Health issues

I’m back at blogging after a month of helping my daughter Genevieve deal with her harrowing health problems. Yes, she got out of the hospital in late January after her bowel surgery and post-op infection, and I took her home to Tennessee—one day before “Snowmageddon” struck central Missouri on Feb. 1. (The snow is all melted now, and daffodils are coming up!) But she didn’t stay out of the hospital. First she had a 36-hour hospitalization in Tennessee for IV fluids. Then on Feb. 10, she had an episode of severe pain and knew it was a bowel obstruction. Sadly, she has felt that kind of pain before. So it was back to “The Big House” in St. Louis for her second major surgery in 6 weeks. This time the bowel obstruction was caused by adhesions. It has been two weeks since that surgery, and she is still in the hospital, just now starting to eat solid food. My husband and I are wearing out the highway from our house to The Big House, making her walk the hospital corridors, and encouraging her to eat.

During the time I was at Genevieve’s house in Tennessee, I managed to get some sewing done. One of the things Vieve worried about was the Valentine’s Day party at Danica’s preschool—she wanted to give something nice to the teachers. Being a great grandmother and a pretty good quilter, I not only helped Danica sign her name to every Valentine, I made little quilts for the teachers. It was something small I could do for my daughter.

I have had bow ties on my brain ever since last summer, when I saw my friend Barb’s cute, cute bow tie quilt, so that’s what I decided to make for the teachers. I know an “origami” or folded method of making the bow ties—the knot of the tie is a folded piece in the center. I have looked for the directions on the Internet, searching for “folded bow tie” and “origami bow tie,” and I found many links. However, none of them match the way I make the block, so I will get it together in the next couple of days, take some pictures, and show you how to do it.

For the teacher gifts, instead of making the knots match the ties, like this:

I decided to mix it up a little, and move the knots around, like this:

I am not sure whether I like the mixed-up knots as well as I like the bow ties where everything matches. I decided that the mix-up is OK in these little quilts—the blocks still look like bow ties. (These are just 4-inch blocks. I started with 2 1/2-inch squares.) But in a larger quilt, the whole thing might be confusing—a jumble of squares—and the bow tie image might be lost. Anyway, these two cute 14-inch quilts were my way of saying thank you to the teachers for supporting Danica and Genevieve this year. When the going gets tough, the tough quilt, right?

Genevieve and Danica on Monday at the hospital:

Coming up—my method for making a folded bow tie block.