Two Finishes!

The weeks are just flying by, aren’t they? I have so many plates spinning that my head is spinning too. Not in an exorcist sort of way (head spinning around on my torso), not in a vertigo way either, but in a “dazed and confused” manner. But one plate took the off-ramp and is now Officially Done. And that is the Christmas Stars quilt. The quilt shop texted me on Thursday that it was ready, so we rushed right down to get it. I immediately set to trimming it, making the binding and finishing it. I even added a label for my son and daughter-in-law. 

It is almost too heavy for me to lift. I’m hoping that my friend Ruby (perhaps with the aid of our neighbor Jason) can hold it up on Sunday for glamour shots. Truly, an 88x98” quilt with lots of little pieces and a thick batting is heavy! I should weigh it. Anyway, this is just a peek for now. I hope to have some good photos next week. But it’s DONE, and the rest of the Christmas shopping (mostly gift cards) will be a breeze.

We visited our friend Terri up in Bountiful this week. We always love getting together with her! Here she is with one of her two kittens, Clancy. She was showing me this quilt top she recently finished (I love those colors!) and Clancy kept jumping up and attacking the quilt (or was it her hands?). Naturally, he stopped as soon as I whipped out my phone to capture it. Silly kitty!

Our Bradford Pear (ornamental) tree is sporting its fiery autumn colors this week. I’m going to miss this tree when we sell the house…

Back to sewing, here is the second finish this week. It’s the second (of three) quilts from my RSC2022 framed 4-patch blocks. 

Quilted with a simple stipple, it finished at 48x54”. The backing used up some large scraps too!

I didn’t do any string block sewing this week. I’m actually saving them for when I’m less mobile and have to stay upstairs for a period after my hip replacement surgery on Thursday. I’ll also have Zip(per) blocks to sew and maybe some more things. I need to make sure I’ve got plenty to keep me occupied and out of trouble, you know!

One thing I’d like to do before the surgery is finish getting this top together. It was one of my RSC blocks for this year. I called it Four in Nine, but Cathy L tells me its official name is the Thrify Block.

I’m adding the sashing and cornerstones to each block, which you can see on two blocks in the upper left corner. These are the blocks with navy blue as the dark constant. The blocks I made with the gray constant will likely be assembled in December. 

That’s all I have for you this week, folks. I’ll be back next Saturday with a surgery report and some quilt progress as well, come hell or high water. And since there’s no rain in the forecast, that leaves only hell. But I’m more than ready. Meals prepped and frozen - check! Thanksgiving groceries bought- check (except the mushrooms, which Bruce can do). House cleaned (housekeeper comes on Tuesday) and potential tripping hazards removed - check! Sewing area upstairs ready - almost. It’s all packed and just needs to be hauled up on Wednesday. So… bring it on!

Linking up to Scrappy Saturday at Angela’s So Scrappy blog. 

Dancing in September

I love September! The worst heat of the summer is behind us, as is most of the work in the garden.  Speaking of the garden, I went out on Thursday morning and harvested vegetables (it had been three days, yikes!). There were lots of Armenian cucumbers that were ready; at least 8. Plus I had to throw three giant ones into the compost pile. Thursday was also my granddaughter London’s birthday, and she and her dad (my son Shane) were over in the evening for dinner out and a tour of the garden. At that time, I found another monster cucumber growing that I had missed and had to throw away. Then on Friday morning, I decided to make another trip out to the garden, and what did I harvest? Seven more cucumbers! Plus another giant for the compost pile.

I tell you, zucchini has NOTHING on these prolific cucumbers. Every week I’m taking at least a dozen to my Weight Watchers meeting. The neighbors, like Bruce, are getting tired of cucumbers!! Three Armenian cucumber plants could feed a third world country. I’m afraid to go out there this morning. We have a running joke this year that if an hour or two has passed, one of us should go out and check the cucumbers......

During the last week, it was my goal to finish the last 9 of the 50 needed 8” Sawtooth Stars for the Christmas Stars quilt I’m making. Here are my “FIFTY”. Can you see the problem?

Yeah, so someone (who shall remain nameless) apparently forgot to cut out the last ten block parts. So, in sewing the “last nine”, it brought me up to 40, not 50. Oh snap! *facepalm* And I had so wanted to be done with this size star in August. It looks like I’ll be sewing the actual last ten 8” blocks over the next week. Toward that goal, I DID get them cut out for real.

But there was one finish this week - the On the Farm little quilt I was making with the yellow string blocks (the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color for August) and other pieces from my stash. This little cutie finished at 38x43.5”.

I had just enough of the darling farm fabric for the squares and border, and just enough chambray for the inner stop border and the backing/binding. I love it when a plan comes together! Here’s a closeup of the print (and the simple stipple quilting):

The backing and label:

September will be dedicated to our Aqua and Teal scraps in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, but other than sorting my scraps I haven’t really started sewing with them yet. I think I’m being held back by cucumbers. At least, that’s my story....

