Some of This; Some of That

On my design floor - a top my mother put together at our retreat in May.  I've added the last border to make it 30" - a preemie quilt size.

I now need to finish sandwiching it and do the quilting.

And on my design wall - the beginnings of another scrappy baby quilt.

I'll see where this goes.

I'm linking to Design Wall Monday, BOMs Away, Monday Making, and Moving it Forward.
Stay cool, my friends.

Destashing, Slow stitching, Some This, Some That and Design Wall

It's been a while since I reported my destashing efforts.  Thought I'd start with that this Sunday. What with four baby quilt tops, one completed baby quilt,  6 Splendid Sampler blocks, a QAL block, various mug rugs, and a yard donated.  I'm up to YTD 26.21 yards.

My slow stitching for today is hexagons.  These are 3/8"to a side.  I am now sewing them into a circle.

Since I've been doing so much paper piecing for the Splendid Sampler blocks, I decided to see if I could paper piece a hexagon.  After much effort and lots of seam ripping, I was able to make one.

  The back and the front.  Don't tell me - I now know it would have been easier to have appliqued a hexagon - LOL.

On my design wall are WIPs I will be working on slowly but surely - my set of hexagons (made with 1" hexies) and my left over stars.

Speaking of hexies, my WIPs Be Gone hexagon giveaway is still on. Ends Thursday, midnight. Go back to my 6/25 post to learn more. You could win enough papers to make 15 hexie flowers.

It's a new week!  Praise God.

Some of This; Some of That.

Put a back to one of my WIPs - so pulled 2.5 yards for that.  Made two Splendid Sampler blocks means I used another fat 8th, plus the one from last week. So my new YTD total de-stashing is 15.96 yds.

My arthritic hands are a lot better, but I still can't hand sew more than 15 - 20 minutes before they start stinging. So not much progress on my hand quilting my oldest WIP.  I'm sure glad I finished this hexie center while I convalesced and before the hand issue.  I got it done and then didn't like it - the flowers didn't show up with those light teal hexies below them.  Here's the before:

So I ripped them out, added some darker ones and moved some gray ones and got this:

I think this works better.  What do you think?  Don't worry - you won't hurt my feelings.

Leave a comment and I'll go by and see what you're up to.  There are so many of you and one of me - I can't always find you all and thus I miss your eye candy, so you have to remind me - and the giveaway is still on - see previous post.  Blessings during this ongoing Easter season.

Some of this; Some of That

Hello, back to some quilting, but it won't be much.  March 12th, I woke up with a very sore right thumb.  I could hardly move it.  And it was swollen.  Took some ibuprofen and carried on.  It was better the rest of the day.  Next morning, the whole hand was swollen and could hardly move it. Same thing - rested it and meds.  Long story short, last Thursday (13 days later) went to Doc and she says it osteoarthritis in both hands and wrists.  Not something a quilter wants to hear.  In the morning, it's a heat treatment for softening up the hands, so they won't be so stiff.  I can then work for a while. Well, not much when I can't even open the milk jug, pick up plate or other things with one hand. Have to watch everything I do with them.  Once I've taken the meds, and they kick in I get to work carefully.  After 1/2 hour of whatever, I stop and ice the hands and wrists. Rest a bit and then can do another session.  Not much that can be done for the normal wear and tear of this kind of disease.  If you know of a regime that might help, I'd sure like to hear about it.

So here is my report of the bits I did during Lent when I wasn't blogging, using that time to meditate. Wow, was I addicted to being on the computer.  I've weaned myself from I don't know how many hours to just one - half an hour in morning; half an hour at night.

What with making and binding baby quilts, cutting an isolette cover, creating a mug rug (photo top right) for an online swap, making blocks for two wips, and binding a raffle quilt (most done before March 12th), I've used up 8.21 yards in the last 50 days. My new YTD de-stashing is 13.08 yards. 
I've tripled my total, but doesn't seem like much for the 1st quarter of the year to be over. If I'm lucky, I'll get half my goal done at this rate.  How about you?  I'll show more later.  My hands are already hurting.

Come by and leave a comment of what you're up to.  I'll try to come by and say hello as my limited online time continues, but this time for a different reason.  Blessings!

Some of This, Some of That

No photos - wouldn't look any different than last time - but am progressing on the hand quilting my UFO and fixing my hexie medallion.  I'm doing quite a bit of that today.  Reason being I took a walk yesterday and I'm ordered to take a day off my feet to ease the hip.  For a while it's walk 1/2 mile one day and rest all day the next.  Little by little...

Couldn't resist working on that accidental landscape  - added the borders. The outer border is really an eggplant color although it looks darker.  I'm thinking of adding something in the lower right corner.  Not sure what yet.  Once I decide yes or no, I'll sandwich and do some quilting.

So that 1/8th yard of scraps has grown to 1/4th.
And my new YTD de-stashing is 4.87 yards.  

The weather this past week has been incredibly mild for winter here in California. Guess it's our turn to get weird weather.  So in my short walks have wandered outside and seen we have some color appearing here and there in the yard. From the front yard:

 The jade is starting to bloom. And even the geraniums have begun to color up.  Ahhhh.

What are you up to?  Leave me a comment and I'll come by to see where you're at. Blessings.

Some of This, Some of That

I'm back from my trip East to Metuchen, NJ.  What a great time we had.  It was cold (well by my standards - averages of 56-62 most days) and that's cold for me! Our goal was to spend my sister-in-law's birthday with her.  Her four adult kids hosted a great celebratory dinner at an Italian restaurant, Dominics. We were treated to an eight course meal and this beautiful cake:

Those flowers were actually made of icing - they were fabulous and tasted fabulous, too - not sweet and cloying as you sometimes get with that much frosting.  I loved this fabulously decorated chocolate birthday cake.

On the quilty side, I didn't pick up a needle in all the eight days I was gone.  I was going into withdrawls - lol.  I knew better than to take anything because this family group is very talkative and around all the time, so I knew I wouldn't get anything done but talk, eat and sleep. But here's a St. Anne's top I finished just before I left using the RSC 2015 blocks for October.

This will have a brown print as binding - a little unusual for a baby quilt, but I found a darling flannel sorry, no photo) for the back.  I'm linking to some of the linky parties in the sidebar.  Give them a try.  Blessings, friends.