Today…

My day started well… but then when I arrived home from church I discovered that once again life is changing.  It is inevitable, but none-the-less change is not always welcome.

I decided I needed some “sewing therapy” and proceeded to paper piece the tiny (2” finished) Roman stripe signature blocks our quilt group will be exchanging in August.  Yes, that is right… I will be AHEAD of the game for a change, rather than getting them done at the last minute.  I started with 23, I made a piecing error early on, and then made a cutting error when trimming the finished block;  that leaves me 21.  Thankfully I only need 18, but you never know how many times I will mess up when trying to sign these tiny blocks!

 

While sewing I decided some comfort food would surely improve the situation, and chocolate ALWAYS helps!  Brownies and a pitcher of lemonade were fixed.  More comfort food… pizza was fixed for our supper.  And of course, DH did not fuss about having brownies with his coffee, and pizza for supper.  My problems have not gone away, but my stomach is happy!

And now I think I will get in bed and read a good book.  Did YOU read these when you were growing up?  I LOVED Nancy Drew, and Katelyn has been reading this one aloud to me, a chapter a day.  She is not going to be back for several days, and I MUST know who screamed at the end of the chapter she read to me yesterday.  I think I’ll just go find out.  Nothing like light reading to take your mind off things.

Change is coming, like it or not.  It is not in my control, so we will just adjust.  I’m so thankful there is One Who is the same yesterday, today, forever,  (Hebr. 13:8) and He will see me through whatever comes my way.

Have a blessed week!

KAT

4 Updates….

1.  DH’s wrist did have a chipped bone.  It is being treated as if it were broken.  It is in a stabilizing splint 24/7 , he is to be very careful with that hand, and he is to return in a month for x-rays to check the healing progress.  The ribs are getting better.  He THINKS he is going to bowl tonight… we shall see!

2.  Mom’s house repairs are coming along nicely.  The roof is being completed this week.  The sheetrock and “mudding” have been done.  Painters are working on getting the rooms repainted.  The chimney is being rebuilt this week.  The flooring won’t be in for about another 2 weeks, but hopefully everything else will be finished by then so they can get right to replacing the flooring.  This time she chose a vinyl that looks like laminate.  It is in strips, just like laminate flooring and sticks down.  I can’t wait to see how this works!

 

3.  UFO update:  Jeremy’s quilt is DONE except for hemming the 2 1/2 miles (or so it seems) of striped binding.  I almost have one side completed.  My goal is to finish it by the end of the month because this is my project for the UFO Challenge this month.

4.  Sock update:  I finished my May pair of socks using Knit Picks Stroll Tonal yarn.  I LOVE these!  Of course, I immediately cast on June’s pair (Saturday at Quilt Till You Wilt, when I should have been hemming on Jeremy’s quilt!).  I am ready to make the heel on this one.  This is Knit Picks Risata cotton blend yarn.  Because it is a solid I decided to do a pattern.  I am pleased with how it is coming along.

So there you have 4 updates and answers to questions you probably never asked…. I’m good at that!

Have a blessed week!

KAT   

Things You Can’t Do With One Hand…

Some activities require 2 hands.  Here is a short list of things you can NOT do with one hand… and sore ribs.

1.  Button your jeans

2. Zip your pants

3. Hold the jar of syrup while you twist the lid off

4.  Cut sausage on your plate with a knife

5.  Dry your back after your shower; put deodorant on your right underarm

6.  Hold onto your underwear while trying to step into them

7.  Hold a wiggling, clawing cat while the wife tries to shoot medicine down its mouth

8.  Roll over in bed without moaning loudly and then laughing at yourself for being in this condition, thus waking your spouse

9.  Cough or sneeze without regretting it

10.  Get your own ice pack at 1:30 in the morning

 

Now none of those are complaining on my part, more like poking fun at him.  Thankfully he has a very good sense of humor and more thankfully, he really is a VERY good patient and follows the doctor’s orders without whining.  Keeping the hand elevated and covered with an ice pack around the clock are helping with the pain. 

