Last week, I vowed to rejoin the Land of the Living. I’ll give myself an F on that. It was a bad week to try– Mr. SFO was away all week, so I lost my chef, butler, chauffeur and ray of light. My first physical therapy was excruciating. Note to self– never assure your therapist that you have a high threshold of pain before beginning. I was a hairsbreadth from asking her to stop, silver tears appearing in the corner of my eyes, when the clock ran out on my appointment. Takeaway– when I saw how willing she was to cause pain, I decided I shouldn’t worry about the minor tweaks I feel when trying to sew and I got right back into it!

After therapy, the DD took me out for a beautiful meal at our favorite Olive Garden and a stroll around Home Goods. Mental health restored.

Funny story. While in Home Goods, I spied a woman with a big, ugly sling just like mine! I poked my head around the corner and said, “Dr. Patten?”

“Yes!” she replied. We had a lovely bonding moment, comparing surgery dates, experience, and physical therapy. Then I inquired, “Did you have a fall?”

“No,” she began, “I’m a quilter…”

I would have exchanged phone numbers with her, right then and there, but the DD was waiting for me at the car. Watch your shoulders, people! I hope we meet again. xox

Back at home and after muffing up my mountain blocks, I moved on to the Sew Sampler September box. This subscription has been hitting it out of the park since I re-upped in the spring.

The nine-patch blocks looked really easy to make. The only challenge being, they are made of charm pack squares cut into four equal pieces, so you can’t starch. This will be a good experiment for me to skip the starching step and I’m determined to accept whatever sort of results I get. It’s all about staying sane. I found that by pinning everything, I could sew one-handed quite well and look how far I got!

I felt so encouraged, I ordered the finishing kit– I need that to make the next fifteen star blocks. They are square-in-a-square blocks surrounded by flying geese and that will definitely be more challenging. These are the fabrics in the finishing kit along with the white background:

I wish I had thought it through a bit and just ordered my favorite prints in the collection which are these:

I’m very fond of mustard lately– the color, never the condiment! So we’ll see how far I can get on star blocks this week. I’m tempted to go back to mountains, as I feel like my sewing is improving. I do have two more sets of four already cut.

Along with my finishing kit, I bought this cute Valentine panel:

It makes this little mailbox and mail– perfect for little Harlow!

The panel is huge and there’s lots of cutting– I don’t love the raw edges on the mail and the curve on the mailbox looks a bit wonky. But the theme of the moment is “accept whatever results I get,” and I’m sure Harlow won’t care!

I also allowed myself these two charm packs of a collection I’ve had my eye on for awhile.

I’ve always been a Sandy Gervais fan– she had one of the first fat quarter sets I ever bought. How pretty is this?

Fat Quarter sets are just not in the budget anymore! The price for a bundle these days is starting to touch $200. You can get three quilts out of a 42-piece fat quarter set according to my past experience, and unless it’s a stupendous collection, you don’t need that. I think a layer cake would be perfect for one quilt– my charm packs will make a dandy table runner.

“Christmas Greetings” also has this gorgeous panel– there is something about that graduated sky color that really hits me. I stopped short of buying it this time– we’ll see what happens next time– as they say, past performance is no predictor of future results!

My American Main Street BOM keeps faithfully arriving every month after a delayed start. I so owe the Love Sew company an apology, after worrying that it was a scam!

I’d never heard of them before and their ratings on customer service are horrible. I did love the quilt, though– I’m not totally sold on the fabrics, as I keep imagining the quilt in one of those glorious Minick and Simpson collections. But I think when incorporated in the quilt, they will be fine. And the instructions are first rate. (Oops, my physical therapy homework photo bombed me!)

This month’s block looks a bit HST intensive, but the first month looks do-able. I feel that I’m entitled to just start all the things and do whatever I want right now! It’s a great feeling. I’m not sure how I’ll feel when I have a dozen projects started with misshapen, undersized blocks, but let’s just accept the results we get, right?

I did start my puzzle, and after initially thinking it was too hard for me, I banged out about a quarter of it. It brought back such happy memories as I used to love a puzzle when I was a teen. It would be fun to always have one going, but I don’t really have a space for it– we’re getting into that season where the dining room table will have to be cleared!

Finally, it’s Welcome to the Circus! This little lion is adorable, but I’m struggling to get a dozen stitches in each night. The cloth is a lot softer than I’m used to– not that easy to find the holes.

Another month’s installment has been released. If only I had it in me to just stitch up the lion into a little pillow or something. If I made everything easier rather than harder, I might, just might, be able to conquer my growing kit and fabric pile.

So that’s the outlook for Week Five, post surgery. Spirits have been up and spirits have been down. We’re past peak in the leaf peeping department, and the holidays will be here before we know it. I’m still hoping I’ll be the one to pull that big ole turkey out of the oven in just a few weeks and wondering what the winter will bring.

xox
Carol