Reading and Recovering

Besides glue-basting hexies, reading quilt magazines, and attaching borders, I have found myself buried in a very good book as I make may way through recovery from surgery. I imagine quite a few of you know the feeling of being happily buried in a good book. You get carried off to another place and time, and before you know it, all else is forgotten.

I love when that happens.

The book I am currently buried in is called The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman. Published in 2014, it is the story of Malka, who along with her family flees Russia to find a new beginning in the USA. The tragedies that befall her and others in her family as she grows up in early 20th century New York City are told in flashbacks by the present day Lillian (her American name) as an elderly ice cream mogul. Initially, I was not very much liking the main character, but since this is a book club read, I needed to stay with it. She has grown on me, at last, and I am enthralled by her story, and halfway through, I find that I cannot stop reading. The story of the immigrant experience in NYC in the early 1900s is fascinating. I hope I am equally enthralled by the ending.

So there goes glue-basting and anything else quilting related for the next day or two. Ah well, one needs balance, eh?

Happy Quilting - or Reading - Friends!

May UFO Finished! OMG!

Snoopy is doing his happy dance today, dear readers. Yes, he and I both are happy about finishing the May UFO.

While we're at it, let's have Calvin and Hobbes join us.

And here is what makes us all so happy - the Navy Monkey Wrench now has its borders! 

This is one of those quilts that has an unnecessarily long history. I seem to have many more of those than anyone ought. Start a quilt; finish a quilt - that's the way I should operate. In reality, I operate more typically like this:

The pieces for the monkey wrench blocks were cut out and taken in baggies to stitch while attending various cross country and track meets through our son's jr. high and high school running days - this would be in the  mid-1990s to 2001, when he graduated. Then, the blocks were stored away in a tub. Periodically, I would pull out the tub and take a picture of the contents, write a blog about it, and then return the tub to the closet. Here is a post from 2012. And here is one from March 2015, and again in April 2015. The UFO was listed for completion in 2015, yet obviously that did not happen - but I did work on it. And even though I said I was motivated to put on the borders, something else apparently snatched my attention, because I still had just borders left to do when I once again put it on a second UFO list - 2017. It came up as the quilt for May, and if you check out this post, you will see not only this quilt sans borders, but you will also see all my previous UFO finishes for this calendar year. 

I am definitely on a roll.

I love how striking my Monkey Wrench looks. I've kept it pinned up to the design wall, so I see it each time I look down the hall toward the sewing room. Even DH mentioned how nice it looks. *cheesy smile*

As I stitched borders yesterday, I had a chance to study my hand-piecing on some of the blocks. It made me reflect on just how much I do enjoy hand-piecing. I have not done too much of it lately, and I need to rectify that. I will soon be stitching my hexies, so that may suffice. However, I ought to get back to some of those 4-patches, or 9-patches, or 16-patches. 

Are you a "start-a-quilt-finish-a-quilt" type person? Or do you take the meandering multi-year path toward a finish? 

I hope your are getting some items checked off your list today! I'm linking up with the Monday Making party over at Love Laugh Quilt.

Added later: I am also linking up to Elm Street Quilts and the One Monthly Goal finish. It's such a great way to see who is getting stuff done, and to enjoy all the variety of our various projects.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Quilting With the Frankfort Girls

My outings are becoming more frequent, and as long as DH Kevin will drive me places, I am happy to be driven out and about. Yesterday morning he took me to our regularly scheduled quilting group at Sharon O's lovely country home, and everyone was present! It has been awhile - some of us hadn't seen each other since before the Canter's Cave retreat a month ago.

Sharon had an attractive and springtime-appropriate table setting for us. Her love of pretty dishes, gardening and quilting all came together in a very harmonious centerpiece.

We had a show-and-tell from Sheryll. She used some of her mother's fabrics for a niece's graduation quilt. Since Sheryll was stuck in a corner of the room, we only got to see a quarter of the quilt, but it seems easy enough to get the gist of its looks. The pattern is by Thimbleberries; I'm sure we could identify more specifically, if need be.

Becky had been to the big Paducah show last month, and brought back a new project which she is already working on.

Becky loves making hexie quilts (you saw several of her creations here), so it should come as no surprise to any of us that she is working away on this pattern called Stars in the Garden II by Yellow Creek Quilt Designs. Her fabrics are Kindred Spirits, and these hexies finish at 1/2". *gasp*

I've been glue-basting my hexies, and it is interesting to see how someone bastes the old-fashioned way - the way our great-grandmothers would have done it. And her finished hexie is perfect. As a beginner at hexie quilting, I am grateful to have Becky and Jan both available for tips and pointers.

Speaking of Jan, she, too, had been to a quilt show. Nearby Washington Court House has a show going on now, and Jan was all excited because her hexie idol Annette Williams was a vending. She came home with 2 new projects, and I failed to take pictures of either. I looked on the website and did not see them, but I will try to get this information in some future post.

