Tuesday, July 16, 2024

Our Madison Vacation

Ray kept telling people we were vacationing in Madison, Wisconsin this summer. We knew we would be in Madison five days a week for his weeks of radiation treatments at University Hospital, the closest facility with the technology to treat him. The first week we drove every day and were exhausted. The second week we spent most of the week at a motel. One beautiful morning we took a hike towards Picnic Point, just north of the hospital. Due to a detour in the trail and Ray being tired, we didn't make it all the way.

At the beginning of week 3, we moved to an AirBnb long-term rental apartment. We were a block away from Lake Monona. Our street was very narrow, about the size of an alley. There were no sidewalks and very little traffic. We were located a few houses down on the left.
Looking at our street with Lake Monona just behind me.  

Our house - we had the entire 2nd floor and our entry was the front door.

Our balcony, back stairs, and yard. Also entrances to two lower apartments.

We took walks as much as possible. Here are a few pictures of our neighborhood. 
Lake Monona

Columbine
A colorful mural






Wisteria - oh what a heavenly smell!



Hammock bases


Yard art

Milkweed in bloom with a butterfly


Rowing Club practice


Bike path along Monona Lake

Blooming cactus in our neighbor's yard

Columbine

Capitol from pedestrian bridge over Washington Ave., Madison

The Weed Harvesters were interesting to watch as they 'mowed' the bay and off-loaded their haul. Each harvester was about 8' by 40'.  You can read about them here.
Weed Harvester on Brittingham Bay, Lake Monona, Madison, WI

 Moving one of three Weed Harvesters from our bay to another location.

Team Survivors, women cancer survivors, meet most Wednesday nights and take out their dragon boat. It was interesting to watch the 20+ women of varying ages, working and rowing together.
Team Survivors launching their dragon boat

We did leave our neighborhood for more than the hospital and groceries. One day we enjoyed a short visit to the zoo.
A short but fun visit to the zoo after 35 - 40 years!

We spent a little time at Olbrich Gardens.



One morning, we went just north of University Hospital to Eagle Heights Community Gardens. There are over 500 plots!
The raspberries looked soooo good!

How do you take a good picture of 500+ garden plots???

We met a lot of people in our neighborhood and in the hospital. People were friendly, kind, and caring. The hospital was an excellent choice as was our temporary home and neighborhood.

Ray's oncologist called his treatment "unique and complicated" because of the location of his cancer. Ray had to prepare for radiation each day. His prep really drained his energy and left him extremely tired and feeling weak and yucky, and he also had other side effects. His appointments ranged from 8 minutes  to almost 3 hours. This was not a fun time.

Our journey was so much easier because of some fantastic friends and family. All offered continuing support and more. Our close friends and neighbors across the street went above and beyond by jumping in and doing EVERYTHING that needed to be done at our house, inside and out, including the mowing, trimming, and weeding. We are still a little overwhelmed by the help given to us.

Maybe all of this is so touching because we were given a piece of advice early on by Dr. E-B, an oncologist at SSM Monroe. "You have cancer; you have no control." I can't count the number of times we repeated that line. It was/is so very true: when treatment didn't go well, when we got Ray's appointments for the following week and one was at 7:30AM, the way Ray felt from hour to hour, when his treatment room was running behind schedule, when we drove to treatment during a tornado warning, when he had diet changes weekly, when he rested most hours of the day over and over, when they couldn't do the treatment and it added another day to his schedule, etc. Everything became so much easier when we accepted that we really didn't have any control.

Watching Ray reminded me of how strong he is. He didn't complain; he just endured. He epitomized: "Sometimes you can because you can. Sometimes you can because you have to."

We celebrated successes with ice cream or doughnuts. When he felt well enough, we took walks, went shopping at a store, went out to lunch, went to a farmer's market...

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass;
it's about learning to dance in the rain.

Watching him feel so rotten and having absolutely no energy was by far the hardest part for me. This cancer journey is not over but the radiation is and we celebrate that. Ringing the bell was a highlight!
I ring the bell to celebrate! My treatment here is done...
Cancer does not define me And I'm already moving on.

Ray's shirt:
TODAY IS A GOOD DAY
TO HAVE A GOOD DAY

Most of the side effects from Ray's radiation should disappear within a few weeks. He still has some additional treatment ahead and in about a year, we'll know if it all worked. In the meantime, we are happy to be home and we plan to "dance in the rain".

Sunday, June 23, 2024

A couple quilt finishes

It's been a while since I posted. Since I've managed to finish a couple of quilts, I thought I'd share. 

The first, Bargello, is a Bargello quilt that doesn't have a pattern. I was just experimenting and am happy that there really is an optical illusion of movement to the quilt which is lying flat. 

I used a fat quarter bundle of fabric, Rainbow Sherbet, by Sarah Thomas of Moda. This donation quilt is 55" by 60'. I quilted it with a loop-de-loop motif and Glide #38201 Steel Blue thread.

The back is a light blue with tiny cream and navy dots while the binding is a navy blue.


The second quilt, Potato Chip Block Quilt, is made with the Potato Chip Block. I was able to make 16 blocks with the fabric left from Bargello.

