Weekend fun

I don't know about you, but I had a great weekend, even though I had to work.

Friday was an extra day off, we were all awarded a wellness day, as a thank you for all the hard work and effort that we have put in, even me who was off work for eight weeks. So I took it on Friday.

I played all day, with my floral scraps, making up blocks and even adding the first sashing strips.

This is how I left them when I went off to prepare dinner. Debbie and her hubby joined us. We had Prawn toasts and spring rolls, followed by chicken and corn soup and Tony's amazing crispy shredded sweet chilli beef.

Debbie brought a HUGE banana cake.

That was a late night, and I thought I might be late for zoom on Saturday.

*

I wasn't late for zoom, I was awake in plenty of time to grab a cuppa and get logged in.

I spent the morning working on my Lucy Blue EPP project.

Of course.

It was good to see everyone and I enjoyed myself, listening and chatting until it was time to head off to work.

I added three large blocks and four smaller spacer blocks.

I'm on to the last row!

Then I'll need to go around and add the edge pieces.

Chooky, thank you once again for a great day. 

A little while ago I wondered about making it a little bigger, but decided in the end, to stick with original size, it's a good size for hanging in my hall way.

Tony wasn't available for my photo shoot today, so I pegged it on to my quilt hanging rail to get a good picture.

And decided while I was at it, I would change the guard.

I like to change the quilt hanging at the end of the hallway. Some stay for only a few weeks, some stay longer.

This one is a regular, I'm very fond of it.

It sometimes gets used as a table cloth too.

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Also today I played in my sewing room pretty much right up to the moment I had to run out of the door for work. LOL

I was determined to get the floral scrapper together and to get the first border on.

And I did it. I had just enough fabric, though there are a few more joins than I would like in some of those longer pieces.

I think I'll add a tiny peeper border (Chooky you've started something.....) before adding another neutral border.

That is a job for tomorrow.

I did think this one might be a donor quilt, but I've fallen in love with it.....

*

On the whole, I think I had a fantastic weekend.

I hope yours was just as good.

Zooming With Chooky

So Saturday was one of Chookys zoom sessions, she promised a marathon, and that is what we got.

Well some of us did. I had to go off to work at 3pm (NZ) and returned again at 10.30, when I found a few ladies still chatting. 

Before work I was busy with Lucy and made a little progress. First I set about topping up my supply of one inch blue squares and also prepared a bunch of white honey combs, for the border treatments.

Yes, it's getting that close.

My supervisor spent most of the day curled up asleep on the sofa next to my chair, although she did make time for some personal grooming.

Once I was done with the prep work I got on to the task of adding blocks to the top, after I had added some blue inchies to the blocks I wrestled them on to the top one at a time. I only had time to add two and prep a third before I had to prepare for work.

I have almost completed the penultimate row of crosses. Just one more block required.

As you can see, Belle had to take the opportunity to inspect progress while Tony held it up this morning.

I really do need to work out how I want the edge of the quilt to look and get papers prepped for the final rounds.

Poor pictures I'm afraid as it is very overcast here today, so we had an indoor photoshoot with artificial lighting.

I'm really pleased with how this one is turning out and must confess that although I am excited to be so close to finishing the planned 5x6 layout I am tempted to add more blocks.....

I know I have plenty of blue fabrics left, I wonder if I can find more of that white?

*

Time to go and complete the chores I should have done yesterday. LOL

 

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. 

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.

I did it!

What did I do?

Well, if you remember in my last blog post I had talked myself in to purchasing the Inklingo Lucy Boston Booklet and templates, so that I could try printing and cutting my own papers as each time I order a top up, I end up waiting for them to be imported. So I did it, I purchased and downloaded the PDF booklet and had a good read. Mostly it says the same as the paper booklet I already own, but, it also contains countless pages of printables, so that you can make the quilt top using various methods to join your fabric pieces, not just the Inklingo method. It took me a while to find them, but eventually I found the no seam allowance section which would enable me to print my own papers.

