Sunny Saturday

Good morning, my friends. The sun is shining this morning. It seems a miracle! It's been at least a week since we saw the sun last time. My first job this morning will be to get outside and fill the bird feeders. Also, I know some of the daffodils are blooming, and so I'll want to wander around and find every blooming thing.

As for yesterday...it was another day of not-much-accomplished. I took the first stitches on September's block for "A Year in the Garden." 

And I made some progress on the Painted Ladies. I expect to finish the quilting today. Nine of ten rows are finished. Here's the top half.

Here's the bottom half.

Now I have it set up to quilt the final vertical row. I lost my way a little yesterday, and so I've already quilted one part of it. It should be quick work getting it to binding stage today.

When I'd done two rows, I went to work on February's Inverted Star block. I have the half square triangles sewn together, and I had them about 2/3 trimmed before I needed to stop for the day. 

When I went upstairs, I saw the first Rufous hummingbird of the season. We have the Anna's hummingbirds year-round, but these guys are only here for part of the year. Seeing the first one is another sure sign that spring is on the way.

There are a couple of easy housekeeping chores on today's list of to-do's. Also...it's Pi Day. I must bake a pie in celebration. I'll get that going very soon. As for sewing, I'll finish off the rest of the quilting, and I'll finish February's Inverted Star. 

Next on my list of priorities is to attempt to sandwich this not-large-and-not-small quilt on the ping pong table in my sewing room. At 60 x 60 inches, it's right at the edge of the size I can sandwich in that space, but I've worked out a strategy to get it done. 

You might remember when I was gnashing my teeth over this project, trying to use up three cat panels in a single quilt. Then I read about an organization called "Leave it for the Pooch." I've linked to their Facebook page, which seems to be their only online presence. In a nutshell (info from Kim):

Our 501(c)(3) non-profit was started by my son, Jayson, when he was 11 years old. This year marks our seventh annual Quilt and Art Charity Auction. Historically, we work with animal rescue organizations that provide logo t-shirts, which our volunteer quilters transform into quilts. We also gratefully accept donated quilts and art pieces. All items are featured in an online auction on Bidding Owl, typically held for two weeks from late June to early July. Once the auction concludes and items are shipped, we host a live "Draws for Paws" event on Facebook. Jayson blindly draws one eligible 501(c)(3) animal organization per item to receive the funds. Organizations receive 90% of the proceeds (minus fees). 

They've requested donation quilts with an animal theme. When I read about the auction, this quilt immediately sprang to mind as a good candidate for donation.  It needs quilting and binding, but I have plenty of time to get it finished for the auction in June. That will be my next quilting project, even though it's jumping in line ahead of some of the others. When I have that ready to go, I can sew the binding on the Painted Ladies and get that one ready to be finished off. 

In other time-sensitive projects, I still need to finish sewing together the Gumballs quilt top. I selected that for March's OMG. There's still plenty of time, but I need to get going on that too. The top four rows of blocks are sewn together.

There are still two more rows of blocks to add, and then it will move to the quilts-to-be-quilted pile. I'll need to create a back for it, and I have some fabrics picked out from my stash.

Okay, so it's looking like a good day ahead. Seeing the sunshine this morning brightened my mood considerably. It'll be good to get outside and get a look at things.

Medically-Induced Coma

Good morning, my friends. It was a day with no quilting. It wasn't planned that way, but my morning doctor's appointment wore me out. It wasn't terribly stressful, and the news I got wasn't unexpected. Nevertheless, I still have no answers, and that left me feeling kind of glum for the remainder of the day. I'll say more about this at the end of my post. If you're not interested in someone's health-related woes, you'll be happy to have me leave it for the end so you can make your escape. Don't worry, I'll warn you.

So let's just see if anything else was accomplished. Before I left, I had some time for some slow-stitching. 

Later in the day, I finished it off while we watched the news.

Here are the four blocks I have for this quilt so far. 

I was kind of burned out on the quilting, and a day off sounded good. Instead, I went to work on February's Inverted Star block. I had a lot of help with this.

February's block is green. Smitty helped me choose the fabrics for this. He's good with greens...like green grass and the green of his eyes. Yep...green is a solid color. The color of money. And honestly, these look delicious to him.

I got as far as cutting the pieces I'd need. Somehow I miscounted when I cut the background pieces, and so I needed more of those too.

I want to get back to my quilting today. There are three rows left to quilt. Two rows is a big bite, and so it's doubtful I'll have enough energy to add in the third. Nevertheless, I expect the quilting will be finished tomorrow, one way or another.

Last night's dinner was a new recipe. This was pretty easy to do...easy enough to add it to my RV recipe list. This is Spicy Marmalade Chicken and Sweet Potatoes. A simple marinade is mixed up for the chicken. I used bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, but you could also do this with boneless, skinless thighs. The chicken needed to go in the marinade for a minimum of a half hour. When I had that going, I cut up the sweet potatoes and put those in the oven to roast. After ten minutes, the chicken was added to the same sheet pan and returned to the oven to roast until it was done. 

