Prairie Flowers

First of all, thank you so much for your kind comments….I am not able to respond to each one at this time, but I so appreciate it. I also appreciate any and all prayers.  That is what is getting me through the last few days.

I am still not doing any sewing but thought maybe I could take some pictures of a finished quilt and make a blog post about it. I had gotten this one quilted around the 15th, I think and gotten the binding strips cut and sewn together. Of course, Bill went into the hospital on Wednesday afternoon (the 16th), and I got it into my head that I wanted to get the binding finished so he could have it on his hospital bed. I knew they wouldn’t let him have it in ICU, but maybe when he got into a regular room……anyway, I went to my shop Thursday night and got the binding put on and stitched down.

When I quilt a quilt, whether my own or someone else’s, I pray. There are lots of prayers quilted into the quilts I make, and I was determined he would have it on his bed. Well, he never got out of intensive care, and when I got back to town Thursday evening (the 24th), it was still in the back of the car. My daughter was helping me unload the car and brought it in and, and I put it on my bed.

I make a lot of double bed size quilts, even though I have a queen bed. The reason——I like the weight of a quilt, and Bill didn’t, so I made them wide enough to only cover me. This one is currently turned sideways since I am the only one sleeping under it. I really do like it. Here’s a better shot of the border and binding:

I actually chose the binding to not only coordinate with the cornerstones on the front, but also the backing.

You never really know what will be too painful, or what will bring you comfort. So far, I am happy having it on my bed. This was one of the free tutorials from Missouri Star and used a layer cake plus yardage. I quilted it with a pattern called three leaf clover in Glide white.

Pick Up Sticks

Sometimes you just can’t quilt, but you can always look at patterns and dream about what you want to make. I tend to dream of stash busting, and of course there is a good reason for that. I found this one from Windham Fabrics.

This one is made from a single fabric line, but it might work well for scraps also. The pattern is here.

This Is Hard

So, everything has taken a turn for the worse. We lost Bill at 2:20 pm on Thanksgiving day. I am so devastated I am just raw. I know I will get through this, but I’m not sure how. I am home now, and I have a great support group, but it is incredibly hard to get through each day. I assume it will get better at some point. Please pray for me.

Happy Thanksgiving

 

This was not the Thanksgiving I had pictured; a little over a week ago my daughter and I were planning the menu, and I had gone to the grocery store to get the things I needed for dressing and sweet potatoes. As everyone knows, circumstances can change overnight, and those circumstances can change your whole life.

It took several days to get a diagnosis for my husband. I was told lymphoma and then I was told leukemia, and finally yesterday, I was told ALL: acute lymphoblastic leukemia. He is very sick. His liver and kidneys have shut down. He is on 24-hour dialysis, and the chemo treatment starts today. He had been transferred to St. Luke’s in San Antonio, and that’s where we were through yesterday. The goal was to get him to MD Anderson or Methodist before they had to start chemo as those are bigger, more cancer-focused facilities, but there were no beds available at either one. I have been praying for a miracle (and I’m not the only one), and I was told last night there was a bed at Methodist, and he would be moved sometime during the night. I believe we are at least headed in the right direction, and I thank God for that. 

I am sitting here writing this blog post waiting for the ICU to open for visitors and thinking of all the things I am grateful for. There are so many things—both big and small. The fact that treatment is available for Bill, the fact that I am now retired and can be in San Antonio for as long as I need to, the fact that I have a support system at home, the fact that I have praying friends and church family, the fact that I have the financial resources to be here for a while, the fact that my step-daughter can be here on weekends to give a day or two of relief. Those are the big things, but there are hundreds of little things that make everything a little more tolerable. Things like a hot shower at night, phone calls and texts, the taste of the tamales I bought last night at HEB, nurses and doctors who are patient with my dumb questions, and so much more.

I know this is just a stage of life we need to get through and wait for things to get better. I have faith that they will.

Some New News

My life has changed pretty much overnight.

My last post was when Bill was in one of the local hospitals getting all kinds of tests and basically not getting any better. Unfortunately, we got the news that it is cancer, probably lymphoma, although the needle biopsy was “sub-optimal” so they couldn’t make a definite confirmation. It is definitely very fast moving as his routine labs from August don’t show any abnormalities. He was moved to San Antonio late Friday night by ambulance so that aggressive chemo could be started. It is now Sunday night and he is currently getting dialysis as he is in renal failure. 

I don’t like to post negative anything, but I wanted to let everyone know my posts may be infrequent at best. There is no sewing or quilting happening, although I have my cross stitch and some crochet yarn with me, so maybe I will post some of that progress. If not, well, Bill is the most important thing right now, and he is so sick. I am hating every minute of this. He doesn’t deserve this, but I guess no one deserves cancer. If you are a praying person, we can use all your prayers. 

Some Art Work

Well, the bad news is that Bill tested positive for both strains of the flu and his blood work showed some worrisome abnormalities. His platelet count was so low, the nurse practitioner called and asked that we take him to the ER and get him admitted as soon as possible in case there was any internal bleeding. He is still in the hospital and really not doing better. They are continuing to do tests and MRI’s but haven’t found any bleeding, so we are still waiting to see what the outcome is.

In the meantime, I had signed up for an art class for Saturday night for Serenity and me. The other granddaughter was busy, so…..

Anyway, it was fun, and it was a nice break from the hospital. We had a small class so we each got to do two canvases. Here are Serenity’s:

And here are mine:

There was an unfortunate glare from the overhead lighting, and I couldn’t figure out how to edit it out. It has been a few years since I did an acrylic pour, and Serenity had never done one. It was a nice night out for us.

What I've Been Working On

I showed a picture a few days ago of all the binding I had made.....

I have really been working to get it all put on the quilts and get them totally done.

It's not too bad if I can get in a rhythm and get some uninterrupted time at the sewing machine. I got the binding on all three of the ones I quilted last week.

These two are the same fabrics and the same binding. I think this makes four or possibly five I have done for this lady using this same fabric. 

She loves a striped binding cut on the bias. I can't say I blame her; I like it too. She also likes the quilts pretty densely quilted. 

I also got my Prairie Flowers quilt off the frame and got the binding cut for it. I still need to trim it which may happen tomorrow. I am playing things by ear for now. I took Bill to Urgent Care in the morning morning and he got some shots (steroids, antibiotics) and got some lab work done. Depending on what we hear about the lab results we may have to go back or possibly I will need to pick up more medications for him. I am relieved to finally get him into a clinic and get some  antibiotics into him. I think it is going to help immensely. I am hoping so--I hate to see him so sick. It's really cold and dreary here. I plan to spend the evening on the couch working on my cross stitch.