Every single shape required to complete a Lucy top is included, full shapes, half shapes and even some quarters.

Perfect.

I practiced on plain old paper to ensure I had things set up correctly and then popped my card into the printing machine.

I printed just one page, to see how things would go.

Success. 

I figured the best way to cut them would be with a roller blade and ruler, so I sacrificed a cutter, wrapped some tape around the handle as a reminder that this one is for paper only, and went for it.

In no time at all I had 20 new papers. One $7NZ pack of 210gsm papers will yield 240 honeycomb papers, saving me lots of money and zero wait for new papers.

I sat last night and basted fabric on to my home made papers.

I may not be a convert to the full Inklingo method of printing onto fabric and joining with a running stitch, but I am happy to continue printing my own papers using the templates provided in the pdf booklet and will probably buy other booklets in order to print other shapes. Who knows, one day I may even give one of the other methods a try.

So while I sat with Grans tray in my lap and a glue pen in my hand a certain furry member of this household decided that she has had enough of my sheepskin pouffe and she might try out Grandads stool.

Excuse me, just move over a little please...

Just a little more, I want to lie down.

So I was back to using my pouffe last night.

*

I went to the hospital on Thursday for my x-ray and had bloods drawn while I was there. No results from any of that yet. 

I had a telephone conversation with yet another Doctor yesterday. Dr P. She said that given my responses to her questions and the notes that her colleagues had recorded, she feels that I have viral Laryngitis which usually clears up in 2-3 weeks, but sometimes can take longer. She suggested that as the antibiotics are clearly not helping, I should stop taking them. Stay home, drink plenty of water and rest. 

Sounds like the perfect excuse to sit and sew.

So that is what I shall do.

But first, Tony brought a load of tomatoes in from the green house, so I'll chop them up and make relish, or sauce, or something. 

A post about Doctors and papers.

So I had another carpark visit with the Doctor. The sun was shining this time, so he didn't get wet. Last week in the rain, Dr F came outside in his shirt sleeves wearing a blue surgical mask. This week on a lovey sunny day Dr D came outside in a yellow floor length surgical gown, with sleeves, a surgical mask, a face shield and a plastic apron and gloves.  He took my temp, looked in my throat and ears and stuck the oximeter on my finger. He said very little except that he would order blood tests and a chest x-ray., he took a PCR swab and he then gave me a script for more of the anti biotics that are not working and told me to isolate until I got the results and said goodbye!

So I went home to isolate.

I just got the results of the PCR test this morning and it's negative. I still don't have covid.

But I still don't know what IS wrong with me.

Within an hour of getting my negative result today I had the radiology department on the phone asking me to make an appointment. That will be happening tomorrow afternoon. I may as well visit medlab and get my bloods done while I am out. 

So, now that all of that is dealt with and out of the way, lets get on with the fun stuff.

As you know, I've been pottering in the kitchen and doing a few domestic duties but I've spent a lot of my time resting in my chair working on Lucy. I sit with my feet up on Grandads stool and have Grans tray in my lap. I've been adding the white honeycombs to the blue blocks.

Once I have a few done, or if I need to move, I open up Grandads stool and pop the finished blocks inside.

It's the perfect size. All was going well, until I ran out of basted white honeycombs.

That brought me screeching to a halt yesterday.  I have been removing papers where possible and had a few ready to be reused, but not many. So I set about checking the backs of everything and was able to free up some more. Yesterday evening was all about cutting and basting.

Some of these papers are getting to be pretty tired and ready to retire, more than a few went into the bin, but there is still no word yet on the papers that I ordered two weeks ago, so I'm making do with as many as I can rescue.

I managed to salvage about 100 and got them basted and into my box.

(Yes, that is Belle on my pouffe in the back ground. Well actually I think it is hers now!)

While I was pulling honeycomb papers I also pulled squares and reused those also.

