Van Gogh's Angels

Life throws us curve balls.  Sometimes we hit a home run.  Sometimes we strike out.  I have been lucky.  I had a good career as a nurse practitioner.  It was a long run as a nurse and a nurse practitioner, 37 years.  Not many people want to talk about their age.   I am the rare woman who is proud to be 60 years old this summer.  

When chronic illness forced me to stop working full time, I wasn't sure how I would bring in some income.  Then I thought of my love of sewing, quilting, and embroidery.  My youngest daughter wanted to start an Etsy shop and I thought that now was the time to give it a try.  I will be opening an Etsy shop with different needlework accessories for the serious stitcher.  

I also missed blogging.  I had a blog when I live in southern Utah.  It was a lot of knitting and a lot of hiking.   I still knit in the evenings for myself.  I am not a production knitter and I never will be one.  The repetitive motion of knitting is not good for my fingers.  A variety of crafts will be the best for me.  

This small quilt was long in the process.   I started it in a block a month club back in the late 1990's.  I had the three angels machine appliqued to the blocks.  I wasn't happy with the very stiff adhesive holding the angels to the fabric.  Back in the day, this was the best stuff that we had.  I was a hand quilter at the time and this would not have been a good match for hand quilting.  I saved the quilt.  I waited and waited until I had the nerve to try some machine quilting.  I bought a wonderful machine quilting class with Wendy Butler Berns on Craftsy.com.  This class gave me the confidence to finish this wall hanging.  I just did simple straight line quilting 1/4 inch apart.  I quilted touches on the angels.  I learned how to bind the quilt with straight strips which was very new to me.  I am very happy with the end wall hanging.  I gave this to my aunt who is a breast cancer survivor.  I call this Van Gogh's Angels.  But really they are Kay's Angels.