Once I was allowed to sew again . . .

I really went to town! I didn't want to waste a single minute of my sewing time. I even got to do some machine quilting - the first time I've touched the longarm since I fell that fateful night in September. Here is what I've been up to . . .

Laurel Wreath block for my mid-century album quilt

Rose Tree block for the mid-century album quilt

Fireworks Quilt completed

Close-up of quilting

Latest string quilt for Hotel Hope - quilted, bound and labeled

Tomorrow I hope to quilt the other two string quilts for Hotel Hope. All of them are due at the guild meeting on December 6th, as a representative from Hotel Hope will be there to receive the 16 quilts.

I also have to get working on making gifts for my board. Traditionally the outgoing president makes a pin cushion or something similar for every officer and committee chair on her board. I've chosen what I'm going to make - now I just need to get started. Installation of new officers also happens on December 6th, so I must have the gifts completed by then. Nothing like waiting until the last minute!

Retreat report

Oh what a bad blogger I've been! I can't believe it's been another week since I posted. And I can't claim to have nothing to write about either. Maybe that's the problem - so much "life" has been happening that I've had very little computer time!

Last weekend's retreat was marvelous. Twenty-three of us had a great time sewing, chatting, laughing and eating together. This year we had a extra room - the camp dining room - which is in a separate building from the lodge. The light in that room was much better so all we did in the lodge was sleep - some a little more than others LOL! We reserved 2/3 of the dining room for the sewing tables and the other 1/3 for eating. Plus we had a nice semi-circle of chairs and a loveseat for us hand stitchers. I think everyone got a great deal accomplished, and as usual the retreat committee went all out on door prizes, table favors, decorations, and more. This time I didn't come home empty handed - I "won" enough tokens to bid the top bid on a "little quilts package" - a Jo Morton book, a bunch of fat quarters tied with a ribbon, and a tiny little iron. What fun! There was also a silent auction with hidden prizes - you took your chance bidding on these. $38 for a bookmark and a little rotary ruler sounds like a lot - until one remembers that the bidding is being done with "money tokens" earned during the weekend.

Friday night I stitched the binding and label on my Fireworks quilt. It was so good to be stitching again! That was one of my oldest UFO's. I finished it in time to sleep under it both Friday and Saturday night. Saturday I did some hand appliqué - finished a large block for the mid-century medallion quilt, and then hand quilted on another hand quilting project that I started years ago. This is a double Irish Chain that was also a class sample from the early 90's Daisy Kingdom class days. Years ago I quilted a fancy design in three of the white squares using a dark raspberry colored quilting thread, and then stopped. When I started working on it again on Saturday I quickly remembered why I'd stopped. The white is some of the first white-on-white fabric that was available, and feels like the design is painted onto the fabric. Not fun to quilt through! I stuck with it and quilted three more of the designs. Once I finish those I'll load it onto the longarm and machine stitch the rest of it. Hopefully I can get that UFO finished by early next year if not this year.

I also took along some stitchery - a few stamped dish towels and embroidery thread. As soon as I started the first one I knew it wasn't going to work. What was advertised in the catalog as a flour sack towel is more like a cheesecloth towel. I can see my hand through the fabric! Really irritates me as I bought a whole bunch of these towels but can't return them. Anyone know of a great place to order quality flour sack towels for embroidery?

Even the weather cooperated with us for the weekend. It rained on Friday during unloading but cleared up by evening and then was sunny for the rest of the weekend. The camp is in a beautiful setting on the Lewis River in southwest Washington, and there was still much color to be seen in all the leaves. It was so very hard to go home on Sunday afternoon! The last thing we did was pose for a group picture outside. Unfortunately the camp caretaker wasn't familiar enough with cameras and photography to know that he should zoom in on the group!

Checking in . . .

Sorry for the lack of posts. There isn't a whole lot to tell when I'm not allowed to do much!

