Whining and Sewing

It’s been a different sort of week here at Chez Kizerian. I’ve felt as though I’ve been walking through water; everything is slower and more resistant than usual. Relatively speaking, carpal tunnel surgery (even on both hands simultaneously) is minor in the grand scheme of things. But it gets so damn frustrating when you can’t do the things you want. Bruce has to pour my coffee when the pot is full and he has to cut our apples at snack time. Those are only a couple examples out of dozens that I could name. Two days ago I reached to pull open the door of the dishwasher without thinking, and the sharp pain in my right palm nearly brought me to my knees. I think maybe I should’ve taken the pain meds and ibuprofen a few days longer than I did (which was 4 days). Finally I did take one last night and slept almost 11 hours, which I needed. But the boring days pass. I’ve done a little sewing, lots of reading and Netflix watching. My stitches come out on Wednesday and at least I'll be able to drive as I gradually ease back into bearing weight and pressure on my hands.

So, enough of my whining. Really, all is well and I shouldn’t be complaining. This, too, shall pass. The silver linings are that I don’t have to fix the turkey for Thanksgiving and my hands aren't numb anymore!

We hired some painters to come in this week and they painted the doors, trim and ceiling in our guest bedroom. The previous owners had an eighties gray and maroon color scheme in that room with duck hunting wallpaper. I steamed off the wallpaper in the first year we lived here (15 years ago) and painted the room yellow. But I had left the gray ceiling and baseboards, etc. Painting all the trim white has been on my to-do list for ages. Finally I realized that we can afford to hire it out and save wear and tear on the ol’ body parts at the same time. It looks beautiful!

Studio wall repainted

While they were here, we had them paint one wall of my studio where the white paint was peeling off the old dark paneling. Now that is fresh and clean too. It did necessitate emptying out all my fabric storage (Cousin Kim helped) and moving some drawers and things into another room and then back again (Bruce did that). But that is all put back together now. In the process, I rearranged things and re-discovered some old fabric friends.


But despite everything else going on (or not going on, depending on how you look at it), I did get some sewing in. Cousin Kim trimmed up the pink and green quilt for me, and I was able to bind it. It’s a finish, and this my OMG - One Monthly Goal - for November. I’m linking  up to Patty's November OMG finish link-up party.

The back is print that came from this line of fabric. It's a sweet little floral.

I’m calling it Dogwoods for Karen, as this quilt top (minus the border) was purchased at that huge estate fabric sale I attended a few weeks ago. The deceased was a quilter named Karen, so I thought it would be nice to finish it in her honor. The flowers are dogwoods. The quilt finished at 49x61" and will be donated to Quilts for Kids.

Here's a  closeup of some of the quilting - and a bonus; cat hairs! No quilt is complete without them. But don't worry, we wash all the quilts before donating them.

Dogwoods for Karen was Goal #4 on my 4th Quarter Finish-Along list, which you can see HERE.

I’ve also worked on some string blocks for another future donation quilt. SQUIRREL!! I have several more pressing projects to work on for Christmas gifts, to say nothing of at least 3 Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilts to finish, but they were all buried under the piles of fabric for days while we had the painting done. So the string project sort of floated to the top of the list. They’re easy and fun and they scratched my sewing itch. Here are 16 blocks  (6.5" each, unfinished) slapped up on the design board.

Finally, I finished off the three pillowcases for some of the grandkids. I have five other finished ones from earlier in the year, so all the littles will get one as a stocking stuffer.

Linking up to Rainbow Scrap Challenge.