High As A Kite.

Wow, my new med Lyrica is something else.  I either feel stoned or sleepy, but it has helped with the pain.  Not functioning well on it yet.  Definitely won’t be driving for a while, or doing much of anything else including, sadly, posting to the blog.

Off To See The Wizard, I mean Rheumotologist.

After a multitude of tests, my Dr. has given up trying to figure out my medical mystery and has referred me to a Rheumotologist.  My first visit is today and I’m hoping she can get me back on track soon.  I’m tired of feeling tired and achy.

Hope to soon be back with regular posts.

I Can’t Believe I Pieced the Whole Thing!

The project at the Skrappies retreat last fall was a mystery quilt.  We all worked for days before the retreat, cutting and sewing, thinking we would finish the mystery that weekend.  Were we ever WRONG.  By the end of the weekend no one was close to being finished so the mystery was revealed to give us incentive to finish.  The name of the mystery quilt is Faceted Jewels and I’ve posted pics of finished ones by other Skrappies.  I am happy, proud and relieved to announce that at 12:00 midnight on Friday night I sewed the last seam of my Faceted Jewels quilt top.

 

Faceted Jewels Mystery Quilt

For the inquiring minds, I counted the units and there are 2000 pieces in this quilt.  That’s not counting all the extra pieces we had left over.

 

Saturday was Skrappy Ladies workday, so I drove down to Lawton.  Wanted to show off my finished top.  We had a great salad potluck and I managed to make one more Dear Jane block.

 

Dear Jane – A_4

 

Carol J. was working on her quilt from Lerlene Nevaril’s Two Color Quilt class.

 

 

Carol’s two color quilt

Goodbye old friend

I can remember bringing you home 30 odd years ago, you were bright and shiny with a red exterior and a clear plastic lid.  The lid broke ages ago and your paint peeled into non-existence, but your aluminum usefulness persevered.  I could always count on even heating and easy clean-up.  Then your edges began to crack where they had been bent back and forth too many times.  The kids made rude jokes everytime I pulled you out of the cupboard, but I just couldn’t replace you.

Old friend

 Until now…

Shiny New Pan

 Sorry, but yesterday this bright and shiny, heavy, professional grade aluminum pan caught my eye and the price was right so I couldn’t resist. 

I’ve mentioned before that each month I work on a panel challenge for a different person.  It’s all supposed to be hush hush.  Which makes it hard for blogging, when you spend time working on something that you can’t post about.  This month I’m breaking the rules and posting a picture, not that anyone can tell anything from it.  This is a peek at this month’s project.

Panel challenge - June

 

I’ve also made another Dear Jane block, TB-2.  This block was pieced using the foundation method.

Dear Jane block TB-2

 

I wasn’t happy with the way the scarf , I mentioned in last post, was knitting up, so I’ve switched to another scarf pattern.  Now I’m using the North Star scarf pattern from the book Arctic Lace and knitting with parchment color Peruvian Baby Silk.  It is turning out really well, although I need to order a few more balls of the yarn.

Living Stitches

Kerry had never been to the Oklahoma Aquarium in Jenks so earlier this month Bill and I stopped by and picked her up and went to the aquarium.  I like seeing all of the fish and sea creatures,  this time they even had beavers and otters.  My favorite exhibits though are the corals and anemones, because they look like needlework come to life.  There was a pale pink colored anemone that looked as though it had been embellished with crystals, others with brightly colored buttonhole stitches or couching.  It’s amazing to see all of these bright colored creatures that live hidden away under the ocean.  I took a lot of pictures to use as reference for future embroidery projects.

 

 

Reminds me of Grandmother's depression glass dishes

We spent Memorial Day with some of Bill’s relatives and a good time was had by all.  Some of the group were playing  a wild version of Bocce Ball in the front yard and the rest of us in the backyard were thankful for the wooden fence that protected us from some of their wilder throws.

 

I have started knitting a lacy scarf using a moebius pattern.  I will be knitting it flat so I started with several rows of garter stitch and will end the same way.  Have only knit a few inches  and decided that I need to go up a couple of needle sizes to open up the lace.  Will post progress later.

 

I finished my part on Marilyn’s panel and now I have Cathy’s.  Cathy’s panel is a bright print and I don’t have the color I want to use in my stash, so I’ll be making a trip to the quilt shop.

 

Another Dear Jane block has been finished and I’ve printed out the foundation piecing templates for a triangle block.   Not sure if I mentioned that I’m using 1800’s reproduction prints for this quilt.  I’m not using just civil war prints because I figure that if this was truly a scrap quilt there would have been older fabrics in the mix.   Like the 20 and 30 year old fabric in my stash.   Judy and Kelly, thank you for your nice comments on the other Dear Jane blocks.  My husband doesn’t comment on quilts very often but he thinks the original Jane Stickle quilt is one of the prettiest he’s seen. 

 

 

I’m hoping to get caught up with the quilting projects so I can get back to work on A Crazy World.

P.S. to previous post

WordPress isn’t playing nice today.  The previous post may be a little screwy in the layout and flow but pictures and writing wouldn’t stay where they were put.  Spent too much time and energy that I don’t have trying to fix it.  Hopefully next post will be better.

Toby is begging for attention.

My blogging companion

Who’ll stop the rain?

This song has been playing in my head a lot lately.  We have had rain for 17 days in a row.  The sun has made an appearance here and there, but not long enough to dry anything out.  Our backyard looks like a very weedy pond.  The three tomato plants that we got in the ground before the rain are starting to turn yellow.  The raised beds are the only reason they have lasted this long.