And that was a tasty dinner. We liked it. When I see the word "spicy" in a recipe, I've learned to turn down the spice some. For this, I used only half the amount of crushed red pepper. We didn't actually notice any heat from that, but I'd still do it the same way. If you like more spice, then by all means, add the full amount. It's your stomach.

Since I knew I'd be finishing off the sheep yesterday, I traced out the ninth block for "A Year in the Garden."

These are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

And that's where I'm headed next. Maybe breakfast first. 

Okay, so here's the story with my shoulder. Way back on December 28th, the day we left on our trip, I noticed my left shoulder was aching. I chalked it up to the effort required to carry laundry baskets full of my belongings out to the RV the week before. It seemed odd, though, because I'd been working out on the Bow-Flex a couple of times a week. I'm not trying to look like Mrs. Universe, but I use enough resistance to maintain strength. So...okay...maybe my shoulder was sore from that. Only...it never got any better.

About a month into our trip, I decided to try a strategy a doctor had given me for my knee a while back. He described this treatment as "2-2-2." Two naproxen (Aleve), twice per day, for two weeks. So, I did that. It made no difference whatsoever. It gave me no pain relief, and it was no worse when I stopped taking it. 

Okay...so inflammation is apparently not the problem. Since then, I've just been living with it since the end of December until I could see the doctor yesterday. He's the same doctor who treated my shoulder fracture a few years back (different shoulder), and I like him a lot. He was conservative about recommending any surgery for my shoulder fracture, and it turns out, no surgery was needed. I can trust a doctor like that.

So yesterday, I got x-rays, which didn't show much. They showed the expected arthritic changes you'd  see in a person born during the 14th Century. (I've carted a lot of wagons in that time.) The doctor believes it is a torn rotator cuff, and that makes sense to me. It would explain the sudden onset too. Okay, so that means I need an MRI. He was concerned, however, because a lot of insurance companies are requiring a trial of either physical therapy, or injections, or both, before authorizing the expense of an MRI. He's ordered the MRI, but he also gave me a referral for PT, just in case. 

As it stands, I'm waiting to see what will happen with the MRI. Will they authorize it? If so, that would be the best case scenario. Will they insist I try PT and/or injections first? It's unknown at this point. It left me feeling kind of bummed at having no answer and no solution in sight. It's painful to the point that it's doubtful I can participate in PT in a way that would be helpful. I fear it will only make the problem worse. I'd be willing to try the injection, but that probably won't help either. I'm hopeful they'll just authorize the MRI and we can get on with whatever surgery is required to repair it. And that's where it stands. Maybe today will bring some answers. I'll keep you updated when I learn anything new.

Okay, standing up straight now. A day awaits. Slow-stitching is next.

Passing for Normal

Good morning, my friends. If I write fast this morning, I might be able to get this done before I need to get ready for my doctor's appointment. If I run out of time, we'll have to meet back here later today. 

Yesterday was the first time since we've been home that the day seemed pretty routine. I did my usual stuff in the morning, did a little housework, did a little laundry, and I had plenty of time for sewing. It was a good day. Then, this morning, I was up at my usual time, and that left me some time to write this post before I need to go. 

So what's going on with the sewing? Thanks for asking. I took the first stitches on the fourth block for Home is Where My Flock Is. These are fun to stitch.

Two more rows are quilted on the Painted Ladies. That brings me to just three rows left to quilt. Here's the top half of the quilt.

And here's the bottom half. 

From there, I headed into the sewing room and sewed together January's block for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. The pieces were cut. I needed to sew together 24 half square triangles, and then trim them to 2-1/2 inches.

And voila! My first inverted star. Amazingly, I sewed it together on the first try with no mistakes.

And then I added a solid blue border. My friend, Kate, did this with hers, and I like the look of that. Also, it'll protect those edges from stretching.

And since I didn't get any of my bonus triangles sewn together while we were traveling, I've turned them into my first ever leaders and enders project. I have a whole shoebox full of bonus triangles sitting beside my machine. With them so close at hand, you'd think I'd get into the swing of starting and ending with them, but I was having the hardest time remembering the ender. I'll get it, but it's going to require developing some muscle memory about it.

Nevertheless, I managed to get about five 4-inchers and five 1-1/2 inchers sewn together. Hopefully, I'll live long enough to sew all of them together and turn them into something before I die.

There was some happy mail yesterday. I needed a backing fabric for the Raggedy & Friends quilt. (It still needs to be sewn into a finished flimsy.) So, I went in search of "Raggedy Ann fabric" and found this from an Etsy seller. There's way more fabric here than I need, but it was a good price, and so I went ahead. This piece was just a bonus. There's about two yards here.

And there's about 4 yards of this one. This is the one I'll use for the back.

I can turn what's left over into a donation quilt for Quilts for Kids.

