Shoulder to the Wheel

Sounds like I'm hard at work on an overly-burdensome task, doesn't it? Actually, I'm just stitching and stitching and stitching. The shoulder comes in where I refused to listen to my Self of Wisdom, which is never wise.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I started hand-stitching the binding for Semper Fi, and I had in mind to stitch two lengths of thread at a time. By doing it that way, I can break up all 378 inches of it with other tasks. Then, other task(s) completed, I'll go back to stitching for two more lengths. This is how one eats an elephant one bite at a time. Or maybe it's two lengths of thread at a time, if you want to do it that way. And you know, I always start near the first corner, so I can feel as if I'm speeding along at world-record-setting pace. The first corner was turned in almost no time at all.

I'll get to the shoulder in a minute, but I stopped here to make a Tiny Tree block. Here's a tiny log cabin.

And...amazingly...I actually did some housework. After that, I sat with the kitties. Smitty was on my lap, which usually means Sadie is not welcome. Yesterday, she hopped up and moved as close to me as she possibly could. Smitty tolerated this for precisely as long as it took to snap this picture. Then he turned around with eyes wide open, glaring at her in an expression that spoke volumes about his outrage at her astonishingly bad manners...moving in on a lap like that.

Well, I never . . . !!!

And he was so put out that he jumped down and stomped out of the room...as much as it is possible to stomp when one has little cat feet. He would have slammed the door too, but he couldn't reached it.

Okay, so Sadie and I snuggled for a little while, and then I did two more lengths of thread on Semper Fi. When those two lengths were used up, I returned to the sewing room and made the next Tiny Tree block...this little pinwheel. I just love pinwheels, don't you?

And now I'm caught up on these. Here are the six I have so far.

Today's is a tiny bow tie block, and I'll get on that pretty soon.

Getting back to my shoulder, I did some more stitching. I was sitting in an easy chair with high arms. I can either pull my elbow in close to my body, which makes it hard to maneuver one's arm when one is grasping a needle pulling thread. Or, I could put my elbow up above the arm of the chair, which meant my shoulder was kind of cocked at an odd angle. And my Self of Wisdom said, you're going to make your shoulder sore doing that. And my Self of Very Poor Judgment said, "Nah...what are you talking about? What? Do you think I'm old or something? Someone of my youth and vigor could never suffer that sort of injury." And then I quoted Bugs Bunny, saying, "What an Ultra Maroon!"

So by day's end, I'd turned the second corner, having stitched the full length of 107 inches plus the part that came before and after the first two corners.

By dinner time, my shoulder was killing me. So much for youth and vitality. I slapped a Flector patch on it (which is an anti-inflammatory patch), and it feels better this morning. But Self of Wisdom wins this round, and Self of Very Poor Judgment is sitting in a different chair this morning, feeling humbled by my decrepitude. I did some more stitching on it this morning, stopping after two lengths. I'm just a few inches short of the third corner now.

Toward the end of the day yesterday, I was just getting started on the next block for Dancing Chickens and Flying Pigs. I have all the applique traced and fused, but I need to cut out the pieces and fuse them to the background.

I'll be ready to top-stitch then, and embroidery will follow, just as soon as I finish off the snowmen currently in my hoop.

There's not much on today's agenda aside from sewing. It should be a good day. Plus, I'm excited because we're getting serious about our trip south. Today I made a few reservations and contacted a couple of friends we're stopping off to see along the way. Planning the trip is almost as much fun as actually doing it.