Of course the rain and gloom haven’t helped with my tired and blue feeling, so I finally asked the Dr. about it and now I’m waiting on a lot of lab work results to come back.  Hopefully I can get back on track soon and a return to needlework and blogging on a regular basis.

Since my last post, the Skrappy Ladies held their spring retreat at canyon camp.  There were only 9 of us attending this time so we were able to spread out more than usual.  I worked away on the mystery quilt Faceted Jewels from last fall’s retreat.  I managed to finish all of the components and sew them into rows.  Now all I have left is to sew all of the rows together.  I didn’t get around to taking a picture of the top while I had it laid out on the floor. 

The project for spring retreat was a tessellating pinwheels variation from the books Square Dance and Square Dance (revised edition).  Melissa had made the pinwheel variation before so tried another pattern from the book.

For show and tell there were a few of the progressive block challenge projects, either finished or in progress. 

Carol Ann’s Tessellating Pinwheels

Jan’s Tessellating Pinwheels

Jean’s Tessellating Pinwheels

Melissa’s variation from Square Dance

Carol Ann’s progressive challenge – in progress

Cathy’s progressive challenge – in progress

Melissa’s progressive challenge

Pam’s progressive challenge

Marilyn’s sunflower string quilt. The picture looks a little strange because I took it upside down instead of walking all the way around the room.

 

Since returning home from retreat I haven’t done much in the way of needlework or quilting, but I have decided that I’m going to try and make at least one Dear Jane block each week.  I appliqued two of the blocks over the weekend and have come to the conclusion that if I don’t want to be left making only triangle blocks, I should make one triangle block for every 4 or 5 of the 4½’ square blocks made.  During our move some of the completed blocks were lost leaving me with just a few, plus the ones I just finished.  Below is a picture of my progress so far.  I also have one other block that is almost ¾ finished.

 

 

 

Long time gone.

Hadn’t realized how long it had been since my last post.  There has been a lot going on around here but either it wasn’t blog worthy or was secret Skrappy stuff.  Dug out some of my older cd’s and have been listening to old favorites like Crosby, Stills, Nash, and later to join, Young.  Thus the post title “Long Time Gone”.

This weekend is the Skrappy Ladies spring retreat, down in a canyon, away from the distractions of the outside world.  No television and no cell phones.  Emergency contact is through the office or pay phone.  A weekend of quilting, laughter, and food.  The camp supplies our meals, but we must be afraid they will forget because we always have a table over flowing with snacks and drinks.  We usually have a project that everyone works on, but this time I’ve decided not to participate and to work on finishing my mystery quilt that we started at fall retreat.   

This year instead of having door prizes we are going to play Bunco/Bunko.  I have never played this before so I don’t know anything about the game.  Anyway, everyone is supposed to bring a quilting/sewing related gift with value of approx. $10.  I always have trouble picking out something that I think everyone might like, so I usually make needlebooks or handmade items.  My contribution for a Bunco prize will be this beehive pincushion.

At the winter quilt show a vendor was demonstrating how to make bowls and bags out of fabric wrapped cotton cord.  I bought some of the cotton cording and had planned to make a bag, then I had the idea of making a pincushion instead.

The yard on one side of our house is very narrow, with little to no sun, and nothing but a few weeds will grow there.  So eventually we plan on laying down a weed barrier and covering it with small stones.  A relative was removing stones from part of the yard at his new house so Bill brought them all over here, where they are sitting on one side of the back porch until being moved to the side yard.  There are quite a few doves that visit the yard and they love to sit on the rock pile in the afternoon where they have a very interested audience.

Toby, dove watching.

It’s amusing to watch Toby while he’s watching the doves.  He tries so hard to be still, but keeps twitching until it finally gets the best of him and he jumps, which scares off the doves.

A Finished Project

February Lady Sweater for Jessica

I finished the February Lady Sweater that I was knitting for Jessica.  I took the picture before it was washed and blocked.  The above picture is pretty true to the color, but in the picture below the color variations show up better, especially when you click on the image and then on to the large size on Flickr.

February Lady Sweater - detail

I haven’t done much of anything lately.  Still can’t quite shake this blue funk I’m in.  Wish all of the pollen levels would drop and the wind would die down so that I could venture outside for some fresh air and sunshine.  The Skrappies Spring Retreat is coming up in about 3 weeks, so I have that to look forward to.  Even though I’m no where near being prepared.

Have worked on the panel mystery round robin.  I thought this round robin would be easy because we would pick an envelope with the instructions of what we were to do next on the panel.  Well let’s just say that the first 2 clues I got were really vague, which means I actually had to use my poor little brain.  When I opened the clue envelope for the panel I have now, I knew exactly what I would do and set right in to finish it.  Then I put it on the design wall, stood back, and realized that I had sewn it on upside down.  So now I have to take it out and redo it. 

No progress has been made on A Crazy World, I haven’t decided on the motif that I will stitch next. 

Toby has recovered from his reaction to the antibiotics and the stress of the trip to the vet.  Poor thing cried all the way, he was sure that we were taking him back to the shelter.  Although he did actually like the vet’s office.  I took him to a cat’s only clinic and they had a bird cage containing 3 parakeets at the end of the examining table.  Toby just layed there watching the birds while they examined him, even when they took his temperature.  Toby says “Thank you” to Ginger and Mocha for their get well wishes.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Vintage Postcard

Not much to post about today since there was no needlework done over the weekend.  Still recovering from nursing a very sick kitty for the past few days.  He scratched his chin until it was bleeding, so we made an appointment with the vet who prescribed an antibiotic and some shampoo.  Long story short, Toby had a very bad reaction to the antibiotic.