Bits and Pieces book, Irish chain happy cats quilt

This quilt was one that as I picked the fabrics for the quilt in the beginning of January, was going to be my 'happy cat' quilt... something bright and cheerful to make me smile a lot. It didn't go with anything but that was ok to me. This was the next class I took in learning how to make a new quilt pattern, the Irish Chain, using the book 'Bits and Pieces' which was another Quilt in a Day book. Sonja, my oldest, loved this quilt and told me that she wanted me to let her have it for her dorm room once she graduated from high school. That hadn't been my intention because I wanted to make her a quilt that were fabrics SHE had picked out. But she said she loved this one and ended taking it to her college the following fall. But I fast forwarded, let me go back a bit more. These bright colored cats are on white and black backgrounds and made me smile. I loved the yellow and turquoise/teal fabrics for my darks and lights.
This class was a really hard one for me because NOW I had to learn how to mathc corners and try to line everything up really well. That precision wasn't something I had needed to do in the past SO this was quite a challenge for me. As I made the blocks I realized that I would also have to learn how to trim the blocks to a certain size and they all had to be the SAME SIZE! That scared me a bit but then I reminded me that this was my first quilt of this patterns and to just be patient with myself. When the headaches started, I would put things aside. I managed to get this quilt done in the alloted 3 weeks, and six classes by bringing it home nad working on it in between the class times. I really struggled with this quilt and things in my personal home life weren't going well either, so this quilt was a joy to work on becuase it made me smile a LOT. The girls were watching my progress and Mindy really wanted to take a class now too. Her drive and desire was mounting.
After I finished this quilt and got it machine quilted I figured my next class could wait for a while. I did get a lot of joy from looking at this quilt and even though there are a ton of mistakes on it, for me that just didn't matter. Perhaps I should have made it matter more but I knew at the time i was doing the best I could at the time. I learned a LOT how to do things right and knew that then next quilt I did in the pattern would turn out better. I otld my oldest daughter that as well, but she wanted THIS quilt only. I put it aside for her graduation that would be in May. oops time to go again... shoot, will come back to this if i remember I need to finish it.

star and cross log cabin

I still was making sure I knew how to do the log cabin and made this quilt for the living room in the pinks and greens I had tried to make that first quilt on my own. I felt like I really had this log cabin pattern well into my head as to the process of making the blocks now. This quilt I call my 'cross and star' pattern quilt. For me it was my faith in God and in the ability of my girls and me, and of my husband too, to faithfully get through this next hurdle. The funny thing was that once my husband said he wanted out, a couple months later he said something to the affect of ... Kathy you know I love you guys and I'm sorry that I just don't know how to have the strength to live with your disability and our situation but I want to keep trying. I want to stay married and be with you guys. I was happy! My prayers were answered!
This quilt took me 2 days to make! BUT I'd put aside everything else I was supposed to do in order to get it done. I felt that this star on the outside was my guiding star, and the cross on this inside was God's ear to our needs! AND it sure looked better as a quilt in our living room, than my first attempt at quilting had. I displayed both quilts with pride though in that room! I felt like I was on my way, one piece of fabric, one quilt at a time, my brain was healing and our lives were being stitched together in the process, wherever it took us!
shoot dr apt I will finish this later....

