Good morning, my friends. It was a stitching marathon yesterday. Some might call me a crazed stitcher, and they wouldn't be wrong. I'd hoped I could stitch all five of the little birdhouses in a single day. When the first one took more than two hours, I realized I'd seriously underestimated the effort involved in bringing this challenge quilt to a finish. It'll get done, but it'll take a few days longer than anticipated.
After writing my post yesterday, I went straight to work on house number one.
While I was stitching it, I remembered I have a collection of bird houses. It's one of those unintentional collections. I didn't set out to collect them, but they accumulated over time until there's no denying that I have a collection. These are in the greenhouse window of our kitchen. The red one was a gift from a neighbor. Erik made the one on the left in cub scouts.
While we were visiting Rockaway one summer, I was in seventh heaven finding this bird house street vendor. Sometimes I use this as my Facebook cover photo.
I even have some birdhouse earrings. Yes, they are intentionally mismatched, which makes me like them all the more.
By the time I'd finished the second one, Sadie was losing her patience. And when she learned there would be chain-stitching in the third one, she was so outta there. Like me, she dislikes chain-stitching even more than papurr-piecing.
By then, my hand was absolutely killing me. Mike kept walking past saying, "You're going to make your hand hurt." And I responded with, "I know." Did I stop? Of course not. But three houses took me to the end of the day, and I had to stop for the day no matter what. I took some time to ice my hand, and I took some Aleve. Also, I have various creams and topical anti-inflammatories to use, and I liberally spread them over my knuckle and thumb joints. It felt better with all that, but I iced it again shortly before bedtime, and it feels fine this morning.
Today my goal is to stitch one more house. I'll do the last one tomorrow, and I'll still have plenty of time to finish my piece by Sunday's deadline. Also today, I'll be taking everything out of my closet. Our two closets have fancy shelving units that go from floor to ceiling. That will all have to be dismantled in preparation for our carpeting install one week from today. Mike wants to do his closet today. He'll do mine tomorrow. The carpet install seemed far away when we started this purging process, but now it's nearly upon us, and we have to get serious about clearing things out and off. Sewing is moving lower on the list of priorities until the job is finished and things are put back in order.
So that's my day. Stitching, emptying, and clearing. Fortunately, we have leftovers for dinner. There's one housekeeping chore to do, but that shouldn't take long. Right now...more stitching. Hopefully, my hand can hold out to the end.
9 comments:
Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. ~ Henry Van Dyke
I was laughing out loud reading your post... you are exactly like me!
Hands are hurting? Keep on Stitching!
We never learn do we?
I adore your birdhouses - totally worth the discomfort/pain!
What cute birdhouses! You are tempting me with your beautiful work. I assume you have arthritis. I have it in my right hand, but only on the pinkie and that one really hurts, year round. Feels like the bone is twisting inside my finger. It's so bad that its deformed the finger and it won't flatten out on a table, even pushing it down. The left thumb is arthritic, but not so bad yet, from surgery I had years ago for trigger thumb. Both knees are full of arthritis but next month I'm getting a knee replacement for the right one, thank heavens. The other one is fine now after a Durolane shot which will last up to 400 days. I've noticed it also seems to reduce the arthritis a bit in the knees, too. It helps to take 2 Kirkland brand Turmeric (it has black pepper, which makes it work) every morning. On really bad days I take 2 more in the afternoon. As it's a spice (but a natural inflammatory) there aren't any side effects for me. I'm an avid hand quilter & don't stop for anything as I enjoy it so much - always making hexie flowers & hand quilting quilts. Deb
I have a few birhouses, but nothing like your collection. The one with the best story is one I bought at a craft sale, made from tree bark (don't know what kind of tree). I bought it solely as a decoration and hung it up on the end of our front porch. It's probably been there for 20 years or more and has hosted generations of little brown birds (either wrens or sparrows, I can't tell them apart). Almost all of the bark has been knocked off by a Downy woodpecker (ha! that one I recognize).
Your birdhouse project is cute, even if it is taking longer than you planned.
Pat
The birdhouse stitching is awesome - great texture on each roof. Unintentional collections? I had to laugh because I have an unintentional collection of angels. And my husband added to that collection recently with a really BIG one. Not quite sure where I want to display it.
Speaking of birdhouses, there's a stretch of road near Moscow, Maine that where people have attached all sorts of birdhouses on a retaining wall. You can find photos on Google. We tripped upon in on one of our vacation trips to Greenville.
That is a lot of stitching, but it looks so good! I think the roof on the third house looks good with just the three rows of chain stitching, so if you don't get back to it, no one will know you didn't follow the pattern. Hope your hand is feeling better today and you can get number 4 finished.
I think many of us have had those times when we knew we were going to pay for pushing our bodies when we should rest. Glad you were able to get the pain to subside with ice and meds. Sadie's face cracks me up - I am not a fan of chain stitches either, but yours look lovely!
Like you, I refuse to give in when my hands start to hurt. I too have a husband who keeps reminding me.
I like the green roof on the first house - interesting way to do satin stitch.
Curiousity on my part, but in the photo of the little birdhouses - the one second from the right - is it tin? Perhaps it's wood and painted to resemble tin.
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