Category Archives: Samplers – Original

It’s that most wonderful time of the year…

where I make a post saying I am going to be a better blogger.  Haha!

I decided this morning to just sit down and do a brain dump here, so if anyone is reading be prepared for a jumble of thoughts.

The sewing blahs I posted about in my last post (March!!) never went away.  I do not think I even touched Mister’s quilt after that post.  The sewing blahs also took over my stitching and I had a 4+ month hiatus from that too.  I picked it back up in November and have had a couple of finishes.  I had a bit of a freak-out moment a couple of days ago when I realized that December is here, 2017 was a bust on so many levels, and I need to get some things done!

I have been going through my stitching and pulling things out that were just tossed willynilly in a bucket (or two) over the past year or so.  I was actually looking for a chart and a couple of kitted items that I want to work on in 2018 so I could start making my plans.  I did start a tab at the top and have added things as I sorted.

I have 2 oval galvanized beverage-type buckets in my room.  One for quilty things and one for stitchy things.  I should add something somewhere to keep reminding me that I need to put things away instead of tossing them on my cutting table or in a bucket.

While I will not officially be participating in the 2018 Year of WIPs Challenge, I am going to continue the way I set up for 2017.  I am super happy with the progress I made while I was actively stitching, so I am going with the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude for 2018.  I had 5 finishes in 2017 from that list (which I need to update). The big stitchy news is that I finished And They Sinned and it is framed and hanging on my bedroom wall.

Right now my guest room bed is almost covered with various stacks. I recently told a friend I would not have anywhere to put her when she asked if she could stay a couple of nights (we are traveling out of state together next month).  I know that if I pack it away it will just languish again for whoever knows how long and I am tired of shuffling so much of it around.  I am taking a serious look at my stitching stash, so I will be posting things on here and eBay in 2018.

There is still my quilting to sort out. In the back of my mind I have been thinking of just starting at the top of my RÅSKOG cart and randomly picking one thing to complete, then a WIP, then another item on the 2nd shelf, then a WIP, and so on in a bit of a quilting rotation of sort.  I have so many little kitted things I have picked up at shows, shop clubs, etc., that I want done, I just need to make a plan and get it done.  Some are mini quilts, some are little zipper bags, and other smalls.  Right now the only quilt items I have listed in the 2018 tab are large items and WIPs.  I probably will not add any of the small items to the current list.

I also have several stitching things that need attention at a sewing machine, so there’s a little crossover there.

What do you do with your leftover fibers?

During the process of sorting out my sewing room, I finally got all (I think) of my non-DMC fibers collected.  I keep them on rings by dyer, and those rings are looped on a larger Rule Your Rulers ring that I bought a long time ago.  I have a Command Hook on the front of my stitching fabric/fiber cabinet that I keep it on.

I was making a photo of my cross-stitch fabric for someone and tossed the ring of fibers on my sewing chair.  There are cottons and silks, and the colors are so pretty.

While most in that photo are new skeins, many are leftovers from designs already stitched, or they are gifts from various dyers, designers, stitchers, etc.  I have been thinking of just tossing them for a long time, especially since you can rarely buy a new skein that has a matching dye lot.

I follow so many stitching Facebook groups and one day I saw someone say they were stitching using some of their left over kit fibers so could not tell the person asking what colors were being used.  Eureka!!!!

I posted on my Facebook page that I was looking for a sampler to use my leftover fibers.  I had pretty much decided to stitch Jan Houtman’s Patchworkand wanted to see if anyone else suggested it, or something I had no thought of.  Yep, they did.  I will be recharting Haemmaeker to reflect the “leftovers” used for the design and the “DE” and “JH” also, but not sure to what.  There’s already a spot for a date on the left side just barely above “Haemmaeker.”

So, I have started a new stitching Facebook group.  If you are interested in doing the same thing, you are more than welcome to join us at Ort Sampler Stitchers.

Hello to the middle of December

They say time flies when you’re having fun, and right now, except for one tiny glitch, I can say that’s true.

I have been very productive with needle and thread, both at the sewing machine and in hand.

Yesterday was one of my twice-monthly sew-togethers with my local group and I worked mainly on my Bonnie Hunter Step 3 4-patches.

Here’s my progress photos to date.
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Part 1: 221/221
Part 2: 100/100
Part 3: 10/168

Today should see the finish of my purple 4-patches.