log cabin check mate quilt 1994

This quilt had a lot of signifcance for me in 1994, as I decided on the layout of the blocks. To me one of the great things about quilting is how you can change the look of a quilt by taking the same block and putting it in various places. This quilt was the SAME size as my first one for Mindy in the class had been, but as you can see it takes on the form of giant check marks just by the arrangement of the lights and darks in this Log cabin block. I didn't want to struggle again with how to do the borders and knew there was a different way to do them, but I just couldn't remember what it was. So I asked another friend and my mother how to do the borders the 'old way'. I was told to add them to the quilt BEFORE the full qulting process and for me that has been a much easier way to go.
Sometimes with brain damage or with anyone, we each have our own way of learning things and once we find what works to unlock our minds and memories its a great thing to hold on to. For me the way of doing the borders and THEN quilting by machine or hand tying made all of the difference to my learning curve. The summer of 1994 after my youngest daughter's 10th birthday, my oldest daughter (who was 17) and I flew out to the east coast to see her dad and check out colleges for her to attend after her high school graduation in 1995. It had been a fun time for us to get to see her dad, step mom and half sisters again. On this trip we stopped in at an Amish farm house and I found a beautiful Amish quilt in maroon, teal and dusty blue on a black background that followed me home. That quilt in the Dahlia pattern became the master bedroom quilt. So when I was picking colors for the sitting room in our bedroom, for this day bed quilt, that was where I took my inspiration. I wish I'd had the foresight to have bought extra of THE AMISH fabrics, but I just didn't think that far ahead. At any rate once home and both girls were back in school, I started working on this twin quilt. The blocks started to come easier for me as I had so much repetition. I knew I didn't want to do the ;fields and furrows; layout again.
I'd had a conversation with my husband during the time I was making this quilt and I knew he was ready to take his wishesthat he'd spoken to me in 1989, when he told me this was too difficult for him to stay with us and other things came to light as well that were very hard for me to hear. So when I got to the point of placing the blocks to make a design from the lights and darks.... the giant check mark seemed to fit my mood of the moment.
This quilt became my 'check mate' quilt and did indeed go onto the day bed in our room. It was a sad time for me but at the same time I truly understood and I was happy that he felt I was getting well enough he COULD bail and be ok with leaving me to raise the kids. I didn't hold any ill will toward him or my situation but instead embraced it and kept working even harder to be the best I could be.
We had married in 83 and in 87 when my disability hit, I guess it was just too soon in such a young marriage. It was kind of funny though because I began to gather more strength of purpose, stubborness to succed, and my sense of humor really got the best of me with my addlepated mind, because every time I'd walk into our bedroom and see this finished check mate quilt, I would get a smile on my face and think to myself how truly blessed I had been these 7 years. My husband had stood by me and helped me with the kids, along with an army of others who as I got better each year would fall by the wayside and let me take on more of my own mothering and being a wife. So many things were still really hard for me but TRULY I FELT BLESSED that I had come so far! Life was handing me lemons, so I made lemonade and shared it with my friends. I don't drink the stuff, but we sure had good talks over the drinking of the stuff anyway.
I have always been blessed with an abundance of positive thinking and optimism, no matter what my circumstances were, and this was just one more hurdle I had to prove to myself I could overcome. My girls were the greatest kids a mom could have, and while we weren't problem free, we were a family of girls who knew we had love and would get through things, one day at a time, piece by piece, when we let love keep us going. WE knew it had to get better and we would find peace at some point. IT was a VERY hard time of our lives, but at the same time I am sure it wasn't as hard as the last 7 years had been on my girls. Unfortunately with my memory problems as it was back then I wouldn't know how bad it was, if not for the diaries I worked to write in and kept. I'm just glad my girls didn't disown me along the way lol ... and happy we DID have each other.
It is now 2010 and I don't know what happened to this quilt... but I think I gave it to the homeless or something once I no longer needed, nor wanted it around. But again I was happy because this quilt I FINISHED ON MY OWN. NOW I felt ready for whatever came next and was looking forward to my next class.

repetition is key to learning Quilting or anything for me

This was an interesting time for me. After making the birthday quilt for Mindy I knew I needed to make another log cabin quilt to get it more jelled into my head as to the process. I had signed up for another class making a different pattern, a few months down the road but that was a long way off and my memory was not very sharp still at this point. I would be reading a book and put it down and go do something for 30 minutes or more and when I walked past the book, I wondered who was reading it and what it was about. I'd look at the open pages marked, and at the cover and think to myself that it sounded like i book I would enjoy so maybe I'd read it next. When the kids got home, or my husband at the time, they would tell me I WAS THE ONE reading the book! I always felt like I was making great strides in my memory rebuilding, but things like this, among other things would just unseat my sense of well being. While I could no longer make drapes, valences and clothing there were other things that had stuck with me. I hadn't forgotten how to hang wallpaper and was really quite a pro at that as well as painting. Cooking seemed to come back to me pretty well except to remember to turn everything back off when I done. I could by this time now drive 5 miles to get the kids to school, the mall, friends houses and doctors since they were so close by. BUT I couldn't get them to gymnastics 7 miles away, to the dentist or to my own doctors at National Jewish Hospital here in Denver. I was walking really well by now and could get about 1/4 mile easily without getting too tired but a 1/3 of a mile was still too far and I hurt way too much and it would be far enough away I sometimes would still forget where I lived, as I had forgotten at the beginning of my walking in 1988. So many things I had made good healthy strides on and others I wondered if they would ever come back to me. Life wasn't easy for my ex or my kids but my kids truly tried to rally around me and help me remember those things I kept forgetting. I am sure it was quite wearing on everyone! While I was becoming more abled, instead of so disabled it was still a strain on us ALL and I knew that and tried to minimize it somehow.
At any rate I knew I needed to work on another quilt soon after finishing Mindy's, so decided to make a quilt in the same LOG CABIN strip pieced way, but this time make one for the day bed that was in our master bedroom sitting area. This one had the blue green nad maroon solids and then a lighter shade of each with a print in a white/offwhite background print. When I started the quilt in August, I really had no idea what my layout would be, but I knew I wanted to try something more than the fields and furrows of the other one. Shoot I have PT must run will finish this in a while.....