Garden

I thought I'd post a few pictures of my garden and "water feature". I think in the past these were called fountains or bubblers but for some reason they're called water features now. This first one is a close up. My wonderful guys--husband, sons-in-law and son created it for me for Mother's Day. It took a bit of digging and sweating, but they managed to get it going. I arranged the rocks and kept adding a few especially after we went to Colorado and I managed to sneak a few rocks in the trunk. Most of them are from Missouri or from the collection that has been in the garage in boxes for years (remember, I'm married to a geologist). I think the movers really enjoyed moving those boxes over the years. Most of them have been packed since we lived in New Orleans (we left there in 1988!) We've moved 4 times since then. This is what it looks like at night. It's so relaxing to sit on the patio and hear the water bubbling and enjoy the lights.

Here are some of the potted flowers that our friend Marvin saved for us while we were in Missouri the last time. He came over and watered them every day during that 100 plus degree weather that was going on during that time.

The colored "rocks" are actually pieces of glass slag that my brother and sister-in-law gave me. Thanks Rick and Phyllis! They add color that I love.

Tim's office

These pictures aren't great because I took them with my phone. We (Calista, Gabe, Timothy and I) went to Tim's office to deliver his quilt and hang it on the wall. He really needed a bit of color in there. He's on the 35th floor and has a great view of downtown Tulsa and beyond with windows looking west and south but his walls are a drab gray.

We took lunch and had a "picnic" in his office. Then Tim took us up to the 52nd floor to get a better view of the city. We had to get on 3 different elevators to get there and the boys had to be very quiet while we walked through some offices (that was a little difficult for Timothy). When we got back Gabe pretended to be Popple and work at his computer. Timothy wasn't thrilled about the fact that he had to wear a security badge, but he cried when we had to turn them all in when we left. There was some kind of boutique going on in the lobby so we shopped a little on our way out. The boys were thrilled with the books and games I got them (games to play in the car). It was a fun "field trip".
Doesn't the quilt look nice on his wall?

Quilts

Last week I finished this little quilt for Tim's office. I quilted the "heck" out of it. It's a simple little wall hanging, but the amount of quilting I put into it turned it into a very time consuming project. If you count the 2 1/2 years it hung on my design wall it took almost 3 years to complete! ha ha
Close up of quilting:

It's only 28 x 33. I'm pleased with the way it turned out.

quilts

Here's another quilt I've never shown here. I made it about a year and a half ago for a friend of Aaron's in Stillwater whose house had burned. He lost most of his personal posessions. It's made of batiks--mostly orphan blocks and scraps from other quilts.

quilts

I've never posted pictures of these quilts before. I made them in 2007 in time for David and Phyllis Nienhuis to give them to their kids for Christmas (David and I made a deal). I thought today would be a good day to post them. "Why?" you may ask. I say, "Why not?"

Brian and Rochelle with their batik "Turning Twenty" Seth and Marcie with their batik "Turning Twenty"

Rex and Shawna with their (mostly) Chocolat made with charm packs from Moda

Brady and Mandy with their modified "Turning Twenty"

April and Justin with their "nine patch"

Quilt Block

I made this block for a birtday block exchange I do at the Cotton Patch. Each month we give each other one block that we've made (they can specify fabric types). This one is done in Civil War Reproduction prints and went to my friend Vivian. It's entirely hand appliqued. She was thrilled with it. Now I have to make another one to add to my collection as I am duplicating each block that I give so my own quilt will be large enough to use.

My sewing Room

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my sewing room? It's not quite as organized as it was when I first finished it, and it has a little more fabric in the cabinets (which makes me happy). It's my little refuge and my favorite room in the house. I spent a lot of time in there today. I'm working on my long list of UFO's (unfinished objects). My guild is having a contest to see how many we can finish before November. So far I've finished one and am working on another. Oh well...it's a start. My design board is loaded with UFO's.

First and Last Quilt

This is a close-up of the last quilt top I've made. It's currently at the quilter. It's called Jewel Box and is from a Pat Speth workshop I took in May 2008. I'm entering these pictures in the "Parade of Quilts" at www.camilleroskelley.typepad.com and at www.lavieenrosie.typepad.com

Here's the full view. I'll be giving this quilt to my neice, Brittany for her high school graduation. She's waiting patiently for it since she graduated in May. I'm really anxious to see what it will look like quilted. The last quilt that I fully completed (quilting and all) is pictured further down in my blog. It's the quilt I made for my mother-in-law, Carol. This is my first quilt. I made it (with lots of help from my mom) when I was 8 years old. It's a four patch and has lots of scraps from clothes my mom made for me. I got bored with sewing these blocks really quickly but she encouraged me to continue. She put the quilt together and machine quilted it for me. She really wanted me to make more blocks to make it bigger because it was going in my hope chest (remember those?) and she knew I would need a bigger quilt when I got married. I told her that my husband and I would surely sleep in separate twin beds (I had watched a lot of "I Love Lucy") and that twin size would be big enough for me. (Don't know what the husband was supposed to cover up with in his twin bed!)

It's been used a lot (mostly by my kids when they were small--they slept in twin beds), but I've finally stopped using it so it won't get any more worn. It has a few blocks that are completely threadbare. The one thing that has not changed over the past 40-something years is my love for red. It's still my favorite color.