When I’m caught up on my Parts, I am cutting/preparing for the Midnight Flight class I’m taking next month. There is a class info sheet that tells us how much to bring to class (instead of enough for a whole quilt) so I’ve been pulling fabrics and cutting. I am taking more than I need so I can hopefully swap some with other attendees. I have my constant red cut, and changed the orange to a yellow. I’m also not including any purple and using blues only. I think I may be buying a couple of 1/4 cuts before then as I’d like a little more royal to go with my navy.
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As to my stitching, I know I said in my last post that I was going to do a separate post about my Year of WIPs Challenge status, but I think instead of spending more time on this computer writing a post, I’ll just do a photo update in my dedicated tab up top. I am still loving the 10 hour rotation with the focus being on Houses of Hawk Run Hollow. I am now spending less time stitching than before, but I knew that was going to happen so chose the number of WIPs accordingly. So far I think I made great choices. The bit success right now is that I finished And They Sinned. Woohoo!

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She’s a big girl! That countertop is 5 feet long 😀 If you click on the picture, it’ll turn right side up, but it was hard to get it to focus because of the size.

The glitch I first mentioned is my HarleyQuinn had to have surgery this past Monday to remove a large hematoma from a back leg. She has 3 layers of stitches (because her skin is so thin) and the layer I can see I counted 7. While she was under the doctor went ahead and removed 7 other places and all but one of those just required 1 stitch (the other one required 2). So now we’re nursing her. Pain pills, anti inflamatory/pain pill, liquid antibiotics every 12 hours. No overactiveness, which means carrying her up and down the stairs. In other words spoiling her more than usual, which is a lot already.

This picture is of her staring at me the night before because she’s starving (she’s always starving, just ask her).
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and here she is all snuggled up between dad’s legs after we brought her home. She was drunker than Cooter Brown, and we worry she’ll flop herself off the sofa.
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Today she’s back to her sassy self, and is more work to keep her from dancing and prancing. She’ll have to have 24/7 babysitting until the stitches are removed. We do have a care-collar for her, but if we keep her with us she shouldn’t have to wear it. Fortunately Mister is out of school, and neither of us have any plans to be anywhere together that can’t be cancelled or rescheduled for a later date.

Year of WIPs Challenge

And we’re off!  I did get brave and created a YouTube photo video.

Here’s what I settled on for stitching, along with the progress photo as of Sep 30.  Click to see full photo.

Scarlet Letter – Gratitude

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Mirabilia – Fairy Moon

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Examplar Dames – And They Sinned

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Carriage House Samplings – Houses of Hawk Run Hollow

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Mirabilia – Garden Verses

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Goode Huswife – Book of Spells

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Blue Ribbon Designs – An Expression of Gratitude

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Plum Street – Hurt Not the Earth

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Scarlett House – Coverlet Candle Mat

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Little House Needleworks – Needleworker

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This was actually my plane project for last week’s trip since it’s on 30 ct.

Mill Hill – Log Cabin Quilt

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This was my first project to work on. I finished 10 hours last night.  Love how it’s turning out but ended up having to unstitch  about 2 hours worth because of mixing up the blues.  Blah!

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For now I’ll focus on Houses of Hawk Run Hollow and stitch it every 4th project.  I’ll be creating a tab at the top to track progress.

Now I need to figure out what I want to stitch on next!

My quilting buddies are returning starting this week and I’m looking forward to returning to sewing with them.  I’ll decide on my quilt/sewing WIPs once I figure out how often I’ll be sewing.

WIP Challenge 2016-2017

I did something that has caused me to dig through this:

I know if I start digging through here I will soon have 50 WIPs.

My BFF mentioned a few days ago that she was going to participate in a WIP Challenge, where you finished 12 or so WIPs.  I didn’t fully understand how it would work since it was starting October 1, plus I have some huge WIPs and know I can’t stitch 12 of them in a year (on top of the sewing I want to get done) so I sort of filed it away in the back of my mind.

I was watching her latest flosstube and she brought it up again so I went hunting for more information and became intrigued.  I think it’s completely doable!  The gist is you stitch 10-15 WIPs by the end of December 2017.  The boss lady of the challenge states that as long as they have 1 stitch in them come October 1, 2016, they’re WIPs.