Also, I wanted to show you this creation of Mike's. When we're RVing, we've had this ongoing problem with different wraps, especially the stretch-tite plastic wrap, falling to the floor as we go down the road. The stretch-tite box has been pretty much destroyed from falling so many times. (The box is kind of important for that particular product.) So Mike created this rack unit on his 3-D printer. Each wrap is contained on a shelf with a lip that will prevent it from sliding out of its spot, and the rack is attached to the wall with double-sided tape. Cool. As always, he's my hero.

Okay, so I managed to get it all down with time to spare. If I hurry, I can get in a little slow-stitching before I need to go. I'll be back tomorrow to tell give you the news about my shoulder. It's raining hard at this end. I hope y'all are having better weather at your end.

Halfway

Good morning, my friends. We're expecting plenty of rain over the next week or so...nearly two inches in the next two days. Yikes. It's good sewing weather, though, and I'm glad to be home for the day. I have an early doctor's appointment tomorrow to see what's going on with my left shoulder. I only mention it now because tomorrow's post will be late, and I should have some news about my shoulder by then. Honestly, I don't see how I'm going to avoid a surgery on this, but I'm hoping the doctor will have some other ideas.  

It was late in the day by the time I got to my quilting. Fortunately, Smitty was keeping an eye out for invading forces, and so I felt purrfectly safe.

With his purrtection, I was able to quilt another two vertical rows. That makes five down, and five to go. Here's the top half of the quilt.

Here's the bottom half.

Here's a little peek at the back.

Sadie was there to give her purrspective.

She doesn't like how I quilted this cat. Its ears and tail are too short.

That is purrpawsterous.

Everyone's a critic.

It was nearly time to start dinner by then, but I sat and finished off the eighth block for the Snowmen & Reindeer project while we watched the news.

Sadie helped me trim it to size.

Here are the eight blocks I have for this quilt so far.

On today's agenda, two more vertical rows of quilting, and I'll be taking the first stitches on the fourth block for Home is Where My Flock Is.

The quilting is taking most of my sewing time, but I'm still hoping to get January's Inverted Star block made. The pieces are cut. It's just a matter of sewing them together.

There's one housekeeping chore on today's list of to-do's. Hopefully, I can manage to fit it all into a single day.

So that's all the news that's fit to print. I have some comments about the actual news, but I'll keep that to myself for the time being. Just now I'll get started on my slow-stitching and enjoy the rainy day. Rainy day = Good sewing weather.

Approaching Normal

Good morning, my friends. My post is late this morning because we left early for an epic grocery shopping trip. Honestly, it's the worst grocery shopping trip of the year...that's the first one after we get home from a trip. Thanksgiving gives it a run for its money, but today's was impressive by any measure. Our list was so long that I actually moved some items to the list for next time. Enough is enough, as you probably know.

There were two positives about this morning's shopping extravaganza. First, we got Egg McMuffin. I think we only did it once while we were traveling, and so I was missing it. Second, we got to see some of the blooming trees. Things bloom earlier in the valley than they do at our home's elevation, and so we're seeing some stuff we won't see at our house for a couple of weeks.

The flowering plums might be my favorite spring bloomer, and they're also one of the earliest. These were blooming in a store parking lot. We have them lining our driveway, but ours are still in tight buds.

Here's a close-up of their flowers.

Behind me was another blooming tree. It looks similar.

It's flowers are white. My phone tells me this is also a plum. The flowering plums are ornamental only. Perhaps this one actually produces plums.

Also, this viburnum. 

Seeing all those blooming things made the trip worthwhile. But, oh...the prices of things. Good grief. Let's just not talk about that, okay?

In yesterday's sewing, I quilted two more vertical rows on the Painted Ladies quilt. This is the top of the quilt.

This is the bottom half:

So, I'll continue on with that, going for two vertical rows at a time. If I can stick with that, I should have a finished quilt in less than a week.

This is how much help I got from Smitty. He put out the do not disturb sign.

Sadie was no better. I think we're all still adjusting to the time change.

In the sewing room, I cut the background pieces for the January and February Inverted Stars. This is my 2026 Rainbow Scrap project. January's blue star pieces are cut. I'll make that one first, and then cut the pieces for February's block.

I'm hoping to get that sewn together today. Also, I'll finish Block 8 for the Snowmen & Reindeer soon, and so I traced out the fourth block for Home is Where My Flock Is.

Finally, in leftover news, I had forgotten I took this picture when I picked up my sewing machine a few days ago. This was a class they were having at the shop. These are Easter Egg Mug Rugs. They were done with machine embroidery and using the fancy stitches on a sewing machine. I think these could easily be done with applique, and you could also use cut-off ends for the left side piecing. Cute. This looks easy enough, and I might decide to make a couple.

So, that's all I have for you today. I'll get back to my quilting, and I'm hoping to get started on January's star. Right now, I'm drinking another cup of coffee. After that, I'll have some lunch and take a nap. I'm already worn out from the morning's activities.

We got a little dusting of snow last night, and it's very cold out. Sounds like a good day to get under a quilt and stay warm, doesn't it?