That Pesky Squirrel.

Before I went off to work on Monday, I had sewn all of the bindings on to the Frankenmats, then pinned all of the bindings to their backs. Usually I enjoy closing bindings by hand, but I thought that as these mats are already such experimental pieces, why not try another new method and close the bindings on the machine?

Yesterday, (Tuesday) I set about doing just that.

The results, are not perfect, but the bindings were successfully closed.

I worked from the front, using my ditch foot as a guide.

And I'm really rather pleased with how that worked out.

One table runner.

And six placemats.

Does that mean that I have seven finishes for April?

LOL

And here are five more finishes.

To add yet more to the monstrousness nature to these mats, I used up several odd bits of bobbin thread and finished off five odd spools of thread. 

One more thing I did on Tuesday was to have another play with the floral scraps. I laid them all out on the floor, in no particular order, I just wanted to be sure that they would all play nicely together.

I went off to work and left them that way.

Hmm, it looks like a fight broke out and some of them disagreed.......

Or maybe Belle decided to have a little play?

LOL

When I went into my room this morning and found them like that, I picked them all up and put them back on to the table, then the squirrel appeared and I found myself playing with some completely different scraps!

I've had these tiny little HST off cuts for many years.

You can see their donor quilt here.

Try as I have, I cannot find the beginnings of that project. I thought there may have been another project that had also donated triangles, but I cannot find evidence of that either.

So anyway, .....

following the squirrel on some historic date I had sewn some of the squares together and then abandoned what ever I had planned. Something else I can find no record of!  They have lain tucked away in my Fig Tree Fabrics drawer, for quite some time. I have pulled them out occasionally, fiddled with them, then put them away again on more than one occasion.

Today the squirrel led me to join more of the squares together and create flying geese units.

Some are tidier then others and I know that where ever this wee project goes, I'm going to end up losing a lot of points, which is I'm sure, why they have been repeatedly returned to the drawer, but today I carried on anyway.

I stopped here when Tony came home for his lunch.

I'm really not sure where this is going.

But right now I am sure that I'm going to make a cuppa, then I'll sit n sip while I unsew some that were on one of their previous outings sewn up in a different way.

Do you have scraps that behave like this?

Frankenmats.

Do you recall, before I got ill, way back to February? 

I was playing about with crumbs.

Well today, they finally got some more attention. I had gone into my room to have another look at those florals to see if I could come up with a solid plan for them. But I was distracted by the crumbs. I have played about making up blocks here and there and had even gotten some of them sewn into good sized pieces for placemats. One was even quilted, using the templates which Tony gave to me at Christmas. Today I found myself making Frankenbats for the rest of the pile..

Some have not only frankenbats, but also Frankenbacks. LOL

Some are more scrappy than others, but that's ok, these are just utility mats for my table, and I wanted to use them to practice using my quilting templates.

In hindsight, all of those tiny little crumbs and the multitude of seams was probably the wrong project for a first try at using my templates.

I struggled at times to move my sandwich and the template in unison.

A close inspection will reveal many little mistakes.

But I can live with the errors and to be honest, the fronts are so busy, even I'm hard pressed to find the wobbles and I'm easily distracted by all of the happy memories of other quilts and projects all sewn together to create these Frankenmats.

And here they all are.

Six Frankenmats and a frankenrunner.

Not only will those very busy tops hide my first attempts, I think they might hide a few spills too.

Now, I just need to find a suitable binding fabric. I think I may have enough of the blue grey that I used for the backings. Hmm, where is my tape measure?

*

While I sewed in my room, Tony fiddled in his room and visited the kitchen to bake bread.

He made a pretty good looking loaf.

*

ANZAC Day tomorrow.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of he sun, and in the morning

We will remember them.

Finally!

After just over 7 weeks, I am finally allowed to return to work. I just had to record the moment before I headed out of the door on Thursday afternoon.

It was good to be back, with many hugs and we missed yous from colleagues and residents. 