One important thing I've learned about quilting (for myself, anyway) is that accuracy is important, but not to the point of driving myself crazy. I want to continue to enjoy what I do, and if it becomes a chore, it's not fun anymore. I want to always have fun with quilting.

Ted

Remember Ted? The last time you saw him he had fallen on his face and the back of his head had exploded. Believe it or not, his electrical parts are still working. So we thought it would be too sad just to throw him in the trash. I tried to glue him back together, but it just didn't work. So he moved to the back yard and is sporting a new head of "hair". Now instead of his eyes glowing at night, sometimes they blink and twinkle. Too weird for the front yard!

Carol Maples

Once again, these pictures are not loaded in the order in which I wanted them, but nonetheless...here they are. Carol would not be happy with the look on her face in this one, but it's the last one with me, so I like it. She was smiling a lot on that day (it was her and Bud's 4oth wedding anniversary--May 23, 2009)

See , I told you she was smiling a lot on that day! Here she is with her FAVORITE grandson!

No wonder Tim told me how pretty his mom was. I think Andrea looks a lot like her in this picture. That's Kevin (Tim's brother) and Cheri, Tim and me and Carol. I think it could have been taken on the day before Tim and I were married. My hair was as short as Tim's and Kevin's was almost as long as Cheri's! What kids we were!

Carol could party! The cake started sliding off the plate, but Carol caught it. Then she decided to stick her other hand in it too!

Here's the last picuture of Kevin and Tim with their mom. She was showing off the quilt I made for her. We used it in the casket over her lap and she went to her grave with it.

Carol Maples

Because a lot of people have asked for a copy of the letter I wrote which was read at Carol's funeral, I decided to post it on my blog. For those of you who are interested, it might help you to know the Carol we (as a family) knew and to help you understand the wonderful relationship I had with my mother-in-law. Tim, Kevin (Tim's brother) and I all wrote letters and they were read at her funeral on June 23, 2009 in Park Hill, Missouri. If you want to read theirs, just let me know and I will get a copy to you.

Carol Maples by Teresa Marler

The first time I met Carol she was lying in a hospital bed recovering from surgery. Tim and I had been dating for a very short time but he was anxious to introduce me to her. He described her to me as young and very pretty--I think he must have been proud of her. She was not in much of a mood for visitors that day, but she must have seen something she liked in me because from that day on she screened calls from another girl to Tim and never delivered any of her messages to him. She had made up her mind that I was the girl for her son and in less than a year she became my mother-in-law.

Carol was more than a mother-in-law to me. She was my friend. She was someone I could talk to about her son because she understood him and loved him long before I did. She was always so proud of both of her sons and would talk about them lovingly as she described them as whatever they were doing at the time--"my son the writer", "my son the sailor", "my son the GREAT Texas oilman", my son the school teacher", or perhaps one of her proudest, most recently, (speaking of Kevin), "my son the professional actor".

When Tim and I found out we were expecting her first grandchild (who by the way turns 30 today--sorry Calista, I just had to throw that in) Carol was only 42 years old. Our friend Lanny McFarland teased her and called her "Granny". Well the title stuck and she has been "Granny" to our whole family ever since. And what a Granny she was! She gave a whole new meaning to the word "spoil". We're still finding out from our kids about the things she let them do, the food she let them eat, and the movies she let them watch when Tim and I weren't around. She was there to help me after the birth of all three kids and also helped me get through some fairly serious illnesses.

Carol was a second mom to me--very different from my mom, I'll have to admit. But thankfully, both my moms liked each other, too. They shared the same grand kids and they enjoyed traveling together to visit us all.

We loved to shop together. Carol enjoyed spending money--mostly on her kids and grand kids. Bud can attest to the fact that she loved Christmas. He was the one who had to load all those presents and haul them halfway across the country to our kids who were not so patiently waiting on the sidewalk with their binoculars in hand watching for Granny and Paw Paw. It's a good thing he had lots of experience pulling heavy loads for long distances. Yes, Carol indeed knew how to spoil grand kids!

She and I shared another love. She loved music and loved playing the piano. Although she was always much better at it than I was, she treated me as her equal when it came to music. We've played many a duet together and when we "flubbed up" we would just laugh and keep going, pretending we had just played a flawless masterpiece. In fact, it became a tradition for us to laugh hysterically at the end of our duets until it became almost impossible for us to play together at church for fear we would "crack up" at the end. We couldn't even look at each other and smile. In recent years we played the same duet piece at three different churches. It's one of my favorite memories.

Carol knew how to love unconditionally. Not just with her family but with all those kids she came in contact with on a weekly basis. I believe she taught half this county how to play the piano. How she loved those kids! How DID she love those kids??? She had more patience with them than any of the rest of us did. There was always a piano student in the house and it seemed to us that most of them had not practiced their lessons at home. Yet, she was patient and proud of them all.

In her last days Carol introduced me to some of the staff at Camelot Care Center as her daughter. They encouraged her to get back to playing the piano. We tried to play a duet but she just couldn't make her hands do what she wanted them to. She promised me she would practice and we would try again the next time I came.

The last time I saw Carol she was lying in a hospital bed. Today, she's dancing on golden streets and I'm confident that she's playing on that Steinway concert grand piano in heaven. I love you Carol and I look forward to laughing hysterically when we play our next duet for our Lord!