I wanted to divide my 10 items by older WIPs and newer WIPs, so my list looks like this right now:

  1. Scarlet Letter – Gratitude
  2. Mirabilia – Fairy Moon
  3. Examplar Dames – And They Sinned
  4. Carriage House Samplings – Houses of Hawk Run Hollow
  5. Goode Huswife – Book of Spells
  6. Blue Ribbon Designs – Expressions of Gratitude
  7. Plum Street – Hurt Not the Earth
  8. Scarlett House – Coverlet Candle Mat
  9. LHN – Needleworker
  10. Mill Hill – Log Cabin

Houses of Hawk Run Hollow and And They Sinned are my two largest WIPs.  I had already decided to go back to rotating through 4-5 projects at a time, and now I’m trying to decide if I want to go back to stitching in 10 hour increments on a design and then switching out or stitch for a week on something and switch out on Monday.  Either way I intend to focus on Houses or ATS.  So my weekly rotation may look like this:

  • Oct 1-2 Book of Spells
  • Oct 3-9 HOHRH
  • Oct 10-16 Needleworker
  • Oct 17-23 Expressions of Gratitude
  • Oct 24-30 Book of Spells
  • Oct 31-Nov 6 HOHRH
  • Nov 7-13 Coverlet Candle Mat
  • Nov 14-20 Gratitude
  • Nov 21-27 Fair Moon
  • Nov 28-Dec 4 And They Sinned
  • Dec 5-11 HOHRH
  • and so on until HOHRH is finished, then move ATS into that spot

Now that I have it written out this may be the better way to go.  If I decide to do the time version it’ll be something like

10 hours HOHRH
10 hours Book of Spells
10 hours Needleworker
10 hours Expressions of Gratitude
10 hours HOHRH
10 hours Coverlet Mandle Mat
etc…..

We’ve been paired off with another member of the group and required to send monthly post cards as a way to encourage and get to know each other.  I’m also excited about this as I’ve been sort of considering writing to someone once a month as a way to communicate.

Now I just need to figure in some quilting/sewing time and pull a couple of large WIPs and small WIPs and do my own quilting/sewing challenge during that time too.

And, I need to get this all down in my journal by September 30.

 

Boy, oh boy, am I behind!

I finished Rose Quaker last night and the first thought I had was I needed to get it ironed and post a photo to my blog.  When I went to log on this morning imagine my surprise to see how long it’s been since I last posted!  Yikes!

Time flies when you’re having fun, and I’ve been having all kinds of fun redoing my sewing room, working for Arizona Quilters Guild, working for COMICON, and stitching when I can.

I actually have two finishes to share today, since I thought I had posted when I finished Lizzie*Kate’s Unseen Things on February 8.

2015-02-08 18.03.59She’s headed to the framers in a couple of weeks.

I had planned on working on And They Sinned after Unseen Things, but I couldn’t find it!  I started a #MirabiliaMonday on my facebook page and had planned on Fairy Moon since I’m almost finished with it.  I couldn’t find it either!  I knew they were together, though.

So I pulled Rose Quaker out instead of And They Sinned.  I finished Rose Quaker last night.  Here’s a craptastic photo since I still haven’t ironed it. 😀

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I finished the painting in my sewing room and have started putting everything back in its – hopefully – forever place.  And….I found the two missing stitching pieces.  Woohoo!  So now that Quaker Rose is finished And They Sinned is patiently waiting.  I started it January 4, 2013, and here’s where I stopped in August 2013.

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Monday’s dedicated to Mirabilia, and since I couldn’t find Fairy Moon, I pulled Garden Verses.  Here’s where I am on her as of last Monday:

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What else to share?  Oh yeah, I finally ordered, and received, the bell pull hardware for the SamSarah Lagniappe design.  No sewing has been going on so nothing to share there.  I am anxious to get back to it even though I’ve really enjoyed all the stitching I’ve done while not working on other things.

I’ll try not to let it be so long before I post again 😉

BlockSignature

 

A full month – a long post

and I’m not just talking about it being almost a full month since I’ve blogged.  This month has been full from a great many areas!