I'm still not 100%,  My voice continues to come and go, and I was encouraged to take things slowly and grab extra breathers if I needed them. I'm happy to say I took only the rostered breaks.

So, moving on......

On Wednesday I found myself pottering in my sewing room. The first time is almost two months I had gone in there, except to cut fabrics for Lucy.

I'm not sure what prompted it, maybe the news that I could return to work.

Anyway, for some reason I found myself sorting through my drawer full of floral scraps.

And this is the result. I have half a plan in mind, which will probably change a few times before I settle and start cutting, or throw it all back into the drawer. So I won't say anymore at this time. LOL

*

My jigsaw puzzle is growing slowly as I pick away at it each day. Sometimes I stay with it for only 10 minutes, sometimes a couple of hours passes. I'll get a photo another day, as I like to record my progress. 

And finally ...

Nails.

I've dallied on and off with pretty nails over the years. 

A few weeks ago, on the spur of the moment I went and had gel polish applied.

Blue, of course.

 My nails are usually quite weak and tear very easily. Wearing gloves at work and constantly washing my hands doesn't help I'm sure. So it felt good having pretty nails. So good that I went back and got another colour done three weeks later.

Green this time.

I'm not sure how long I'll keep it going, but for now, I'm enjoying pretty nails.

I wonder what I'll do next time.

Do you have pretty nails? I think we should blog nails too if you do. 

 *

That's my news.

I suppose I should get a move on and go grocery shopping. 

Slow progress.

I missed a zoom! 

Chooky invited me and everything. But I hadn't checked my email for a day or two.

I said some rude words and moved on.

Even without zoom, I have been making some slow progress with Lucy. All of the individual blue blocks now have their white honeycombs attached.

And I need only add one more block to complete another row of large blocks.

I have some favourite blocks and will let you look a little closer soon. 

If you are wondering what the brown paper is all about, just there by Tony's feet.

Tony received a package the other day and it had a few yards of brown paper as padding.

Miss Belle came running as soon as she heard it rustling and before Tony could clear up after himself, she had claimed it as her own.

She checks on it regularly throughout the day.

If I move it, or step on it, she arrives in a hurry to see what is going on. 

I have to be sneaky about getting photos of her.

Or I get the look!

I'll leave it out for a few more days as it is still getting a lot of her attention.

*

My jigsaw puzzle is also making slow progress.

And for some reason blogger insists on showing it sideways!

I knew this one would take a while, but that's ok I'm enjoying it.

*

Health wise? 

I know some of you were asking Chooky if she knew how I'm doing.

I'm still not back at work.

After getting my hopes up last week and planning a gentle return with my boss, she called me and said that I could not return yet. Her boss had gotten involved and said no.

As my respiratory system is already compromised she did not want me at work.

My boss was very disappointed for me, she knows that I have cabin fever and I just want to get back to normal. That said, extending the break has meant that I have had more time to improve.

Tony took me out yesterday, we had some chores to do and also a very short shopping list.

I survived wearing a mask and being towed around various stores at Tony speed. 

The only time I struggled was after climbing the stairs at Farmers. That wasn't fun, but I did recover pretty fast. 

So, all being well, I will be returning to work on Wednesday afternoon. 

Right now, I'm off to make a cuppa and then I plan to sin and sew until it's time to pop the roast into the oven. 

While I wait to Zoom with Scrub Stitchin'.

 Chooky has invited a bunch of folks who can't be at Scrub Stitchin' to join a zoom session. You know that means I'll be working on Lucy. 

Here is where she is up to at the moment.

I have to use my design floor for a photo today, as the model with the tanned legs has gone fishing with his dad!

While I'm zooming, I'll be adding one or two more blocks to the growing pile in Grandads stool.

Miss Belle won't be needing it today, she is sat in the window, sunning herself and bird watching.

A quick word about some recent baking.

This delicious apple shortcake was quite quick and easy to make.

I used the recipe in the good old Edmonds cook book.

