July 14– Finally, a chaos free week! I’m really starting to enjoy my summer a little bit and may come out of hiding soon. I do have a date for shoulder surgery— it’s late in August, three days before my birthday. But isn’t taking care of yourself the best present of all?

My entire supraspinatus is torn side to side through all layers. It doesn’t take a quilter to understand that needs to be sewn back together. Fortunately, my surgeon worked for the Los Angeles Rams– I’ll be quilting like a quarterback this fall!

I’ve been trying to think up things I can do for the 8-10 week recovery when my left arm will be strapped to my chest— digitizing and sketching will definitely work. I’m searching some of my favorite bloggers book reviews for reading material. And while I definitely won’t be wielding a rotary cutter, I may be able to sew a few small pieces together.

To that end, I decided to buy some Foam Core board and make up a few design boards. Do you use them? The advantage is I can cut and lay out all my block pieces on them and they’ll be ready to sew when I have one arm. I bought the one above for $20– that’s more than I paid for four sheets of foam core that will make eight of them! I believe all you have to do is tape a piece of batting to a foam core square, and then glue up a binding strip all around. I have plenty of jelly roll strips hanging around for the edges.

Mostly I am thinking of sewing up the five Sweetland pieced star blocks over my down time. I swiped this picture from Lori’s blog, so I’m linking up to it. The instructions for the block are free in the Sweet Land Sew-Along guide. (link below the photo.) There’s a lot of small pieces– perfect for one armed sewing!

Sweet Land Star Block Blog Post

My fourth applique block is just about finished.

Nice set, huh! This represents Week One of the Sweetland Sew Along– finished in a record five months!

I’m hoping Whitecaps will be done by the surgery— but I’d love to also dig out my “Night Flight” bat quilt and see if I can move that forward a couple of blocks. It’s one of my favorite UFOs. I think I only have about 8 blocks to go and there are plenty of small pieces!

While doom scrolling, I happened upon this Baltimore Christmas quilt finishing up on eBay in ten minutes. This is one of the beautiful Pearl Pereira quilts you have probably seen before.

The kit came with all of the fabric, and by rights should sell for $300-$400. There was only one bid for $175. Figuring there were probably ten people waiting to bid at the last minute, I threw caution to the wind, knowing there was no way I’d get it. Guess what I won for $177.50?

So the description said “fabric kit,” but when it came in, it looked like pieces of cheap felt. I was extremely disappointed, but figured I could unload it right back on eBay for a nice profit closer to Christmas, right? Upon consultation with a smarter friend, it turns out it’s very high quality felted wool. Now my thinking is– wool applique is not my thing, but it could be, right?

I might just prep a Christmas block or two for convalescent hand sewing. There’s also my Tree of Life block—it represents block #11 of a series I started over 20 years ago— I’d love to just push that quilt over the finish line this year, or more likely, ASAP next year.

We’ll see what gets prepped– and what actually gets done while the oxycodone works its magic!

I did get Part 2 of the Year on Sugar Meadow instructions out— there’s nothing to stop us from completing the top now, except the lazy days of summer!

I have no idea why it keeps turning green when I upload it, but you get the idea. Here are my actual fabrics:

And a big part of my week was spent on my niece’s ice cream quilt– finally! One of my pet peeves about pattern writing is missed opportunities for strip piecing. Fortunately, I’m clever at re-writing patterns in my head– look at this strip pieced momma!

Both cone parts can be strip pieced, and wow, did it ever push this thing ahead. I’m still hopeful I could have it by the wedding— the plan is to get it on the longarm this week. Here’s the top of some of the cones–

My childhood favorite was vanilla soft serve with cherry dip, and I think I captured that perfectly. Is Cherry Dip even a thing anymore? It probably requires that red dye #40.

And here the completed cones– I told you it’s moving fast.

The pattern is called “Single Scoop” and has really big pieces with no points to match, so it’s going together faster than melting ice cream. You can understand the scale if you look at my chair wheels!

The hordes are now arriving to visit baby Charlie just like the magi of olden times— my son-in-law’s entire family will be staying with us for quite a few days. We love them— I’m quite content to provide the hospitality while they enjoy their first grandchild. It will be very healing for my soul this summer. Lots of yummy food is planned!

Then, it’s the big Maine Quilt show. Carefree Highways needs its sleeve lowered to 88″ PDQ as I drop it off on Saturday. Unfortuntaely, they can’t hang anything higher than that, so the top will be draped over. I’ve know I have to do this since May. Do I procrastinate– YES– am I good at working on tight deadlines– YES. Those two qualities are so perfect together. Off I go!

xox
Carol