cornerstones.
Without instructions !~!

Envelope back out of thin-wale corduroy in navy and gray.
Stuffed toys are for size comparison.
and cuz I've never outgrown my need for soft toys...

Finished at 22 inches square (56 cm)

And back to Frankie's blankie !~!

Linking up with Quilt Story and FreeMotion by the River's Linky Tuesday.

Happy Cat-urday from the SF Bay Area...

...where OUR weather finally found its way home and we have stopped perspiring, brought out the sweaters and tucked the window a/c unit back into the closet for a few more months, I hope.

Now, if CatCAt moves, Ormond can go for a ride on his Reflex.

Dad's Obituary

Below is the obituary I submitted to the Tahlequah OK Daily Press about my father's recent death.

Russell John Halliger June 11, 1934 - May 12, 2014

Russ Halliger, 79, died May 12, 2014 in Park Hill OK.

Russ was born the oldest of nine children to John and Fay (Blatzheim) Halliger in Minnesota where he spent his childhood. He met and married Betty Tiffany in 1954. After some early moving around, the growing family settled in Spring City PA, just outside Valley Forge. The couple raised four children (Mike, Lynda, Teri, Tony)  on a half acre of yard that backed up to State property where the woods, creek and fields provided space and experiences city life could not have. Russ was a Multi-talented man who had a number of jobs including but not limited to snowplow driver, plant manager, Valley Maid potato chip route driver, tree service owner/operator, gas station/mini mart owner operator, U Haul dealership franchisee, laundromat owner… 

He took his family camping on the Jersey shore and showed them the early days of Atlantic City and Wildwood in the 60s. Each winter, he would load the family station wagon and drive the 24 hours to SE Minnesota to spend the holidays with his family; there were no Interstate highways on that route then.

In 1972, he moved his family to SE Florida. The kids were teenagers then and he saw retirement staring him in the face; so they adopted Cathi instead !~! The lifestyle afforded by the Tropics suited him well. He loved the water, swimming, fishing, scuba-diving, humidity, heat, girls in bikinis, boat drinks, Jimmy Buffett. Unfortunately, Betty struggled with the humidity so they moved west to help his parents with his sister Denise who had Muscular Dystrophy and used a wheelchair for mobility. Betty filled that need for many years in Dallas Oregon where the family owned numerous small businesses.

Russ’s health took a turn for the worse in Aug 1987 when he suffered a stroke and had to retire from the Mini-Mart, U-Haul, laundromat he and Betty owned in Dallas. He never drove after that and became a familiar sight around town on his bicycle. Some years later they relocated to the desert in AZ but that was difficult for Betty who suffered in the heat. When it became apparent that Russ and Betty were aging and would need help, they moved near Tony and Jodell's family in Park Hill OK where they shared T & J's land for the last decade of their lives.

He is survived by three of his five children, Mike (Cindy) of Leicester NC, Lynda Otvos (Ormond) of SF Bay Area, and Cathi McDonnell (Adam) of Park Hill OK, and their families as well as the families of Teri and Tony. He has thirteen grandkids and numerous great-grandchildren.

Russ was predeceased by his wife Betty, daughter Teri Ann Tarleton, son Tony Halliger, and granddaughter Dana Halliger.

The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to each individual’s favorite charity. Russ donated his body to science—perhaps some significant research will be advanced by his last selfless gesture.

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Newest Throw: In Memory of Dad

Needing something to keep me busy during this last week, I threw together a small blanket with some of my favorite fabrics. Completed last night, I'm considering naming it In Memory of My Dad, we'll see. Iris, my daughter, chose the backing out of the choices I had available and I think she chose the perfect one. I wrote his obituary during this last week.

Batted with Bamboo/Cotton, I simply pulled the backing around to the front and machine-stitched it down. I will do some tying today to keep the layers together, but for the most part-it's finished.
Labeling it will be important so I'll do something special.

Thanks for all your sweet messages; I hope this is the last death of a loved one for a bit, no ?~! I could use a break. Summer's coming and the Baby will spend most of his time with his mama, so perhaps there will be a sewing marathon in my near future. I have plenty of supplies !~!

Happy Thursday. I'll link up to some Parties when I return from early morning work commitment.

Linking up with TGIFF and Needle and Thread Thursday and Tami's Amis.

Good-bye, Dad

Saying it One More Time

Russell John Halliger

1934-2014

We're Having a Heat Wave

A Tropical Heat Wave

The Very Hungry Caterpillar ate through the Baby and is Still Hungry.

Monday Morning Coming Down

Hard to believe it's been a year and a half since he came into being. He walks and runs and talks and has opinions and wants, not just needs anymore.

All That's Left is the Detail Work !~!

It's so pretty, I love the juxtaposition of the pastels and the Bolds. The stars on the royal blue background is one of my favorite fabrics and at one point was in the final five for the backing here. When I cut in to my last half yard I hie myself to JoAnn's and grab a couple or three more yards for my stash.

The idea that Madison will be wrapped in its love over the coming years thrills me. We have lived far from one another since long before she was born and I miss her milestones. Perhaps this will help keep me close to her in a very real and tangible way.

This marks my first really well measured and precise quilt thus far. The easy piecing angles made this possible. Perhaps maturity too.

The choices for stitches on my basic Singer are slim. This is a zig zag where every third stitch is larger than the two that precede it; a little different than the simple zig zag we're all intimately familiar with. The gold hand-tying is also visible in both pictures.

I'm very satisfied with it so far. Now comes the fun of embroidering/quilting the squares in the middle. I went thru my fancy thread/yarn and pulled what I think I will use.