Another recent bake was an Irish Soda bread.

A recipe I have used for many years. 

And, as Tony is fishing today....

Fishermen need a pie, so I made a sausage and egg pie.

No recipe, I just winged it!

Hmm, it was sliced up and went into a box and was packed away before I could get a picture of how it looks once sliced.

And Zoom started before I could finish my post. It was great fun. Lots and lots of show and tell.

It was still very early, 6am at the retreat but already lots of activity, with sewing and chatter going on, before breakfast. It was great to see everyone.

Thank you sew much Chooky and Janice for including those of us who could not be there in person.

I did manage to get a little Lucy sewing done, in between all of the show and tell. LOL

Hopefully one year I'll be able to get there and join in for real. 

*

And, because I had already uploaded the photos, a quick look at my latest jigsaw puzzle.

This is the pirate ship puzzle that Tony purchased for me. (If you click on the linky you'll need to scroll down a little to see a picture of the box.)

I think this one may take a while.

And finally, my health.

As those of you who were on the zoom session heard, my voice is coming and going, but I do sound better than I did.

I have an inhaler now which is helping me to breathe. Physically and mentally I am in a much better place than I was 2-3 weeks ago.

Some of you suggested a second opinion, I went one further and changed Doctors completely. 

The new Doctor says I almost certainly had a respiratory virus of some sort, which I had fought off. The tight windpipe and vocal chords are left overs from that illness. I was prescribed an inhaler, which I puff on routinely twice a day and in between if I become breathless. In less than a week, the inhaler has made a huge difference. I can have a conversation and move about normally, without becoming breathless. I didn't need any extra puffs yesterday. 

I'm hoping to be able to return to work on Monday. After a six week absence I'm sure there will be a lot of changes mostly due to covid/omicron. 

I'm off to make another cuppa, then sew some more Lucy pieces.

A Jigsaw Finish and Lucy Progress.

As predicted the quilt block jigsaw did not take long.

It really did not take much time to sort the colours and put the rows together.

It was a fun puzzle to work on and I was thinking it might be good inspiration for a scrappy quilt, using up lots of coloured scraps.

I'm sure it would not take too much time or effort to find free patterns available for each of those blocks.

*

I promised an update on Lucy and here she is. 

I have added another row of crosses since the last picture taken in mid March. 

But that is not all that I have done. I've been working slowly making more of the corner stone blocks and adding white honeycombs to completed blue blocks.

I'm fairly sure that I'll be stopping at a 5x6 layout, but I'm not half way yet, I still have plenty of white pieces to add and of course I'll need to add the edging.

So Chooky, there is no need to worry, it will be a while before I'm done with Lucy.

And of course, like all good quilters, I have about 6 more EPP projects planned and 4 more have been shopped for and I've pinned about a billion ideas, so I don't think I will run out of something to sew. 

LOL

Speaking of sewing, that's what I'm off to do.

Another puzzle

The courier delivered not one, but two packages early yesterday morning. 

A new puzzle board and also a new puzzle.

When I saw this for sale on the puzzle exchange page, I had to have it.

It took me very little time to sort the pieces and create the edge, working on the puzzle board.

Which Blogger has tipped upside down for some reason!

As you can see, some of the pieces are not the traditional puzzle shape.

You can't really see it in my pictures, but each block is named.

Sorting the coloured pieces is very easy this time.

It really didn't take long to complete the top and bottom rows of quilt blocks.

I think I could probably have completed this one in a day, but a headache arrived in the early afternoon, so I stopped there.

I feel much happier using the puzzle board, I can cover my progress and if Miss Belle does jump on to the table, she will not be able to disturb any of the pieces. 

*

My Lucy Boston quilt top has another whole row of crosses added, I'll get a picture of that soon.

My voice continues to sound weird, but I seem to have more energy, I'm able to do more chores before running out of steam and needing to rest and the breathlessness seems to have passed. That seems positive and right now I need to feel positive.