When Londy and her dad were here on Thursday, she decided she wanted to go out in the front yard and snap some photos. She had left her own cell phone home (voluntarily! She’s 14 - is that normal?). Anyway, she snapped some photos in the front flower beds with her dad’s phone, and I’m going to share a few here (unedited) to close out the post. Have a great week!

See the bumblebee?

.... off to check on the cucumbers. If I’m not back by next week, call for help....

More Donation Quilt Finishes

This week I was able to finish up two more donation quilts by quilting and binding them. The tops  were donated by Jo Kramer and her Community Quilt program and will be given as finished kid quilts to the Salt Lake chapter of Quilts for Kids.

Here is a cute basic transportation-themed quilt, perfect for a little boy. The interior squares received a crosshatch treatment and the outer red border was done with a stipple (meander). 

This little cutie finished at 38.5 x 43”.

The next quilt I call Picnic Kisses because of the red picnic check and the lips. :-) I just did some basic loop quilting.

Picnic Kisses finished at 42x48”.  These two little quilts, along with the three donation quilts I finished last week will be donated at our next QFK workshop in September. 

Once those were done and dusted, I got to work on making a dent in my yellow scrap bucket. Yellow is the color of the month for August in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. First this week were three Four in Nine blocks.  They will finish at 9”.

And then one of my favorites to sew, the Chaser blocks. I’m using black with white as my constant in these blocks instead of a light background. I think it’s going to look really sharp when all the colors come together for a quilt top party!  

The Chaser block is a Cynthia Brunz pattern, as is the Color Stix block, below. I plan to do Color Stix  for RSC24, and this is just my first - a prototype, if you will. It is Cynthia’s block for the current block drive for her Compassion Quilt program. Although she will have moved on to new blocks and a new drive long before I begin sewing these next year, I do plan to make the quilt(s) from these blocks and donate them to her when they are done. In other words, these will be dedicated to Compassion Quilts instead of Quilts for Kids. I don’t think the timing of the blocks really matters as the need for such quilts is always great, right?

In the coming week, I’ll be tackling my yellow strings. I hope to get at least 45 of them (6.5”, unfinished) made; I have plans for 15 of them this month and will donate the other 30 blocks to QFK for their quilt kit making. 

I also finished cutting out and began sewing the first (of 40) of this next size of star blocks for the Christmas Stars quilt. My goal is to have all 40 of this size done by the end of the month, so I’m 20% of the way there. 

My only other non-quilting news to share is that the vegetable garden continues to go gangbusters! Here is one bed’s-worth of carrots. This variety is short and stubby but good. It was all we could get at the time. But we have another half bed planted of the regular Nantes-type carrots we favor, and those are still a ways out.

The blackberries are almost done, the cucumbers have started producing, and the peppers and tomatoes are keeping me busy. I did roast a lot of Roma tomatoes this week (about 12 pounds worth), along with some garlic, onion (from the garden) and basil (also from the garden) to make some marinara. I’ll continue to do that as I collect the Romas in 12-pound batches. The slicing tomatoes and cherry tomatoes are being shared and/or eaten by us on a daily basis. And of course, we have to have our weekly Bacon (Costco turkey bacon), lettuce and tomato sandwiches on a weekly basis! Yum!

Have a great week!

A Quilt Finish, Garden Pix and a Weight Loss Tale

Oh, there’s so much to share with you this week! But first I want to thank you all for the kind comments and personal emails on my International Sisters quilt that I shared last week. I appreciate your kindness and support more than you could know. 

In this post, I’m going to start with my quilting and Rainbow Scrap progress for the week, continue with a few fun happenings from the week, some pictures from the garden, and finish with a relatively long (for a blog post) narration of my weight loss journey to date. Each section will be separated by ******** lines, so if you don’t want to read about them, you can choose to skip along. No hurt feelings on my part, LOL.

I finished sewing my red scraps for July for the RSC, and will link up as usual to Scrappy Saturday. Here are 10 crumb blocks that will finish at 6” each.

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Eight Split Nines blocks that will also finish at 6”. 

Additionally, I finished quilting Red Ribbons, but it still needs its binding, so that reveal will be next week.

I also basted five kid-sized community (group) quilts and have begun quilting those. These tops are donated to me through Jo’s Country Junction Community Quilts program. I provide the backing and quilting/binding, and get to donate them to my local Quilts for Kids chapter. Here’s a sneak peek of the pile I intend to finish and reveal in my next post.

But I did have one actual quilt finish this week. It’s the light blue scrap quilt from last month. Better late than never!

