Old Red Baskets for This New Year

Hello, hello. Thanks for all kind get well wishes! And, for now, comments will be answered here, so please check back? I'm doing better but looks like a slow recuperation, nights and mornings are so hard, cough comes and goes etc. But enough boohooing! Here's Mo with New Years wishes for you all. He commandeered the clicker to watch the Ball Drop in the city.

Old Red Baskets ~ back from the quilter, such a delightful surprise on Christmas Day-after.

Detailed autumn quilting highlights its Autumn intent [acorns! oak leaves!], 

...but having it here to slowly hand bind as the early darkness looms these January days has been a little joy as I slowly recover from the flu. 

The warmth of the colors--hers, back in the 1800s, mine now in the '20s, please me hugely. Perhaps the Baskets will be fun in April with stripey tulips too?

@quilters_imagination ❤️ : Lori's quilting is so beautiful. I am amazed by the depth and form that her stitching imparts to what were actually pretty flimsy blocks, Reused, not un-used, faded, thin. Now, with our care, the blocks shine anew. A tiny qulty miracle of recycling success.

Binding is in work, the small red calico. I'll post when done, esp if  I can get my grocery guy to bring those imagined tulips. [TULips, sir, not TURnips, lol.lol. The flyer shows tulips, but the website says turnips.]

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I can't brave the cold wind for even a tiny winter walk yet, so I watch from my window instead. Things I noticed---a robin high in the snow drooped ugly locust tree. Not quite in the place of Mr Mockingbird, but close.

The Wolf Moon. I so wanted to see it: moon closest to earth, earth closest to sun for this year. Grey skies obscured that event, tho I'll look again tonight.

The ships at sea--on NYE they looked so close and so festive, as if every possible light on each ship was illuminated. One ship was especially flamboyant. I trolled thru Shipfinders, hoping to see this was a large cruise ship [to no avail]; wouldn't a full moon NYE cruise in NY Harbor be fun and memorable.

To welcome Winter of 26 I put Winter Marsh on my bed this afternoon. Upside down, oh well. I'll add a picture later maybe.

Mo is doing well; he is still a bit frantic about being sent away, however loving the home was. In time he will stop glaring I hope?

love

lizzy

gone to the beach....

PS knitting.

For busy hands work, I decided [while ill] that I would make a practice little scarf without the challenge of the impossibly difficult i-cord. Just to practice my diagonal imcreases. Hahahaha. Never in all my years of knitting, since we were secretly taught by Mrs Hull during 6th grade recess, have I knitted such a sad lumpen bit of textile. A do-over.

Sun, Setting on 2025 ~ Happy New Year

 Happy New Year, dear friends.

I am home and each day sees me a bit better after the frightening blast of Flu A. Combined with the iv dose of immune suppressants on December 15, I had no physical resources to create antibodies and fight the flu. I was just in the ER one day, not admitted to the hospital bec as the dr said, he had many other much sicker patients in his tiny make do hospital.

Friends took Mo, who had health issues of his own. But oh how he loved this home's heated floors!

He has been so loved and cared for.

I am trying not to mourn Christmas that Never Was. ''Better days ahead.'' 

I am very blessed with the love of friends and family. 

best wishes to you all.

lizzy

ps comments answered here on blog for now as I recuperate. Check in!

Counting Down

 Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays 

to all my friends worldwide.

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Mo is still opening his Advent Calendar each afternoon. 

My to do list is dwindling: just have to get out the platters and wine glasses for  my Christmas Eve get together, bake a few cookies. I admit I'm struggling a bit post IV treatment and some sort of respiratory illness.  I had one unexpected last min sewing project. A new stocking for Little Friend [LF].

Somehow I lost the one I made a few years ago, after looking at it on the shelf of little quilts for the past twelve months.

Oh well she needed a bigger stocking anyway.

SO fun to fill with Dollat Store junk. Including a tiny felt Pug "learn to sew' kit.

Fabrics are a mix of Christmas prints and tropicals, her family always spend Christmas through New Years in a warm beach resort.

Used this funny giant polka dot for the back and lining. Took me about two hours total.

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We had a horrible scary storm here this morning. 70 mph winds [hurricane force is 74 mph] and I had to gather my courage and go out to retie down the lattice that protects Mo from falling over the edge of the deck. The lattice is heavy plastic and if flung by 70 mph wind, it would break my windows. We'd get brief moments of clearing, then more storms, but the wind has moved to the west and gusts lessened to about 45-50 mph.

The winter solstice is tomorrow. My mother always said there are storms for the solstices and equinox, tho she had no explanation why the Fall storms arere on Halloween not September 21. [Perfect Storm, H Sandy, Halloween Noor'easter  in the early 90s...]

Here's some simple ways to take note. Yes longer days, but despite that hopeful notion, the long cold winter has just begun. Time to be slow annd thoughtful, tea and good books.

Merry Christmas from lizzy and Mo.