This quilt is 48" square and will be used as a tablecloth on our screen porch table. I quilted this with a double teardrop that is echoed. Sometimes the double teardrop looks like a heart. It was fun to quilt. I used Glide #38210 Steel Blue thread.

The back is bright pink with flecks of all the right colors! I love finding something in my stash which seems to be perfect for a quilt.
 

Update on Ray: He is getting radiation and is worn out; he has no energy and doesn't feel well. He has to prepare for radiation daily and it is rough. He is over halfway through the treatments and we are both counting the days until he is done. Thank you for the prayers and encouraging words.

Thursday, May 16, 2024

The Hockey Quilt is Finished!

It's done! I haven't made a quilt in a long time that was as challenging as this one. I carefully planned this quilt almost 2 years before I started it. And then, after I began, I changed the design (due to a variety of factors) causing myself constant problems. Every quilt has a story... 


This quilt is for our youngest grandson. I tried for a year and a half to find the Chicago Blackhawk HEAD printed on cotton fabric in the right size for the center of this quilt with no luck. Because it is trademarked, I couldn't even have one printed. One day, I saw a 100% cotton t-shirt online that I thought might work so I ordered it. By that time, it was late enough in the hockey season that I had trouble finding Blackhawk fabrics. When I did finally find a couple of prints, I could not order the plain red and black fabrics that went with the printed fabrics, and it took a couple of orders to get the right red. When I did find the red fabric I wanted, I was shorted a yard of fabric, so I had to order more. At that point I thought I was all set to go forward.

I made the 7" letters with no problems.

 

I then realized that the red print was directional, so I decided how I'd deal with that. I had to match the pattern to make the strips long enough for the borders Then came the rink. I inset all the circles - that was a bit tedious knowing I didn't have any extra fabric. The middle circle surrounds the Blackhawk head - there was one chance to get it right OR I would have to find another t-shirt to order and pay more $$. I made lots of prototypes and things went well. THEN I CHANGED THE DESIGN. Looking back, I should have stopped and redrafted the entire pattern, but I was ready to sew! I really do know better.

The rink was done and looked great,
but it really needed to be shorter since there was no easy way to make it wider for this new design. I didn't have enough fabric to start over. So, I cut off the ends and made the white space between each goal and its end 1.5" shorter. I had to completely remake the ends of the rink. It was a lot of work but worth it to make the entire quilt 3" shorter.

The letters I made were now too big since they were now surrounding the rink instead of being in the outside border. So, I made 5" letters. The red borders above and below the letters needed to be different sizes on the sides and ends since this new design changed the dimensions of the quilt to be longer so I wanted the quilt to be  wider. I was glad that that I ordered more red fabric, lots more!

The printed red fabric became the outside border instead of the inside border meaning the strips I had made needed to be longer. Adding to the length (and matching the pattern) of the already made strips used nearly all the red print. I scrounged just enough to add a small detail to each of the four corners. I carefully noted the quilt length when I added the side borders and the width when I added the top and bottom borders. And the top was finished!

It was time to put together the back. The black print is also directional (surprise!) and I didn't want to match the pieces so I decided to use half of those 7" letters and more of that 'extra' red fabric. It went together easily, and I was careful to use my recorded measurements for length and width, so all was good.

When I sandwiched the quilt on the longarm, I decided to baste the quilt, so I'd be able to move it back and forth easily as well as remove it from the frame and put it back on in different directions as needed. It took a while to figure out basting - I've only done that once before - but I finally got the hang of it and was almost done when I ran out of backing with 2" of the quilt top left! I went back and checked my measurements. I wrote down the length of the sides for the borders but did not update them after adding the borders to the ends of the quilt.  So... I ripped out the basting which was very easy. There was no way I was going to match the black print on the back, and I didn't have enough plain black to add to each end, but I did have extra red. So, I added 6" of red to each end of the backing. Although only about 2" would actually be on each end of the back of the quilt, the rest was needed to attach the backing and rest of the quilt to the frame. 

After basting the quilt again, I quilted the quilt with meandering. I used Glide thread: #10WG1 Linen for the ice rink, #11001 Black for lettering on red fabric, and #70187 Ruby the lettering on black fabric, the rest of the top, and for the bottom. I tried printing the letters but didn't like that so I used cursive which I'm not sure my grandson can read. I wish I had made all the writing 1" tall but decided to leave the 2" letters that were done. The size of the quilt is 72" by 96".

The red print fabric on the front:
 

The black print fabric on the back:

When I asked our youngest grandson for his four favorite all-time Chicago Blackhawk players, he also gave me his four favorite players for the 2023-2024 season, so I included them. Originally the four favorite player numbers would have been in the corners of the quilt. In the revised version, all eight numbers are on the inner border.

His current (2023-2024) favorites: 
This says " 2023-2024 Favorites"

Connor Bedard
(first name on the side of the 8)

Philipp Kurashev

Seth Jones

Andreas Athanasiou

His all-time favorites:
This says "All time Favorites"

Connor Beard made both lists

Patrick Kane

Corey Crawford

Alex DeBrincat
notice his nickname "the cat"

The Chicago Blackhawks Hockey Quilt was worth all of the challenges.



Oh yeah, the BEST part is our grandson loves it! And he can read the cursive writing.   

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