So my bag of 1 inch blue squares has been topped up too. 

I'll need those today as I plan to add the next row of square blocks.

I have selected and labelled them  so that they go in to the right space, I just need to add their blue inchies and get them sewn in. 

The supply problems with papers has sent me looking for a ways to print my own. I already own the Inklingo Lucy Boston book.

Has anybody used this method?

The book says that if I prefer EPP then I can use their templates to make my own paper pieces. 

So lets say I decide to try that. It costs $30 US for one of Linda's shape collections and PDF booklets, so about $45 NZ 

plus a package of good 120gsm paper $8-9 NZ 

and some ink. Call it $60 NZ all in.

A packet of papers costs between $9 and $12 NZ , by the time I add postage I've probably already spent more than $60 on papers and still need more. And if the papers are not in stock, I have to wait for them to be imported, some are imported from the US, others from Australia.

 I think I might just try printing my own. 

Now that we have definitive proof that I do not have covid and I am allowed out in public, I can go buy paper after I'm done at the hospital tomorrow. I could be printing and cutting my own papers by tomorrow afternoon.

And if it works..... Linda says on her website that if we want any other beautifully designed quilts converted to the Inklingo system we just have to ask and she will get on to it!  For example she has already worked with Willyne Hammerstein to produce downloads for many of the Millefoiri projects, and there are many projects already listed on her site that I would love to stitch as well as shapes for projects already on my to do list.

I think I may be spending some money on the Inklingo site.

The results of Sundays labours.

The spiderlings have been planted. There were six babies all up, the other two pots wouldn't fit in this dish.

Tony found two ripe chilli in the green house, so I added them to the relish.  

1.5 kg of tomatoes made 4 jars of relish.

The remainder of the tomatoes went in to the sauce pan.

I got 5 pots of sauce for the freezer.  That doesn't sound like much, but I let this reduce down a long way before I decided it was ready. The more I reduce it, the bigger the flavour.

Today I made ANZAC slice and I have bread proving, it will go into the oven soon. 

We have a bread machine, but we don't like the hole that the paddle leaves in the bottom of the loaf, so we just use the dough cycle, then pop the dough in to a loaf tin, prove it and pop it in to the oven. Perfect bread every time and no hole in the bottom. 

Still Isolating and Lucy is Growing.

 So even though I do not have Covid, I'm still doing the right thing and staying at home, isolating.
I managed to see a Doctor on Monday. That was a mission. I phoned and asked in my croaky tweenage boy voice if I could see someone, after explaining that I had called last week and been sent for covid tests and had since returned three negative RATs. 
The receptionist said I should go for a test! 
So I explained again that I had negative tests and have been ill since last week, I really need some help please. 
She said that they could arrange a telephone appointment. 
I asked her how the Doctor was supposed to look at my throat and ears, and listen to my breathing over the phone?
 Her response was, "well we don't want sick people in our waiting room."  
I asked if not their Doctor then where sick people are supposed to go? How can a Doctor diagnose something he cannot see?  What did she suggest? 
She got snarky with me at that point and said "I suppose we could do a carpark appointment." 
So I saw a Doctor in the pouring rain in the carpark.  I parked as close to the door as I could get. I wasn't too bad in my car, but the poor Doctor got soaked. 
His diagnosis? There is definitely something going on in my glands, I need antibiotics and I did the right thing insisting on seeing him in person. I guess his receptionist had complained about me.
I wasn't allowed in to the pharmacy either, so the lovely lady ran outside with my prescription and the card machine. At least she had a brolly. 

Thank you to everyone who sent lovely get well thoughts and wishes. A couple of days on antibiotics and I'm improving. I still sound a bit odd, but way better than I did. And I made it through yesterday without naps and snoozes. But I still slept late this morning. 

So what have I been doing to keep myself busy, while not snoozing?

Working on Lucy of course.

I've been removing papers as I add blocks, so that I could make up more white pieces. I spent some time last night removing more papers, so today I'll be basting more white fabric and I do still have plenty of blue squares I could make up. 