I bought the border, binding, and backing fabric for Son’s Falling Charms quilt.  We were busy in the shop that day so I didn’t get a chance to take a picture.  Since Son’s quilt is predominantly black, including the black batik I bought for the backing, I’m going to use black batting, and that needs to be ordered (waiting for Shop Hop to be over). I’m going to use a separate post to add in/subtract out the fabric I’ve added (ahem) since my last Sunday Stash Report.

I also bought the batting I needed for Caramel Corn.  I think I’m going to love using it.  It’s specially made for tablemats, and runners, meaning it’s narrow, and is very thin.

Prior to my trip Whittle’s Fabrics put their Mourning Grays on sale for $5.00 a yard so I bought several 1/2-yard cuts.  They arrived the day before I left and with everything that’s been going on with me this month, I just opened the package this morning.

1/2yd Mourning Grays & Purples

1/2yd Mourning Grays & Purples

Then it was off to California to stay with my friend Darla, and get to visit with my friend Melissa.  I left early Thursday morning (9/5) and got there around 3 p.m.  Melissa was able to meet us for dinner that night and it was so good to get some quality hugs from those two!

I had scheduled my trip to fall during the first weekend of the month so I could attend Stitchy Saturday at the needlework shop.  For reasons I can’t remember it was canceled for September and October, so I mentioned to Darla, prior to my arrival, that I wanted to find a quilt shop to visit instead to purchase some fabric for my upcoming Civil War Club quilt.  I brought my The Blue and The Gray book (which I proceeded to leave behind on my bed!  LOL)

I had no idea that Darla and her mom  were quilters.  I had the cutest quilt on my bed.  Darla mapped out a 7-shop Shop Hop for us so Friday morning we got up, went out for a great breakfast and headed out to burn the town down.  A few shops into our Hop I found one that had a copy of my left-behind book and was pleased to see that for once my memory had hung in there long enough for me to get what I needed 😉

One of the shops had closed down (so sad), and one of the shops was a dye-your-own-fabric business (they let us come in and walk around and it was fascinating in a warehouse sort of way), but the other 5 didn’t let me down.  One in particular has several older Jo Morton fabrics and I half-filled a new frequent shopper punch card for Darla with my purchase.  LOL

Here are some snaps:

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Most of the shirtings, the browns, and the reds, will be going into my Civil War Club quilt.  The rest is going into my stash 😉

I was so worried prior to my trip that I wouldn’t get to visit with Melissa since she’s on the backside of finishing up her college courses for graduation, and her job has been a little crazy.  She had some down-time Saturday morning so met us for breakfast at IHOP.  I had never been there, and I love breakfast food for any meal of the day.  I ended up ordering a chicken fried steak breakfast since it was getting close to lunch time and figured I would just not be eating again until dinner.  There was so much food and no way was I able to eat it all.  It was very good, though, and I know I ate more than I should have, as witnessed by my WW point tracking!  LOL

Darla had a storage facility that we planned a trip to so she could pick up her Hannah Beeby sampler.  One of our stops the day before was to a fairly new needlework shop and they were having a framing sale so we were hoping to get Hannah over there.  Not long after we left IHOP (I was driving) I began to have a really sharp pain under my left breast.  I can be a drama queen, but I have to tell you I had never hurt this bad, this fast, in my life.  Bam, it was there.  It was hard to breathe, and sweat was running down my face, from the pain.  I ended up sitting in the car while she went into her storage and looked for the sampler (which she couldn’t find!).  I felt if I could just sit and relax for a bit it would go away so asked Melissa if we could follow her to her house  and hang out for a little while and visit before she had to hit the books again.  During the drive to her house, just like that, the pain disappeared!  I even called her and asked where the nearest Starbucks was and she said she knew I must be feeling better if I wanted Starbucks.  😆

At the end of our visit, Melissa brought out fabric, that she had purchased to take her first quilt class, and gave it to me.  Such a beautiful surprise!  I remember when she signed up for it several years ago, but either illness or something from work, kept her from taking it.

Backing, border, and binding

Backing, border, and binding

FQs for blocks (pattern is Yellow Brick Road)

FQs for blocks (pattern is Yellow Brick Road)

Sunday it bothered me again off and on, but nothing major, more just a reminder that it had happened.  Monday morning, we got up and headed to Downtown Disney for chicory (for me) and beignets for breakfast and I left from there to head to Son’s house.