You may ask, “What happened?”  Long-story-short, he had a fall yesterday morning while hauling fire wood.  It is impossible to break your fall when you have wood in both hands, so he landed very hard on his left wrist and also landed with one stick of wood under his left arm.  The doctor says the wrist is dislocated and possibly broken.  He will see an orthopedic doctor tomorrow.  The ribs… broken or bruised, and very painful. 

This all means rather than “playing” around on the farm, he is spending time watching western movies on TV.  He probably needed the rest anyway!

KAT

Just Playing Around

 

Take 1 1/2 yards of black fabric with gold, purple, and green sparkles attached.

Spend many hours playing on the machine using Bottom Line thread  and free-motion quilting.

And here are the results.  This little quilt (32 x 32) was a donation quilt for a silent auction to raise money for CASA (Court-Appointed Special Advocates) program in our area.

The pictures are terrible… it was too bright and sunny on the day I was taking pictures… lesson learned.

Of course you can zoom in if you would like to see more details.

It was hard giving it up.  I have more fabric… I just may have to make ME one!!

Be blessed today in all you do!

KAT

What IS that STENCH?

That is the question I asked when I entered my quilting room this morning, ready to do a day’s work.  It really smelled like something had died nearby, which is not unusual.  I closed the window and turned on the AC assuming the smell was coming from outside.  I’ll fix THAT!  HAHA!

Living in the country has its rewards and its pitfalls.  Sometimes woodsy critters meet their demise in our yard.  Occasionally this is intended by DH (as in critters eating what is in the garden… Those pesky rabbits that have mowed down our green beans and now started on the corn better beware because he will soon be in hot pursuit of you!).  Sometimes it is not intended.  PJ may corner a possum at night and the possum usually looses the encounter.  Sometimes DH forgets to pick up said critters in a timely manner and we get to enjoy their fragrance, which then notifies me it is time to inform HIM that I have enjoyed the fragrance enough, and the critter he forgot is asking to be given a proper burial, or tossing, or something far away from the house.

Closing the windows made the smell worse.  I assumed that something had crawled under the house and died.  YUCK!  Then I remembered the mouse trap, which we set in my quilting room about 8 MONTHS ago when I saw some evidence that tiny rodents had been checking things out in there.  The trap was behind some things in a corner, completely out of sight and out of mind.

BINGO!  And GROSS!  In this heat and humidity it does not take long for decomposition to begin and smells to arise.  I won’t gross you out with pictures for this post… you REALLY don’t want to see that do you?

I tossed the trap, mouse and all, out into the yard per DH’s instructions.  He will deal with the rodent when he gets home later.  I sprayed the room with Bath and Bodyworks room scent.  Now the room smells like coconut-vanilla with heavy undertones of dead things.  The quilt I just took off the machine and folded up will now be unfolded and aired a bit.  I don’t think the customer would appreciate the addition of dead rodent smell to her quilt.

I’m back in business, but cringing each time I walk into the room.  As soon as I finish the quilt in the machine now, I will open windows and leave the fan running in there to help evict the smell.

OK… 6 paragraphs about a dead mouse is enough.  Back to work for me!  Have a blessed day, with no dead rodents!

KAT

UFO Finish

 

It is finally pieced!!  Jeremy’s quilt was the project that seemed to never end.  This quilt is 107” x 107”.  With 25 pieced blocks (each containing 64 pieces) and miles and miles of pieced sashing, then the pieced borders….  you get the idea.

I love how it turned out, and more importantly, JEREMY loves how it looks.  This pattern is a Bonnie K. Hunter pattern found in her book, Scraps & Shirttails.

Some blocks I love better than others, and I learned a lot about using recycled shirts.  I will now be on the look-out for shirts at a bargain.  It seemed that it was especially hard to find really good light shirts.  Medium value shirts are everywhere, and dark shirts are fairly easy to get, but really good lights… I’ll keep searching.  The blocks I like best are the ones using really light shirts for the backgrounds.  Admittedly, some of the blocks were rather busy for my tastes because of the background used.  They will just have to be that way, because I used what I had.

Now my UFO goal for the month of May…. GET THIS HUGE THING QUILTED!!

KAT