Metaphor for My Life Right Now

I snapped this picture a few weeks ago as I skipped the stone across the harbor in Michigan. The decreasing hits on the surface are how I feel the further I move away from my treatment day.  

The side effects get less and less each day, though they last a few days longer with every session. Yeah - like that makes sense.  I just have to go along, rest when I need to, eat properly and do everything I can to get through. Only one more treatment to go!

Just. Keep. Going.

Like a rock skipping across the water.  

Here's another shot of the shoreline on that bright, clear September morning.

Tomorrow brings the first sketch of the new quilt design.  Feels good to be moving forward on this project.  I have a month to get it done.
Just Keep Going!!

New Vintage Machine

The last week and a half have been flown by with no fabric under any needle in this house!  But on the plus side, I've been drawing the new design and with a little luck, fabric will be cut and fused this week.

In the meantime, this machine was unearthed at the house of my Mom's cousin who recently passed away.  It was his mom's machine and is now in my folk's garage.  

I stopped by long enough for some quick pictures - not even wiping it down first.  It's a 1928 Singer 66 with the Filigree decals.

This baby is in need of some serious cleaning.  The condition of the electric wiring makes me hesitate to plug her in until I have time to check things out more thoroughly.  Not sure where this machine will end up, but this is a project for a later date.

A New Project Decision

I've been hemming and hawing over a rather large and involved project. 

While I've been sitting on the fence over the decision whether or not to do it, time has been ticking away. The deadline is getting closer - November 2nd.  I sit here and just shake my head at myself.

Late last Saturday, I bit the bullet and measured out the background fabric. It's pressed and has the center lines marked lightly with pencil, for registration marks.

The design is still coming together in my brain.  It is a complete departure from what I had been thinking about for months and sketching out for this quilt.  So, I'm at the very beginning of this project and will need to get up and running very quickly!

Fellow Blogger Shout Out

I want to show you all the newest addition to the Studio/ Work from Home area.

Isn't that a Gorgeous mug rug?!  

Hand woven in shades of pink, purple and a touch of blue. The colors are richer in real life and the hand feel is fabulous. And, I have TWO of them!  They were made by my friend, Martha at  Thistle Rose Weaving  She does beautiful work and has an Etsy shop where you can view and purchase her woven items.

This one traveled with me to the Michigan House.  The other is at home - waiting for me to get the studio / work from home space cleaned up and back to working order.

Grand Illusion Sandwich

I FINALLY got a chance to turn my Grand Illusion quilt top into a sandwich.  Grand Illusion was the 2014 Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt.  My top was finished back in January but since it measures 80 inches square, layering was delayed.  Until I was able to lay it out on the Michigan house tile floor. 

Oh, I had brought it up a time or two but once neglected to grab the backing and the other time, I only had a smaller batting with me. DUH!!

The planets and stars finally aligned, the backing was pieced and laid out. The backing was little out of square and might be a little short (I'll deal with that later).

This is the wrong side - the right side is bright green & yellow.
The pieced section is made from the border units I chose not to add to the front.

And the top was positioned and the pinning started.  I pinned and pinned and pinned. I had help from Drake. And then I ran out of pins... WHAT?!! 

I couldn't run to the store - it was rather late in the evening and the nearest store, that *might* have the curved pins and be open, was twenty minutes away. No way I would be able to run there, grab the pins (if they had them), drive back and then finish the pinning. I couldn't move the quilt.  I could barely keep Drake from walking all over it.

The next day, the pins were secured, the sandwiching complete and the quilt moved to a much safer place off the floor.  Next up is the machine quilting on it - it needs to be done before the 2015 Mystery Quilt begins on Black Friday. You'll be seeing my progress on it over the next month or so.

FABRIC...Finally!!

Look - there is actual FABRIC in this post!!

During a recent sale at Cherrywood Fabrics (luscious suede finish hand dyed cotton!), I scored  Grab Bags.  Each Grab  x Bag contains about  50 pieces, approximately 7 x 10 inches each, in an assortment of colors.

My OCD couldn't handle the 'assortment' part of the new fabric acquisition.  I HAD to sort them into color families, and then sort by value within the color family.

Now they are ready for use and to be added into the new arranged storage bins.

Catching Up

I'm back as promised but not with any fabric related posts quite yet - they are coming very soon. .

Of course, there was the Labor Day weekend.  It was HOT, HUMID and SUNNY all weekend, so I spent it indoors, laboring away.  The DH was gone during the days so it was perfect for me to tackle the next steps on the studio redo.

I was bound and determined to get the majority of this project behind me. Getting the walls painted and things in their new storage place.  DH moved the drawer unit into place, but before I could start using it, I needed to clean & paint part of it. 

It's old - from my parents old flower shop - so it holds some sentimental value for me. It's cleaner and brighter looking now. Among other things, my light box slides right into the the lower middle section, keeping it accessible and safe.

The walls are painted!! The green is nice and soft, though it wants to 'glow' a bit in the picture. 

What you can't see from the cluttered room, is that a lot of things are placed in their new homes.  

I'm sure I'll rearrange and reorganize some things. I'm loving the additional storage but there needs to be a purge of things that are just hanging around taking up space.

View from My Doorway

Yes - it was raining when I took this picture. A nice gentle but steady rain.  This is up at the Michigan house and everything is still nice and green. No sign of autumn creeping in here yet but the cool weather and bright colored leaves will be here all too soon.

Over the recent Labor Day weekend, while temps were in the mid 90's, I made the first batch of chili of the season.  I only make chili in one size batch - LARGE.

My yield was 6 quarts and 1 bowl.  As DH doesn't eat chili, most of this went into the freezer for me!

I'll have some fabric related news to share again next week.  Have a great weekend!

Down Days Comfort

After my round of treatment, I experience a few Down Days, which puts me on the couch resting - no getting around it. 

It's hard for me, because I feel like I need to be doing something and my body just can't get it together.  It's not something I can push through and my doctor was warned me this is not a competition and I am suppose to rest when I need to.

However, I had some recent company on the couch, cheering me up.  

And the DH bought me some flowers to brighten up my Down Days.

Three of a dozen beautiful orange roses!

They will pass and I'll be back at it soon enough.  The sooner I get the studio back together, the sooner I can fabric again.

Balancing the Beams

Notice I didn't saw 'balancing on the beams'?  That's because these are ceiling beams, not underfoot. Still it's taken a bit a balancing to get them to this point.

With all the furniture and stuff just shoved around the room so I could tackle each section, I had to continually rearrange the shove bits as I progressed. No, not ideal, just tricky!

The balancing come into play when I was working toward the center of the room. One hand to put the stain on, the other hand holding the small can of stain and the third hand to keep a hold of something. WAIT!  I don't have a third hand!  I relied on bracing my knees against the step ladder top rail. Little scary at times. 

I also decided that in order to minimize the about of shoving furniture around, I would simultaneously paint the ceiling parts.  The coats of polyurethane required the moving of the ladder multiple times but not the furniture as I worked the sections. 

Sunday, the side effects of my medicine started to kick in but I thought I could push through a bit and maybe finish the staining of the beams at the least. NOT!!  Feeling weak and a little shaky does NOT mix well with climbing a ladder and finding my balance in mid air.  I'm fine - no accidents. just used some common sense and called it quits, AFTER I got a little more done. The beams closest to the sliding doors show my progress when compared to the picture above.

The room isn't crooked, I was apparently off balance!

Quitting while ahead was a good plan, especially since I was home alone, except for the pets. DH would have killed me if I would have fell and hurt myself - HA! 

The beams will still be there when the side effects lessen again!