The first time I saw the ocean as I was driving down the coast I started crying and immediately thought to myself that I had made a huge mistake in moving to Arizona.  I love the ocean.  If we ever win the lottery we’ll be buying a cottage there.

It was so good to see Son and get a squeeze hug from him.  He looks so good and I can tell he’s been doing very well.  We headed downtown to eat on the beach (fish and chips) and it was nice to sit and talk with him and walk along the pier and watch the surfers and sea gulls, and of course the people!  We decided to just head back to his house and visit (we had originally planned to go to the movies) and I encouraged him to do his laundry since I knew Monday was his only day off.  It was fun just sitting there and listening to everything that’s been going on with him and his future plans.

After his roommate got home from work Son decided he was taking us out to dinner at a place his friends had been raving about one of the appetizers.  We headed over to my hotel to get me checked in, the boys brought my suitcase up, and we hung out there for a few minutes to make sure the A/C was going to work properly.   I have eaten at the steak house a few times and knew the rest of the food was good, too, so I had only a couple of bites of the appetizer (which really was delicious) and had a petite prime rib, baked potato and salad for dinner.  Not a ton of food plus I didn’t eat everything on my plate, but about 1/2 an hour after we were back at his house I started to feel ill again.  This time it was a gradual build up.  I was leaving really early the next morning so left Son’s around 8:30 and immediately went to bed.  My pain work me up a couple of times, but again never as severe as it was the first time, and it was gone the next morning.

Tuesday morning I got up at 5:30, showered, checked out of my room, hit the local Starbucks I used to go to all the time, topped off my car with gas, sent Son a text, called Mister and hit the road.  It was way too early for breakfast and I didn’t feel hungry at all.  I’ve traveled this route enough times to know where the rest stops and safe to stop places are, plus it gives me a good routine to stretch my legs.  I was home before 2 p.m and even beat Mister home from his classes.

I was tired when I got up Wednesday morning so skipped Bag Ladies, but had to go to a pre-Shop Hop meeting at work that evening to learn how to do our demonstration.  Thursday I worked, Saturday we had dinner out with Annette and family.  Prior to that I had been texting her about my stomach issues and she suggested I try something like Pepcid AC.  I thought it was working but after a couple of days it stopped and I continued to have flair ups, but only after evening meal. Sunday I went to Sampler Sunday at Attic.

Tuesday the 17th I worked and managed to get the borders cut for Son’s quilt (I need to buy a wider ruler!) and fabric bought for future-DILs quilt

24FQ of various Bonnie & Camille fabrics

24FQ of various Bonnie & Camille fabrics

Thursday (19th) as I was leaving for work I noticed water on the garage floor and the driveway.  I called Mister, who had left an hour prior to that and he hadn’t noticed anything.  Some time during that hour the hot water heater had decided to commit suicide.  Mister ended up coming home and calling a repair person who was able to meet him after his other class so he only had to miss one.  I stressed off and on all afternoon about what was going on but because he was in class (and I didn’t know this) I couldn’t reach him.  We were busy getting the shop ready for Friday’s Shop Hop opening.  I had a regular lunch and had a few slices of apple and almost immediately the pain started building. I thought maybe it was heartburn because of the stress of home and work, but I decided I might want to go to the doctor.  It proceeded to get worse as the day went on, but I stayed an hour after closing to help out, then headed home.  The Minick & Simpson MidWinter Reds pre-cuts came in the day before so I got to bring home a FQ Bundle that I had requested.  It’s going to be turned into a scrappy Irish Chain for me using a pattern in Bonnie Hunter’s Adventures With Leaders and Enders book.

Minick & Simpson Midwinter Reds FQ Bundle

Minick & Simpson Midwinter Reds FQ Bundle

That night we had dinner around 6:30 and I went to bed at 8:30 and as the night progressed it got so bad that I was panting trying to breathe and pacing every 30 minutes to an hour trying to get it to stop plus had thrown up.  When Mister got up to feed the dogs Friday morning at 6 I asked him to come back upstairs while I showered and then asked him to take me to the ER.

