a finish for a friend

Ralph and I have a friend fighting crohns disease and shes not doing well lately. I thought she needed a quilted hug!

I had started it over a year ago... It was in my ufo pile all this time. Lately when she had to have surgery I pulled it out to finish it.

This wasn't the original layout plan. I had planned on putting 9 patches where the whole squares are... well, maybe not even that, LOL i dont really know what i had planned but I have a BUNCH of 9 patches I didn't use.

(ok.  you caught me... there is about 1/4 of the binding not finished on this one yet!!!)

Family news: please keep our family in your prayers. Ralph my husband had a heart attack last night. We are in the hospital this morning waiting for the cath thing to figure out if he has blockage and how bad it is. He is doing ok and will be ok in the end but what lays between then and now is scary. He is a farrier (blacksmith) and we dont know if and when he can go back to work! 

Life has been stressful. I mentioned buck last time seemed to have a drug problem too. Well tuesday he was arrested for stealing copper. We dont know if he stole it or not, but he also had drugs on him. This breaks both of our hearts, he had the world in the palm of his hand a few moths ago! I really thought he was doing ok. The other son with the problem has been full of drama lately. Ralph is going to have to ignore his drama... i dont know how he will do that, but after last night, he HAS to!

UPDATE SATURDAY AFTERNOON: Ralph is out of the heart cath and he doesnt have any blockage. This is apical ballooning syndrom also called broken heart disease because it is cause ENTIRELY by stress. I pretty much called it when i said all of this with the boys is breaking his heart.

Bucks wife and three kids have moved in with us. Everyone keeps talking about the stress of all the grandkids. We keep saying its not the grandchildren that are stressful. the are a piece of cake and a joy to have around! Its the children who we worry about and cause the stress!

But... its sat morning and im hurrying to link up to finish it up friday at crazy mom's quilts and can I get a Whoop Whoop? at confessions of a fabric addict and TGIFF at What a Hootand make my goal of 3 times a month! hope yall have a good week, i will see you next week with another finish!

a new Friday goal

Ive posted the last couple "Finish It Up Fridays" at Amanda Jeans and it has given me something to work towards and to shoot for... so... I am setting the goal of posting something at least 3 fridays out of the month!

Today it is another orphan table runner. The pinwheel blocks were for a baby quilt for a little boy who is now a teen and when I was unpacking some fabric I found the blocks. Opps... that was a long ago UFO. Now it is a pretty table runner (and I made a table topper)!

The denim looking fabric, im not sure where it came from, either a yard sale or someone gave it to me... the yellow was a recent stash acquisition.. I needed some yellow.

The back is a piece of sheet that I had.

Be sure to check out Amanda Jean's Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it up friday posts

On the family front. We have had Dallas' family visiting from Alabama this past week. Dallas is Ralph's oldest daughter. The grand children are getting older, Leah towers over me now! It was a nice visit, mostly here at the restaurant. I like dallas and the kids. Maybe because they are drama free for us, we aren't all involved in the day to day workings of their lives like the kids that live here! lol.

Travis is doing better. He is going to counseling now and he said the guy is teaching him coping skills. Im not sure if hes telling us what we want to hear or if he is really being reached by the counseling. He still seems to be doing better and I am hopeful that trend will continue!

Im probably going to have the other three grand children again for some time this week. Buck still hasn't found a job. I think this situation is going to get alot worse before it gets better.... I am praying he pulls himself out of the tailspin.

Caty is stressed running the restaurant. The electric company gave her a whopper of a bill this month (last month was only 14 days, this month they billed for 44... does that seem crazy?) So im worried about her. She is making some of the mistakes i made and i don't want to see her do that! But she is also her fathers daughter and you cant tell her anything!!! lol! so we are sitting back watching her struggle. The mistakes aren't earth shattering thank goodness, she can recover from them... its just hard to watch someone you love so stressed out and you cant help.

sweet shazam!

With the holiday and the grand children, I slowed down on the ufo progress but I did finish one more cutie.

I made this one from my vintage sheet scraps (most of them are for sale in my etsy store) I really wanted this one to be a bigger quilt but I couldn't find the rest of the HST pieces!! Since i was in the process of tidying up when I decided to finish it, doesn't surprise me! It was big enough for a baby quilt so I pieced together what i had and went with it. Since it wasn't what i planned, i really didn't have a name for it.... till i was quilting it. Im showing my age with the name "Sweet Shazam" the zig zag reminded me of shazam for some reason but it was so pretty it had to be sweet shazam!

for those of you too young or old to remember shazam... here you go.... it was about 1974....

I also made curtains and a dish mat for my kitchen but no pictures yet of those!

Not bad for having 4 grandchildren staying with me all week. I didn't quite finish as much as i wanted but I did get more organizing and cleaning done!

I am linking up to finish it up friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.