I have done a bunch of reading ever since I hurt my arm, as I'm not restricted from turning pages. I finished reading all the way through the Tony Hillerman "Jim Chee" and "Joe Leaphorn" mystery novels. If you like mysteries and have never read Hillerman I suggest you run right out to the store or library and find one or two. The main characters are two Navajo tribal policemen. Many of the stories weave Navajo folklore and religion throughout the plot - a fascinating view into a culture and society that most of us know little or nothing about. Hillerman is not a Navajo, but has received awards from the Navajo nation for his portrayals in his novels.

Once I finished those books I started the J.P Beaumont mystery novels by J.A. Jance. I've read the first three so far - what a huge contrast to the Hillerman books! J.P. Beaumont is a police detective in Seattle, and it's been a lot of fun following the action through many familiar places, as I lived in Seattle the first 22 years of my life.

I've also done a small amount of stitching. The doctor said I could start very gradually after I'd totally rested my shoulder for a week or so. Good thing, since I'm heading out to a quilt retreat in a little over an hour! I'm going to be sewing the binding and label on the Fireworks quilt - I finished the hand quilting just before I was put back on "restriction". After that I'll have the following choices - hand quilting on another quilt that I started quilting on between 5-10 years ago and never went back to it, embroidering some dish towels, hand piecing some UFO blocks, or working on various appliqué blocks for my mid-nineteenth century album quilt. As this retreat has been scheduled for months and months, I whined enough to the doctor so she'd give me permission to stitch this weekend - as long as I stopped and rested if I felt pain. It's going to be so good to stitch again!

I did a bit of machine work yesterday while I was puttering around packing - I put the borders on the third string quilt. I like how this turned out, but I'm going to go back to the square diagonal blocks for the next string quilt because I like it better. This one is a perfect size for a Hotel Hope quilt. As soon as I get the go ahead I must get back to machine quilting. I have four Hotel Hope quilts that need quilting, binding, and labeling before the December guild meeting. That's when we are presenting the quilts to the representative from Hotel Hope.

Our excitement at having a new grandson her for Christmas was short lived. The kids got a message yesterday telling them that the holidays would delay the paperwork so they won't be able to go to Guatemala for Joseph until January. When in January we don't know - and we don't know whether there will be extra problems due to the Guatemalan government adoption of the Hague adoption treaty. We are all praying very hard that there won't be complications, and that we can have our little guy here early in January.

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Gratitudes:
1. Quilt retreats
2. Starbucks Christmas blend has returned.
3. Books to read
4. The gentle mist in the air today
5. Breakfast with a friend

How quickly one forgets!

Thanks to a reader's question I realized the links to my photo tutorials were also gone. I completely forgot that I'd added those to my sidebar! I think they are all back now. If someone notices one that is missing please let me know so I can correct that.

I'm having a really rough time not sewing - my fingers are just itching to stitch!

One more missing list

I just realized than my sidebar is still missing something - my list of HSY's (pronounced Hussies - or Haven't Started Yets). I have a spreadsheet that lists them all so it shouldn't be all that hard to add. On the other hand maybe I should wait a while to add those. Just seeing the lists of unfinished tops and flimsies waiting to be quilted and bound is scary enough!

In the meantime I've gotten all caught up with my email and the pictures posted to my various Yahoo Group lists. Tomorrow I'll start catching up on everyone's blogs.

Dont' forget to set your clock back an hour tonight. I'm so sleepy I'm going to head to bed soon even though it's lots earlier than normal. I can use that extra sleep tonight!

What goes around comes around - thank you Kristie!

A HUGE thank you to Kristie from Quilt Harvest. I helped Kristie with her blog back in August by sending her an HTML copy of my sidebar so she could substitute her info into the HTML for her side bar. I'd forgotten all about that until this morning when Kristie came to my rescue. She still had my message with all the HTML code, so she forwarded it back to me. My sidebar is now almost as good as new - all it needs is a bit of updating. What a relief - I felt like I'd lost a piece of my personal history when that disappeared. I'm way behind on backing up my blog - I guess I'd better do that right away. Thanks again Kristie!

