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.

Another Finish and Some Pillowcases

Earlier this week I finished a tumbler wall hanging that I put on my To Be Finished list for the first quarter of the 2019 Finish-Along calendar.

The link for all our finishes will be open on April 1st, but I need to get this shared and blogged first! I’ve had these Bonnie and Camille fabrics for a couple years at least, and have almost given them away a couple times. But I forced myself to add this make to my list, and using my tumbler die (and Go! Baby cutter) cut the pieces out last December. This week I sewed them together, and in no time it was done. Why did I wait so long?

It’s now hanging in our mostly-gray living room, on a hanger that is probably too big for it. But oh well. I like to add bits of color here and there in the decor for a little punch. In the following pictures, you’ll see that I already have some teal blues and reds here and there. The Talavera vase in the picture below is normally by the fireplace. I just moved it to include in this picture (which was dumb, because it’s not in the bigger picture below, where it should be). 

This is goal #8 on my Finish-Along (2019 First Quarter) list, which you can see HERE. The finished wall hanging measures 26x32”. I quilted it simply by just doing a straight stitch 1/4” on each side of the seam lines. 

Yeah, that hanger is too big for the wall hanging, but the size of the wall hanging itself is good for the room. I have to go on the hunt for some alternate hangers for different-sized wall hangings as I make them (I do have on on my list to make next quarter that is more summer themed). 

And Cousin Kim was over to hang out and sew again today (our second time this week because our schedules allowed it! YAY!). On Sunday we decided we’d make pillowcases today. So we picked out some fabrics we loved (or that I wanted to get rid of, hehehe), and I had them all cut up for us and ready to sew.  

Kim took hers home (no picture), but I did snap pictures of the ones I made. First, we have the four that will go to some sort of charity (Million Pillowcase Challenge? One of the H2H charities? I have to do some research...)

I was about an inch short on the Joel Dewberry fabric (the large print), so the cuff of the pillowcase second from left ended an inch shorter than the rest. Otherwise, they’re identically sized (but may not look like it because of how they’re folded or photographed). They are so easy and quick to make and have wonderful finished seams inside and out.

And of course, I had to make a couple to keep. The right one, below, will be for me to sleep on. The cuff is the same fabric from Birds in the Lattice, which is on the bed. I wish there had been enough blue fabric left over to do two matching pillowcases - I would have loved to use it for the body of the case. The other yellow, gray and white one will go on the guest bed. I will be making a new quilt for that come next quarter. But first we have some painting and carpet cleaning to do in there (which I’ve been putting off for six months). 

So, I’ve gotten a lot of little odds and ends sewn this week as I wait for the new color for April to be announced for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Yesterday I basted the stacked coins donation quilt I’m making. If I can get that quilted and bound tomorrow and Saturday I may have one more finish for the month. We’ll see!

Sewing More Orange

Hi! We are back from our fantastic week-long vacation to Colorado. We had a great time visiting friends and family, but I will save the recap for a separate post in a couple days.  For now, I want to link to Scrappy Saturday as our September color is orange. And boy, did we see a lot of orange leaves in the mountains of Colorado!

Before we left, I sewed up 20 bowtie blocks. They will finish at 4” each. I’ve now completed 177 of the 304 blocks needed, so I am 58% of the way to the block finish line. This is definitely a 2-year project.

Next up are the 13 Friendship Star variation blocks that I sewed while on vacation. They are an unfinished size of 6.5” each.  I now have 135 of 136 blocks needed, and we still have PINK to work on. The extra blocks will probably end up on the back of the quilt.

And I have been sewing 12” autumn-themed blocks, using some of my old Farm Girl Vintage blocks and adding new ones from here and there. These five were sewn last week.

I have a total of 4 (first one from a couple years ago not shown) and they will go in the four corners. I still have several blocks to work on: an owl, a crow, a turkey, a schoolhouse, a squirrel and some Indian corn. I am hoping to get this one done by early October.

Finally, I sewed some pillowcases for the Hurricane Harvey/Irma relief efforts. I had hoped to finish 10 of them, but did managed to get just half of them done. That will have to do, as I want to get these, along with 3 donation quilts, off this week. There is a local quilt shop who is collecting, and I may just save myself some postage and take them there instead of mailing them back east.....

We returned home from vacation on Wednesday night, and I have spent Thursday and Friday doing laundry, grocery shopping, errands, housework, etc etc.  I haven’t even unpacked my machine yet!  After one final errand on Saturday morning, I plan to commune with Bernadette (my Bernina 550QE) all afternoon and not come up for air until dinnertime.  I hope you have a pleasant weekend too!