We have a small 35-private room hospital by us and because it’s so small it didn’t take very long to have a nurse check me in and a doctor see me.  She immediately put me on oxygen and started a drip of morphine for the pain.  After asking a few questions about prior surgeries, how long I’d been in pain, etc., she said “If we send you home today…” and I immediately accepted that it was something serious.  Over the course of the morning and into early afternoon she was in and out of my room encouraging me to have as much pain relief as I needed and talking to me about her various suspicions.  I had originally gone back by myself but sometime during all that she brought Mister back so I sort of turned off my brain at that point and she began to talk mostly to Mister about what was going on.  Even with the morphine they were pumping into me I still had pain, but I had stopped panting to breathe.  She sent me down for a CT Scan, that confirmed I had a very infected gallbladder (which got me a huge dose of penicillin in my drip) that was 3x the size it should have been and inside was a golf-ball sized stone.  She consulted with the surgeon who had an ultrasound made (which I got to see) and the next thing I knew I was being wheeled down the hall to be prepped for surgery.

With the exception of the surgeon – who needs to practice on his bedside manners – every single person in that hospital treated me like a princess from the time I got there to the time I left.  I spent a good long time talking to Jeremy the anesthesiologist guy about my allergies and how I can go about being tested for confirmation.  At one point I had 3 people pulling and tugging on me and said “Stop!” and they did.  I explained to them that they were all coming at me at once and sort of freaking me out.  They apologized and took turns explaining what they were doing/needed to do to get me into surgery and it helped tremendously.  I was so thankful that they listened to me since I felt like I was going into a panic attack.  After surgery not a single person came in to see me that didn’t stay for a bit and chat, including the sweet lady who delivered my breakfast the next morning because she wanted to be sure that I liked what I ordered, and Hugo who cleaned my room from top to bottom.  The two nurses I had (one male, one female) were extremely good and their support staff great as well.

So it’s been a week.  Yesterday I ventured out to sit in the car while Mister dropped off something at the PO, sat in Staples and waited to turn 3 quilt books in to have them spiral bound, went to the shop to get my Shop Hop Passport stamped 😉 and visit with my coworkers (it was so nice to see their faces), and then out to lunch.  I needed a 2-hour nap when I got home but it was fantastic to be out of the house and get to talk to people again.  After a couple of really rough days I’m feeling so much better and started cutting my pain meds back to 1/2 dose yesterday.  Other than a quick sit yesterday this is the first day I’ve been back in my craft room and it feels nice to play with the fabric.

My nails look like crap from all the tape that’s been on them. I discovered shaving my legs is a contortion sport – yeah, I should have waited, since I ended up sitting on the side of the tub for 15 minutes afterward trying to get my legs to stop shaking so I could stand. I’m covered in bruises from the 4 different IVs and a blood draw, I have 2 2-3″ incisions, and 2 punctures from the laparoscopic part of the surgery and 1 puncture from the drain I had to have because of all the infection (which fortunately they removed before I left the hospital).  I am a hot mess, but I can finally hold a thought longer than a second and I’m not shaking all the time.  I’m just about over the what-ifs, since the surgeon told Mister after surgery that it was very infected and I’m lucky it didn’t burst during my trip, or worse, on the 6-hr drive back by myself through the desert.

The upside.  It’s gone and I don’t have to worry about it bothering me again.  I left the hospital on a low-fat diet,  and am down 8+ pounds from Monday (I was up 4#s from all the IV drips, etc. on Monday).  LOL  Mister has been the best male nurse, woke me up when I needed to take my meds, cooked, went to the grocery store, kept up with the laundry for the most part and fussed at me for trying to do too much too soon.  Jasper has been my other good male nurse plastering himself to my side in bed at night and not moving once. Harley has thought I smelt funny though and not had much to do with me.  The hard part of that is I can’t pick up anything heavier than 10 pounds which means I haven’t been able to pick them up and hold them and of course it hurts for them to sit in my lap anyway.  Plus it was near impossible to get up and down from the couch until a couple of days ago.  I’ve watched more TV that I can’t remember over the past week, but hopefully that’s over.  I’m supposed to be able to start driving again on Monday and then the next Tuesday is my follow-up surgeon appointment and hopefully he’ll be telling me I can go back to work.

I’m ready to sew again!  Especially after fondling my fabrics this morning for their photo shoots.  Oh and I may have bought 3 new quilt books but I’ll save them to share another day.

My nurse is calling and it’s time for lunch and my medicine 😉

Sunday Stitching Report

Why not?  LOL

I finally took a very (horrible) photo of And They Sinned Thursday evening.  I pulled it out to show at the LNS before I started my new Elizabeth Sheffield sampler.