I'm back on restricted use of my right arm and shoulder - my doctor wasn't happy with the progress of my healing. So I have two weeks off work - but can't do any quilting. Once again I'm behind on blog reading so I'll get busy getting caught up again. And I'll go back to sewing 2" squares together - I can do that with my left hand and my right fingertips. I'll still be doing quilty posts - I'll share pictures of more of my UFO's as well as pictures from the quilt show at Quilt Fest last September that I never got around to post.

Have a great weekend one and all!

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Gratitudes:
1. A happy 61st birthday for my dear hubby yesterday.
2. Gathering of all the kids today for a late birthday celebration
3. Flu shots
4. A warm cinnamon roll for breakfast
5. A doggie who is feeling better after a scare earlier in the week

Whoops!

I was editing a ring link in my side bar and somehow managed to delete almost everything! Certainly not what I wanted to do - I don't have a copy anywhere of what I had in that sidebar! I will try to get the ring codes back up tomorrow, but the rest may have to wait for awhile. I can't believe I did something so stupid!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Seems like life is rushing by faster and faster every day. I have no real excuse for not posting sooner - I'm just having a challenge getting back into routines after having so much time off work - first for my shoulder and then at retreat.

The shoulder is getting better each day. Feels great a lot of the time but then hurts when I do the exercises the physical therapist gave me to do. I sewed quite a bit this weekend and by evening it hurt also, but was OK the next day. I've not tried longarming yet - I'm waiting to see what my doctor says this afternoon and the physical therapist says on Friday.

We received marvelous news yesterday - the best possible. Our daughter and son-in-law received word that their paperwork has passed out of the Guatemalan PGN, which means Joseph is now legally their son. It will take 6-8 more weeks for the last paperwork to be done at the US embassy - his passport, his US birth certificate - etc. - and then they can go get him. They will have only a few days warning, so hopefully it will be more like 6 weeks than 8, because 8 weeks goes to Christmas Day. Would probably be hard to get plane reservations that close to Christmas. One way or another we will all be receiving the best Christmas gift we could possibly get. I'm pretty sure I still can't post his picture - I'll do that as soon as I know it's OK.

In the meantime I'm still back to sewing strings. I've doubled the size of the top that I started at retreat. I'm almost finished with another 6 rows - hopefully those will be done by this weekend.

I'm also continuing with my hand quilting. At guild Sew Frenzy last Friday I marked all the borders. I'm now finished with one short border and half finished with the first long border. That one should be a finished project by the end of November. About time - it's been a UFO since the early 1990's!!!

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Gratitudes:

1. A new grandson from Guatemala will arrive before the end of the year

2. Red, yellow, green and orange leaves against a brilliant blue sky

3. An exciting box in Fred's closet for my Christmas gift - I'm sure it contains a design wall!

4. A Tangled Thread friend's son is now out of Iraq

5. Another Tangled Thread friend has a beautiful new grandson

Busy, busy

Busy, busy day today - hopefull I'll have some time tonight to read and post more.

I guess Eleanor Burns must have sold out of the design walls as my link is now returning an error. Doesn't surprise me - it was a great price. Here is the original website:

http://www.cherylannsdesignwall.com/

Retreat Projects

Note the portable design wall in the first picture. We all fell in love with it. It's supported by lightweight folding metal poles - the same kinds of folding poles that now come with tents. They slip into pockets on each edge of the flannel design wall, then clips hold the corners together. Super easy to put up and take down. By the time all of us had used it during the retreat we all knew we wanted one also. This is the 6'x6' model - it comes in small sizes also. Pam found it online at the designer's website - but Ardis found it on sale here on Eleanor Burns website. I told Fred about it and he's ordered me one for my Christmas present! I can set it up temporarily in the computer room as needed - no more reaching over the ironing board when I need a large design space!