That's about all the excitement I can manage at the moment, so I'm off to make a cuppa and settle into my armchair to play with fabric. 

Thank you once again for all the good wishes.

Weekend progress

Thank you to those who sent get well wishes. 

We've established that it is not covid!

But what ever it is, it got worse since Fridays post.  I sound like scooby doo, or a tweenage boy.

It's making me just ill enough to sleep in past nine and run out of energy very regularly.  But I have been able to carry on crafting. I thought about playing some more with my rulers, but decided that required too much brain power, next I thought I might try cross stitching, but that just didn't appeal. In the end I spent some time with Lucy, it really does not take much thought or effort to cut and baste plain white honeycomb pieces. So I did that, until I ran out of papers.

Next I started sewing some blue squares together, and adding white honeycomb pieces. After joining the first row of crosses together on Friday, I was able to free up some more honeycomb papers. It feels a little like robbing Peter to pay Paul, but at least I was able to make progress.

So here is a whole weekends progress, in between naps and snoozes. There are a couple more square blocks that were completed, but I forgot to take a picture of them.

Honeycomb papers are hard to get hold of in NZ at the moment, everywhere I look has them on order and is awaiting delivery. So in order to free up some more, I'll have to finish the row of squares and add another row of crosses. 

*

It wasn't all about Lucy. 

On Saturday I made a batch of tomato sauce for the freezer. Well I ended up as more of a supervisor really, I set out with good intentions but after chopping all the onions, a carrot and some celery, Tony helped out by chopping the massive bowl of tomatoes and volunteered to stir the pot while I had a rest.

On Sunday I made a flapjack. Tony helped again. Weighing all the ingredients as I read them out.

Although I've made flapjack many times before this is a recipe I had not tried previously. 

It was a little dry, maybe I'll tweak it and try again.

It must taste good, there are only three pieces left!

*

Well that's my news. How was your weekend?

 

An armchair, a cat, some rulers and Lucy.

When I was out op shopping with Debbie last week, we spotted the cutest wee arm chair. We both tried it out and agreed that it is very comfy and perfect for a shorty like me. I walked away thinking about it and had a chat with Tony. We agreed that if it was still there on Monday morning I should buy it.

And it was still there. As it's only little, we were able to get it into the back of Debbie's car and brought it right home. It fits beautifully in to the corner of my sewing room. It's predecessor was a little on the large side, but this one is perfect. 

Even Belle approves!

My blanket fits nicely over the back and the sewing caddy that Janice made for me fits on the arm and I've refilled the pockets with all those useful little items. Belle is all curled up on my old dressing gown, she loves it and if I leave it anyplace other than the back of the bedroom door, I know I'll find her on it. I am supposed to be making it into a bed for her, so it was lying in my room, waiting. I'm sure she thinks I put it on the chair just for her. 

On Tuesday my awaited Ruler foot for Sally Skyline arrived but I didn't get a chance to play, until yesterday. I had fun practising making pretty flowers. 

This was flower number 2. There was a lot more experimenting, but no photos, sorry.  A little more practise methinks. But it was fun and easier than I thought.

I have crumb blocks all ready to play on. They will make good placemats for Tony and I.

I didn't spend all day playing with my rulers, I moved to the sitting room to prepare more papers for Lucy. And ended up getting a little carried away.

I've joined the first row. 

Not the best picture, taken at night in artificial lighting with a reluctant quilt angel holding it up for me.

I was rather pleased with it last night and looking at it in daylight this morning happier still.

I'll need to hop online and buy some more papers for it. Why do they sell packets of papers in such tiny quantities, when you need such huge quantities for even a small quilt top? 

I'm off work sick for a couple of days. I'm pretty sure it's just a head cold, but I have to do RAT tests anyway and I don't want to share even a cold with the residents at work. 

More time to sew.

