As I may have said on the blog before, Erik and Mae have been on the hunt for their first house. Originally I had in mind to give this to them as a housewarming gift when the right time came along. After finishing it, however, I had second thoughts. Personally, I like it very much. But I started wondering if they would like it. It occurred to me that the bright colors and whimsical nature might not be appealing to their personal tastes. Further, it ended up much larger than I thought it would (35 x 14 inches), meaning that to hang it, would take a rather large wall.
Since I couldn't feel comfortable about giving it to them, I decided to keep it as a table runner for my own table and to work on a smaller piece for them. They haven't even found a house yet, and so there is no rush on this.
I'm updating this post to say that I'm linking up to:
Having made that decision, I decided to get going on the latest tomato harvest. I peeled and chopped these tomatoes and managed another 2 1/2 quarts of pasta sauce. That brings me to 9 1/2 quarts for the season (not to mention the 8 remaining pints of salsa). I think the tomatoes have stretched as far as I need them to for the season. Someone will be picking them while we are gone, and there will probably be more when we return from our trip. But if I don't can any more tomatoes this season, I'll be happy with what I've done.
While those were processing, I decided to make up the stitchery for my second choice for Erik and Mae. This embroidery pattern appeared in the September/October 2013 issue of Quiltmaker magazine.
This piece will end up at 14 x 10 inches, a better size, I think. I know that Mae likes blue, and so I'm going to do the whole thing as bluework with the fabrics you see below.
I'll do the stitchery on tea-dyed muslin to give it a more rustic appearance. Besides, it has a cat right in the middle, and that, of course, makes it a better choice all around. (If you're wondering, Erik and Mae have two cats: Chester and Lucy.) The original pattern says "Bless this House" in the banner above, but I like "Home sweet home" better, and so I changed that. I think I'll feel much better about this as a housewarming gift for them.
Once that was done, I continued on adding borders to the White Trees quilt. I think adding borders to a quilt top us one of the more tedious parts of quilting. I added the inner white one and the gray one today, but there are still two more to go...a one-inch red border and another white one...before it will be finished. After doing these two, I'd had quite enough. I'll work on this at another sitting. For now, I was bored with it and tired of sewing.
Fortunately, I had my little girl kitty in the sewing room with me, and she distracted me from the tedium of the borders.
Tonight we're meeting up with Erik and Mae for dinner. Matthew and Laura might be there as well, but they haven't committed. I had a yen to get the whole family together one more time before we leave on our trip.
Tomorrow I'm going to see the third doctor about my knee problem. Hopefully, this third guy will be the charm. If he even looks like he might say there's nothing that can be done about it, I swear I will break down and cry right on the spot. Please allow me to whine just a bit because it's hard to think about anything else right now. Here's what I've been thinking about this.
Clearly, many people live with pain every day of their lives. Myself, I have lived with this annoying knee discomfort literally for decades. It has become gradually worse. I've had one arthroscopy, six injections of Synvisc and cortisone (three of each), and hundreds of hours of physical therapy in an attempt to fix it. Nothing has given me complete or permanent relief. When I saw the doctor back in March, I was satisfied that it was as good as it could get until it got so much worse and unbearably painful about six weeks ago. Now I'm at a place where something simply has to change.
If I had injured it in a car accident or playing sports or something, I might be accepting of the idea that this is a new normal. But since I didn't...since there is nothing to point to and say, that's what caused it...I just have to believe that something is wrong that can be fixed. Am I off base somehow about that? And here's the other irritating thing about this whole situation: at least if I had injured it, I might be able to tell a funny or interesting story about it. But no. I have a frustratingly stubborn problem knee that seems to enjoy aggravating me for no apparent reason whatsoever.
Okay, not another word. But know this: the doctor is going to hear some version of the above tomorrow, and he'd better come up with a good plan, or I just might knock him to the ground and beat the living shit out of him. And then, I'll walk away passively, limping as I go.
What would you do?
