Turning a Corner

Is it just me, or are the days kind of going by in a blur? I’m still spending a good portion of my day sitting and resting. Nearly everything I do requires a “recovery” period these days. Getting showered and dressed is the most difficult part of the day, and so I have to sit for a while until I’ve recovered enough to plod ahead with the next thing. Still, things are looking up. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this already, but it feels as if I’ve turned a corner. The shoulder is still plenty debilitating, but it isn’t quite as scary as it was in the beginning, when I had to check even the tiniest of movements or risk being gripped by excruciating pain. I’m still gripped with pain upon certain movements, but it doesn’t hurt as much as it did a week ago. And so I’m feeling more able to do some of the things I love doing.

The kitties are grateful for a respite from their medicinal cat duties. Smitty had a good long nap in one of his favorite chairs yesterday.

Sadie took a turn warming Mike’s lap yesterday. His lap has gone begging through this whole shoulder debacle, and so fair’s fair. Or fur’s fur, in Sadie Catonese speak.

There’s been no more slow-stitching since my last report, but I am close to finishing the piece I’m working on. Yesterday, I decided to trace out two more short projects. If memory serves, this first “Liberty Sampler” is a pattern from Kathy Schmitz. I downloaded it a while back, and I’d like to have a small quilt appropriate for the 4th of July. It's stitched all in reds and blues.

Also, this small piece. This is a design from Gail Pan.

It was part of a quilt along from this Facebook group.

If you’re on Facebook, it’s free to join. All you have to do is make a request. Then, all the files for the quilt-along are there on the page. The blocks were all created by designers from Australia. The quilt is very cute. I didn’t want to make the whole quilt, but some of the block designs were appropriate as small stand-alone pieces, and so I saved a few of them to my Dropbox.

Today I might try doing some sewing. I’m able to cut with my rotary cutter and cutting mat, but I haven’t really tried sitting at the machine, threading it, or actually sewing. It might present problems I haven’t anticipated. One thing I discovered yesterday is that my arm isn’t really strong enough to heft my iron around to get a nice press on my fabrics. My friend Sharon mentioned using a travel iron, and that might actually work. I’ll give that a try today.

You might recall I was going to start sewing the embroidered snow flakes into a finished quilt top for December’s OMG. Well, OMG...I broke my shoulder, and so that goal was completely wiped off the map. Still, I’m thinking I might be able to get started on it. I’m using this free pattern.

I’m going to put an embroidered snowflake in each of the spaces for the pieced snowflakes shown on the pattern, and then use six pieced snowflakes for the floating blocks in the middle of the quilt. I needed some help narrowing down my fabric choices, and so I asked the Resident Engineer for his input this morning.

The only question now is whether I have enough of each to do what I want to do. There’s only one way to find out.

So...I’m saying I’ll do this today, and maybe I will and maybe I won’t. Each day, every hour, is just take it as it comes for now. Yesterday I got a haircut, and that made me feel a whole lot better. I’m hoping I’ll be able to do a little sewing today, and to get just one more step closer to normal. Wish me luck.