The Eyes Have It!

On Thursday I had a cataract in my right eye removed. YAY! My vision is still blurry, as I was told to expect, but in my follow-up visit on Friday, everything looked great. There has been no pain and only minor discomfort on the afternoon of the surgery. And other than a few annoying restrictions, it’s been smooth sailing. I’m officially able to drive again beginning today, although I’m not allowed to lift anything over 10 pounds or bend down to pick things up (or do any gardening). I’m mindful of keeping my head above my shoulders as instructed, so deep knee bends get things done in a pinch. Well, that and Bruce helping out. I have another post-op re-check next Friday.

So, ahead of the procedure on Thursday, I spent Tuesday and Wednesday preparing for my forced downtime. I did the weekly grocery shopping and hauled a load of stuff to the Goodwill store. I had originally planned to participate in our community-wide yard sale today, but realized I really didn’t have that much stuff AND I wouldn’t be able to unload it all anyway. So a preemptive donation was the best solution. But the most fun preparation during those two days was pin basting four quilts all on Tuesday afternoon. 

I didn’t snap photos of all four, but I did snap a picture of the one I haven’t shown you yet. This is a large lap quilt donated by my friend Susan L in Iowa. It will go to our local women’s shelter because it’s more appropriate for that in addition to exceeding our Quilts for Kids size limits.

After completing the top, Susan wasn’t enamored by it, so she sent it to me to complete. I have to tell you that I really enjoyed basting this one. The fabrics are not my usual style or colors (I try to do bright kids quilts, after all), but it was fascinating to me to study these interesting fabrics and how they were combined. It’s such a peaceful, low-key quilt, which I’m sure will be greatly appreciated by a woman in the shelter! 

I also basted the two Rainbow Candies quilts and the green column monstrosity quilt from last month. Anyway, here’s the first quilt finished; finishing the other three are my highest priority for the coming week.

This is Rainbow Candies II. I ran out of the sashing fabric (since it’s the sashing and backing for both of the candy quilts) so had to add the bright chartreuse outer border on this one. I quilted it in quick loops and it finished at 42.5x51.5”. Below is the backing and label.

Last Sunday, when Ruby, Kimmie and I were sewing (have I told you that we call it The Church of Bernina?) I finished fifteen of these Switchplate blocks. They’ll finish at 3x5”.

Here’s something else I haven’t talked about or shown. Beginning last March when several of us attended our local Worldwide Quilting Day event, I began sewing multi-colored string blocks in an 8.5” size.  I usually sew them at 6.5”, but my string stash had (has?) been multiplying faster than I can deal with. I figured the larger size block might eat up strings faster. The jury is still out on that, because before I knew it, I had enough strings for two kids’ quilts. 

This is not a sewn top; the blocks are just slapped up on the design wall. I have another one just like it with a small navy and white print as the “solid”. Both will finish at about 40x56” - a good size for a kid. And I can use a 42” wide backing when I machine quilt them eventually. I can get 4 solid blocks from an 8.5” WOF strip. With a little piecing of WOF leftovers, it takes about 34” for the solid accent.

But I’ll be going back to my 6.5” block size. Quilts for Kids has a lot of solid fabric donations, so from now on I can just turn in 6.5” multi-colored string blocks (in groups of 15, like I do for the solid-color string blocks) for them to put into kits for other sewists. 

I think that’s about it. Bruce wants me to take him to the grocery store to get some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, his favorite. They didn’t have them when I shopped on Wednesday, and he’s going through cookie withdrawals! 

Linking up to Scrappy Saturday at Angela’s blog for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Have a great week!