Stash Acquisition and Zooooom. Oh! And a pie.

You had better get comfortable, this looks like being a long one.

 So yesterday was another amazing Zoom day hosted by the lovely Chookyblue. 

I called it Zoooom in the title, because it was a looong session.
Thank you once again Chooky for getting us all organised and in the same place. You are wonderful and I really appreciate what you do. 
A quick picture of a bunch of us all sewing and chatting, can you see yourself in there?

Some people made great progress on one project, some worked on many. It was fun to do it together even though miles, time zones and oceans separated us, we worked together and chatted together as we each made progress. It's always good to put a face to those names that we see commenting on our blogs.
I seem to have a reputation for making good progress during these zoom sessions and this time was no different.

Of course I was working on my lovely Lucy Blue project.

I started out stitching white pieces on to the completed blues.

Until I ran out of prepared whites.  

Then I began working on the remaining few packages of prepared blues.

I had one bunch of problem fabric that did not want to play,

No matter where I put it

But eventually after some shuffling about between packages, 

it found a home in the block below.

That blue with ditzy white flowers, is so busy I had problems finding a home for it.

Now there is another problem. After all of my shuffling about trying to make it work, I have another outcast. LOL That dark blue with the electric blue leaves does not want to play nicely with what I have left. I think I'll have to cut another set of fabrics for the final round of this one.

*

While we were busy stitching there was some chatter about how our other halves were managing without us. Some popped in to say hello, or help with show and tell, holding up one side of a quilt. Others were there quietly in the back ground.

As you know Tony is amazing and looks after me very well during these sessions. He made me cheese on toast for lunch and decided to order a curry delivery for tea! Yummy.

Today is his day, he is off on a fishing trip with his dad and his brother. Fishing trips need food!

Which I am told, must be bacon and egg pie. Good old Tony was happy to make his own, he just wanted a little guidance from me please.

The boy did good. He has every right to look like Punch!

Once it was cooled he sliced it up and popped it into a box.

He left me a slice to have for my breakfast. It was delicious.

I think it will keep him fuelled for the day.

*

If you remember I mentioned stash acquisition in the title for this post. I'm wondering now if I should have left that for another blog post, but the photos are already uploaded, so I may as well just carry on.

On Friday, Debbie and I went on another wee shopping trip. The Pin Tin in Geraldine are having their pre stocktake sale, with some very huge and tempting reductions on fabric.

There isn't anything I really, really need, but Debbie had a short list, so along we went.

I found a few pieces of fabric that looked like they may have possibilities. 

A bobbin box as my current box fell and broke.

And the cutest pair of scissors.

They were not in the sale and rather expensive, I really don't need them, but they are so cute.

I also purchased the last few DMC threads I need for my next cross stitch project. I started kitting it the other day. More about that another time.

Debbie got everything on her list and was delighted that the shop lady helped her to find the perfect white on white to use as sashing fabric for her big scrap project. Rather than normal quilting fabric, she got a huge piece of extra wide backing at less than half price and, because there was a mark on the fabric, (a tiny mark very close to the selvedge that will be very easy to avoid), she got a half meter for free.

Three meters of extra wide backing for $50. Ohmigosh!

*

After a lovely lunch we headed back to Timaru and visited some op shops.

Debbie scored in all three.

Me in just one. The very first one.

We both came away with a handful of wee plastic baggies filled with scraps of fabric/

There was a mixture of larger and smaller scraps in each bag.

I'll need to do some pressing and sorting.

As they are still lying on my cutting table.

I also scored some larger pieces of fabric.

The Russian dollies is a half meter cut, with a small piece cut away.

The blue is only about half the width of fabric, but is over a meter.

I think we both had a very good day.

*

That's it from me, I'm all up to date for now.

Well done if you made it this far. LOL

I have the day to myself as Tony is away fishing.

I'm sure I will find something to do, to keep me busy until I go to work at 5pm, for an extra shift. 

Have a great weekend.