Terry and Sharon worked on hexie projects, too, (again, no pictures) so it looks like all of us have been bitten by the same bug. It is easy handwork, and that is what we do when we have our Friday morning fellowships. I am content to make my project slow and steady, while I suspect that a few of these other ladies will be making much faster work of theirs.

Hope you are making the most of your Saturday! I've joined the Whoop-Whoop linky party over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. You will see more hexie creations there, for sure!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Sometimes, The Easiest Thing...

...is the thing that you naturally mess up. I was happily stitching along last evening, feet up on the footstool, ball game on the television, and about half-way to finishing my POTC block, THIS happened!!

What?!?! This is going to sound ridiculous, but I could not for the life of me figure out what I had done wrong! I was so certain that the piece standing at attention was sewn in exactly right. I must have made a cutting mistake, I was thinking.

This morning, as I've had a good night's sleep and a large cup of coffee, I can see very clearly that I did, indeed, sew that piece in sideways. DUH!

Now the job of picking it out - that will be a nuisance, since typically these stitches are super-tiny, and how much will have to be redone? I suppose it's a trivial matter, but still.

This is not the first time I've happily stitched along thinking everything was hunky-dory, only to discover that I had sewn myself into a big ol' mess. I even wrote about one such instance here. And I won't even begin to calculate the number of UFOs that became UFOs simply because of a silly, careless boo-boo on my part.

Well, as you can see, the troubles in my world are small-potatoes, aren't they? World calamities, they are not.

In a recovery update, DH took me on an outing yesterday - to the library, the grocery and the drug store! Whoo-hoo! It was exhausting.  However, I am feeling so much better, so this afternoon we are going to venture out again - this time to an Amish greenhouse about 30 minutes south of here. I hope to come home with some pretties!

I've linked up with Kelly for her Needle and Thread Thursday linky party. Ironically, the title for today's post alludes to her own brand of quilting mistake. Her solution was perfect, too. Go have a look!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Slow Progress

I am one week post-surgery today. I feel pretty good, but gosh, I have very little gumption to get up and do anything! That easy chair with it's access to a phone, a remote, an iPad, and a tub of elongated hexies has been the extent of my sphere since coming home.

Thankfully, friends and family have been looking after me. Well before surgery, Jan handed me this stack of magazines with strict instructions to save them for after surgery. Good advice which I heeded; I've paged through about half of them.

Progress on the hexies has me to the point where I need to cut more cardstock templates, but I don't think I have the stamina to stand at the cutting table to do it. I may switch to some other hexie shapes - which I do have on hand - and add to other projects.

What are you working on these days? I welcome diversion, so share your projects - or plans for projects! *wink*

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Gluing Hexies

This has been an eventful week, dear readers. I have kept this sort of on the 'down low,' but I figure I will share now that it is behind me. I am recovering from surgery - hysterectomy, to be exact. It had been scheduled for about a month, and I planned several blog posts to run while I was out of commission. All went well, and I am progressing through recovery.

My plan all along for this healing period has been to stock up on several hand-quilting projects and in the last day or so I have finally felt alert enough to glue. Baby steps, right? Elementary stuff, this gluing, but it's about all I've had the interest in doing.

Last evening I glued all the gray swirly hexies you see in front of this small stack. The blue and pale green behind were done before my hospitalization. Do you think these colors are evoking a feeling of water? That is my plan, and I have many more fabrics to add to this array. I first wrote about this project here, if you care to see a recap. That post has some pictures of a few of the other fabrics I will be using.

This blue has interesting "sticks" of black and white, which I think may end up looking like driftwood one would see in a babbling brook.

I arranged a few on my lap desk when I'd finished for the evening. I really need to get more fabrics into the mix; just these three lack impact.

I will continue this work today, and maybe by the end of the week I will be recovered enough that I can return to working at the sewing machine or cutting table again. For right now, sitting with a project in my lap is totally sufficient.

I am linking up with Kathy at Slow Sunday Stitching, since that 's-l-o-w' part seems very appropriate for me these next few days!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Emma's Wall Hanging

Just a quick post today, Peeps, to let you know that I've been doing a little sketching for the wall hanging DD Emma has asked for.

A week or so ago, I had the sketch on the left. I sent a picture of it to her with the response that maybe it needed more black. The sketch on the right  has more black. Not a lot more, but more. It got the thumbs up from Emma.

I have done the math (several times!) and I will need 57 black squares; 123 white squares, 82 black & white HSTs; and 8 green & white HSTs. I am debating on what the size my blocks will be; it will mostly depend on the wall space she has for it, but it will likely be either 2" finished squares or 2.5" finished squares. I hope that this is something I can get started on soon.

I seem to have quite a few irons in the fire right now. Starting lots of things often doesn't necessarily mean finishing lots of things! Hmmm...

Happy Quilting, Friends!