Wrist Resting

Good morning, my friends. As often happens when I'm doing free motion quilting, my left wrist tendonitis flared up yesterday. It had been threatening for a couple of days, but it was downright painful yesterday. It didn't really prevent me from doing anything I wanted to do, except it seemed wise to take a day off from quilting. If not, I'd probably end up having to wear a splint, and that makes everything awkward. I might take today off too since I can still feel some achiness. I might need to limit my quilting to just one block per day.

There were still some things to keep me busy, though. I gave myself extra time on the Girls' Getaway section. When I had it this far...

I decided to move my hoop to the right. I wanted to fit the whole bed and the whole braided rug below it into the hoop. There we go...that's what I'm talkin' about. There's a fancy kind of sparkly floss I'm supposed to use on the crystals of the chandelier. I wanted to capture those too.

There are supposed to be a couple of cast-on stitch flowers on this piece. That stitch is my nemesis stitch, and when I came to that portion yesterday, I decided to bag it and do something else. It's supposed to be fun, right? That's not to say I'll never do another cast-on stitch, but I'm giving myself a break on this section.

It was a slow day, and I can hardly remember how I filled my time. Later in the afternoon, I finished the collage portion of the "Spices" quilt. When that was finished, I fused it to a black background. I considered a dark purple. After consulting with the Retired Resident Engineer, I decided on the black. The dark purple didn't have enough contrast to make the collage stand out. Here's your peek.

There's actually more color in that peek than there should be. Don't look at anything except the purples and the blacks, and then I think you'll figure it out. (No, you won't.)

Sadie knew what to do with her day off. She surveyed her terrortory from the shade of the cherry tomato barrel. From this position, she can keep an eye on the birds and the squirrels. She can also scare away any critters...think deer...who want to dine on the cherry tomato plant.

So, it'll probably be another slow day today. If I'm feeling up to it, I'll quilt one block on the New Mexico Kitchen quilt. I'm kind of stuck on the "Spices" quilt. I want to give it a couple of borders, but I'm not really liking anything I have in my stash. Since I'll be heading that direction next week, I'm thinking I'll head to the fabric store after my return appointment with the dermatologist. I'm hoping I can find just the right thing then. And that means, I can start sewing some quilt blocks into a finished quilt top. Next up on my list are the blocks I made for the Homestead quilt. 

These were blocks I made for the 2023 Rainbow Scrap Challenge. The blocks were some included in the pamphlet for the Discovery Quilt Trail located at the Homestead National Historical Park in Beatrice, Nebraska. You'll note the three on the bottom are different sizes from the rest. I'll sash everything to bring it up to size and then sew them together somehow. I haven't given it much thought yet, and I'm not sure I have enough of any one background fabric. It might get put on hold until next week's quilt shop visit too. If that turns out to be the case, then I'll start sewing together the Tiny House blocks. 

These are the paper-pieced blocks that tortured me at the beginning of last year. It was a project I wished I'd never started, but I kept going because they looked so cute together. So I'll have to figure out some background for this as well. It's a smaller quilt, and so I can probably come up with something.

Okay, so I'm heading for my slow-stitching now. I have an appointment for a pedicure this afternoon, and that will cut into my sewing time some too. Just as I'm writing those words, I'm thinking I should look for a quilt shop off that direction. The old standbys closed some time ago, but maybe something new has opened to fill the void. We'll see. I'm thinking I'll go converse with The Google right now. Please tune in tomorrow for the exciting conclusion.