This is approximately 180 hours over about 65 days. 2013-08-01 17.02.31

Poor thing is so wrinkled, but that’s only because it has been so loved!  I still love every stitch and will be right back to it when I finish up the first section of Elizabeth Sheffield for Sampler Sunday.

Thank you for your comments on my FAB4FOCUS post.  I will be mentioning it quite frequently in hopes that it gets shared elsewhere and generates more interest.

Fiddling

I am not in the mood to sew today.  I went to bed last night trying to figure out why the second signature block I made, doing it exactly the same way I did the first, is too small.   I tend to think on things for a while when I’m trying to puzzle things out, and thought I had it figured out this morning.  I changed the way it was ironed, hoping that would help.  It did.  Some.  I suspect it is the flying geese that’s throwing it off.  So, instead, I fiddled!

The signature blocks are made with 4 flying geese and I’ve never been expert at them.  So I decided to fiddle around with my scraps and a new tool.  Deb Tucker’s Wing Clipper.  I haven’t watched the video yet, but I have followed the written directions that come with the ruler, step by step, using some of the scraps from the block I shared yesterday.

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The larger ones I trimmed using the ruler. Excellent and perfect…hear my heart sing!  The smaller ones, I trimmed free-handed and they are not perfect, but they made me go “awwww.”  I have no idea what I’ll do with the smaller ones, but the larger ones I’m going to save for a miniature quilt.  I plan on adding more of the larger size using the scraps from the rest of the signature blocks I need to make, plus if I mess up, I can use the Wing Clipper to trim then down to a size that is perfect.

Here’s where I’m bogged down, though.  I am so math challenged, which is so funny to me since there is so much math in quilting!  😆 I can’t seem to figure out what size squares to start with to end up with the 2 x 3-1/2″ size geese I need for the signature block!  I know that they need to go with the 2″ squares that I’m cutting for the corner pieces (brown in my previous block), but I just can’t get my brain to go to where I need to start to get them to where I can cut them down to that size.

I did see in the comments where someone said they were trying to figure out where to start to get to the same size, so I may try emailing Deb Tucker and asking her.

The other thing I have been fiddling with lately is a Quilter’s FabriCalc.  We have them at work, and I brought one home to read the manual and learn how to use it.  I love it! and ordered one for use at home and am expecting it to arrive any minute now.

I’ve been busy!

Haha.  I disappeared again, didn’t I.  I have a good excuse, or rather several of them.  They all fall under “I’ve been busy.”

I’ve been busy taking Petite Mexican Sampler to the framer.

I’ve been busy taking care of the yard and veggie garden while Mister went to California to surf and visit with Son for 12 days.

I’ve been busy stitching on And They Sinned.

I’ve been busy going to my Jo Morton Little Women Club meeting and buying more fabric for the next quilt.

Jo Morton yellow, blacks, and oranges

Jo Morton yellow, blacks, and oranges

I’ve been busy buying more fabric. Period 😀

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Jo Morton various 1/2 yard cuts

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New quilt project

 I’ve been busy snuggling puppies.

Harley and Jasper being Harley and Jasper

Harley and Jasper being Harley and Jasper

I’ve been busy ripping things off the wall of my downstairs powder room and installing a new mirror and small cabinet, and ordering new glass rod towel bar and tissue holder.  (I’ll be busy putting the new holders up, then pulling everything down, patching old holes, then painting and putting everything back up as soon as those holders come in 😉 )

I’ve been busy reading the latest Black Dagger Brotherhood book.

I’ve been busy out by the pool since our temps are consistently 105+ everyday.

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I was busy learning what a geek I am while volunteering for Phoenix Comicon over the Memorial Day weekend.

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Hung out here a lot when not on “duty.” There was tons of interesting things going on here.

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I’ve been busy winning a contest on the Quiltmaker blog.

I’ve been busy taking an applique class.

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I’ve been busy tearing my craft room apart.

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I’ve been busy rearranging furniture.

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I’m supposed to be busy putting it back to rights right now, but decided to do this instead.

I’ve been busy pulling more things to add to my sale page, both stitching and quilting books.

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I’ve been busy getting a part-time job at my local quilt shop!

 

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