It finished at 44x58”, so it’s more of a youth size than a little kid size. The backing also helped me use up a lot of scraps and chunks, a double win.

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This week we had the opportunity to join my son, daughter-in-law, granddaughter, plus her boyfriend  and a couple family friends to attend a Beatles tribute band (Rain) concert in downtown Salt Lake City. 

They were very good, and one could *almost* believe we had time traveled back to the Sixties, 

L-R: Granddaughter Lauren, boyfriend Graham, 2 family friends R and R, Daughter-in-law Kim, my son Ryan, me, Bruce 

The next day, my friend Ruby and I went to see Oppenheimer, the movie. The movie was long (3 hours), and I have to admit I felt a bit lost at first. But the story is tight and masterful, and the various pieces are skillfully woven together as it progresses and things become clear. The acting was a master class of talent. If Oppenheimer doesn’t win all the awards for acting, screen writing, directing, producing and sound editing/engineering, there is no justice in the world! 

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In the garden, the blackberries have started ripening. They are monsters, but very sweet ones! I’ve been freezing them and see a batch of blackberry jam and lots of yummy fruit salad in our future.

And here are a few photos from the front flower beds at the end of July. Yes, you’ll see weeds in the flower beds. Just keeping it real. I limit my weeding to once per week. 

Front planter under living room window

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My Weight Loss Journey to Date

Last September 2022, early in the month, I had my first-ever bout of sciatica. At the time, I had gained back 20+ of my 35-pound pre-Covid weight loss. I was miserable physically and disgusted with myself overall. In the emergency room (the sciatica was that bad), they x-rayed my hip because I was sure that’s what it was - my bum hip. Well, it did show that I had extreme osteoarthritis in my left hip, but the pain itself radiated from the spine on the right side and was diagnosed as sciatica. 

I was determined that I was too young to feel that old, and embraced the physical therapy sessions with such gusto that I was released from physical therapy after three visits feeling much improved. Side note: I continue to do those core-strengthening exercises regularly. At the same time late last summer, I determined that it was now or never to get healthy. No more excuses; my health was and is too important. While I have been a Weight Watchers member on and off for most of my life (and continuously for the last 7-8 years), I re-dedicated myself to really working the program this time. It’s basically just healthy, common-sense eating. The workshops teach us everything from nutrition, to coping skills for various dining and family situations, and mindset adjustments. I’ll get into that more below. 

So, I was off and running, and by the end of the year had dropped another 15 pounds, in addition to the few I had previously managed to keep off, bringing me to approximately -25 pounds down at the start of 2023. I was fiercely determined to keep it going. 
Losing weight the right way is not fast. But think about it - we don’t gain it fast either. It usually just creeps on over the years. Good things take time, especially if your aim is to make it a lifestyle change. The time this journey is going to take me, whether weeks or months or years, is going to pass regardless of what goes in my mouth. So why not just take it slowly and steadily. I’ll get there. The weight loss wasn’t going to happen if I threw in the towel, so I just decided to keep going.

In February I shrunk out of most of my “jumbo” sizes and had to go shopping for some new things. I bought new season-spanning jeans and a couple tops. I reasoned that I was in interim sizing, so I didn’t want to invest a lot of money. So, Old Navy and Amazon to the rescue! I also started watching some select and carefully-screened fashion influencer You-Tube channels for women over 40 or 50. After being out of the workplace fashion loop for over a decade, and being retired, obese, frumpy and not really giving a hoot, it was fun to learn again how to dress to flatter my newly-emerging figure, put on makeup, and take care of myself with moisturizers, SPF, and other skin-care basics. I started taking an interest in ME, and it was eye-opening.

As moms and wives (and grandmas or caretakers - pick your hat) women are typically the last in line for our own attention. That was changing for me. It reminds me of the flight attendant admonitions on every flight to put your own mask on before you help others. Common sense. Self-care. To be sure, having a husband with an amputated arm who had to work hard to get his driver’s license back (independence, autonomy), to say nothing of all the adaptive things that go into everyday living, it was still very much on my to-do list to assist him. But he’s done it and is now independent again.

Throughout the winter, my mantra had been that I went into the winter as a caterpillar spinning a cocoon, and would emerge in the spring as a butterfly. Cute, eh? Screeeeetch!  First of all, here it is, mid-summer and I’m still metamorphosing. Thank goodness!

The analogy of my journey is better described not as a butterfly, but as an old space capsule re-entering Earth’s atmosphere. I picture myself as a passenger inside the capsule, being tossed and heaved by unseen forces, flames on the exterior, with a very hard splash landing in the ocean at the end. So much more apropos! I’ve had night sweats from Hell. Women store estrogen in fat, so as the fat melts off, the Days of Wine and Menopause return. Cue the estrogen therapy again. Previously plump skin is now looking decidedly crepe-ier. I moisturize, from the inside with loads of water-drinking and on the outside with 163 different moisturizers and skin care products (only a slight exaggeration, LOL). My taste buds have changed. I can barely stand artificial sweeteners now. And all of a sudden I like the taste of watermelon. But tea and cucumbers still make me gag.

