Progress

It’s been a busy, on-the-go week. Last Saturday we drove up to Syracuse (Utah, not New York, LOL) to visit Bruce’s daughter Stacy, our grandkids, and Stacy’s fiancé Chad. They just bought a 6-bedroom home to house themselves and their combined six kids. It’s a lovely newish home and it was great to see everyone again and we had a fun time.

On Sunday, Cousin Kim and I sewed and did puzzles as we usually do. I had an accident with the rotary cutter and cut off part of the tip of my left index finger. Between Kim and Bruce and the first aid kit, they got it to stop bleeding after about 10 minutes so they could clean and bandage it. By the next day it was doing much better, but I kept the gauze and bandages on until we were done working in the yard (putting the vegetable garden to bed, except the tomatoes) on Monday. After that, I switched to 2 regular bandaids. I’m a fairly rapid healer, so by today it only hurts if I press it (duh, so don’t press it, Cathy)… but the funny thing is that the side of my fingernail is also cut off where the rotary blade did its deed! You can be assured I’ve been way more mindful using the rotary cutter since then!

Much of my sewing time this week was spent custom quilting Kim’s large Halloween quilt. First and last time I will ever custom quilt a quilt with so much black in it! Made my eyes wonky! When she gets it trimmed and bound, I’ll show a photo or two. 

For the Rainbow Scrap Challenge’s October color of light and bright green, I did manage to get three green elephant blocks sewn. Three down, six more to go…

 

The elephant blocks finish at 10”, and the pattern is Stomping Ground by Wendy Sheppard. I’ve made three quilts from them already, and have two more to assemble with these blocks. That leaves just three more elephant quilts to assemble beyond those, with the remaining green ellies I’ll make this month and the miscellaneous-print ellies next month. I’ll be sure to do an Elephant Parade (or “trunk show”) when they’re done! 

I also finished the last two Antique Tile blocks in bright green.

Here they all are pinned up on the design board. The placement is not final.

I won’t sash the blocks, but will add a thin white stop border and a wider border of the multi-colored print on the right. This will go into the pile of quilts to assemble beginning next month. It’s one that I plan to keep for future gifting.

I also got half of the beautiful quilt top quilted that McGill U donated to Quilts for Kids. What a pleasure to quilt her beautiful work. I’ll show that all next week!!

And the last of this week’s sewing, a little bit every day alternating with the Halloween quilting, was the 60 string blocks that I’ve set as a weekly goal in October.  Four groups of 15 blocks. 

I can just hear you saying “string blocks are string blocks. How do we know these aren’t the same blocks you showed last week?”  So, I’ll show the 120 blocks together…

Are you happy now? LOL

On the sciatica front, I’ve been (mostly) released from physical therapy. I have one more follow-up session in November before we close it out. The exercises have really helped. They’re relatively easy and I enjoy doing them. And I will continue with them, adding more resistance with bands, etc. I’ve been getting around pain-free. Bruce and I even participated in a Cancer Walk with Weight Watchers (WW) around Wheeler Farm this week. Also, I’m intent on doing a 5K walk with WW and the Utah chapter of the American Cancer Society on Saturday, Oct. 22 in Salt Lake City. We’ll see how that goes!

I can’t close this post without showing some gratuitous pictures of our cute cats. First, Darla. I found her snuggled in Bruce’s side of the bed one morning when he didn’t pull up the quilt all the way.

She’s such a diva! And here’s Alfie, pictured with his paw reaching out to nudge me. He was demanding attention, naturally. 

Have a great week!