Health-wise, my doctor is really pleased with me, too. He is totally an enthusiastic supporter of WW. I used to have to get cortisone shots in my knees every 4 1/2 -5 months, depending on how long I could tough out the pain. My most recent shots were at the beginning of July, fully ten (almost eleven) months from the last round. That’s progress. To date I’ve lost 57.6 pounds. Six more to goal, and then another 12 for good measure and to bring my total loss to 75 pounds. I’ll be in a healthy weight range and BMI, with all the attendant health benefits. My CPAP needs to be adjusted and serviced as it tends to overwhelm my smaller person. Sometimes I even sleep without it.

I’ve learned to like and respect myself and sometimes do a double take when I see my reflection in a window. I’m in in a position now to put my own needs first moving forward. I can do hard things, and I am strong physically, mentally and emotionally.  I will not go back. I feel some major changes coming in my life and I am so excited. Stay tuned. (And if you made it through this post, congrats and thank you!)

Red Scraps and Green Beans

What a fun and hectic week!  The vegetable harvest is in full swing, which means too much time in the kitchen for me getting things processed. The weather has been hot, hot, hot. As usual, lots of errands this week. But Bruce passed his physical driving test to have his full drivers license issued with all the new adaptive equipment in the car as well as the requirement that he (naturally) wear his prosthetic arm. That’s been a huge relief for both of us. He is independent once again, and I’m not needed to be his chauffeur. Win-win. 

Bruce took this picture of the large basket of beans (wish there was something there to indicate scale) that he picked yesterday. This is the second basketful this week. He thinks we’re probably over half done. 

So, I’ve been sharing them with neighbors and my Weight Watcher friends. And I’ve been blanching, vacuum sealing and freezing them by the bagful for us. We’ve been getting peppers, too, but they’re easy to use and save. The Next Big Crop will be the blackberries, and I’m hoping they’ll wait their turn until after the beans are done!

There was a lot of red scrap sewing in the studio this week. First there were 6 Four in Nine blocks, all made this month with a navy constant and Kona White. 

And then six red Chaser blocks. 

As well, I finished up the last of the 19 large (12” finished) stars for the Christmas Stars quilt that will be sewed steadily over the next three months. 

That star center on the block second-from-left on the bottom row will be replaced. I lost a major point there. But I’ll wait until the end when I see what kind of scraps I have left over before I worry about it. Next up are the 40 stars in the 8” finished size. Those will be sewn using the 4-at-a-time method for making the flying geese star points. I’ll get all those cut out - and hopefully begin sewing them this week. Green beans willing….

All of these blocks fit neatly into the Rainbow Scrap Challenge’s color of the month. I’m linking up at our usual fun Scrappy Saturday party. 

Also on my sewing schedule this week is to finish the Red Ribbons top. I started this in August of 2021, and here is a reference photo from the blog from January 2022 when I finished the interior portion of the top. 

This past week I sewed the Seminole-pieced borders. Unfortunately I made the side borders all the same size, when the two sides should contain 9 red squares instead of the 7 that the top and bottom have. I don’t know how or if that will affect the assembly, but I’ve got plenty of fabric to use if I need to fix it. And a seam ripper. Blessed be Jack the Ripper, right?

The inner 2” border is shown in the picture, and after the Seminole border will be a final red outer border. I’m thinking this will be a good project for my Sunday Sewing. 

This morning - Saturday - is a Quilts for Kids workshop from 10-1:00. I’ll be sewing 6.5” red string blocks. 

Oh! I finished the International Sisters Quilt, but I’ll have to wait until next week for the unveiling. I haven’t been able to find a quilt holder or a good time or place to take some decent photos. I’m crossing my fingers that Ruby can help me with it on Sunday. 

And I’ll leave you with some garden pictures. In high summer, it’s difficult to get outdoor pictures that aren’t glaring, even in the early morning or the evening. 

Backyard corner: pink hollyhocks. They are biennial, and this is their “off” year. Last year there were three times the blooms and many more colors. But as long as they continue reseeding, we’ll enjoy what comes up. 

The echinacea on the side yard is blooming.

The flower pots on the front walkway are looking amazing!

And new flushes of blooming perennials have stepped up to take their turns as stars.

The only sad note of the week was when I accidentally knocked and broke my grandparents‘ old Delft vase. 😢😢  It happened in slow motion, as these things often seem to, accompanied by my cry of  “Noooooooooo!” But the universe isn’t giving me a do-over.

I think that wraps it up for now. See you back here next week, OK? Have a good one!