'Rona update and more reading

The only sewing I’ve gotten done since my last post, almost a month ago now, was unsewing: ripping out the seams from the pieces I’d sewn on backwards, referenced in that past post. I got that done this past Saturday. I’d planned to sew them back together on Sunday but I just wasn’t feeling it. I think it may have been low-grade depression sinking in. I was coming off a week of being down with something, though not sure it was actually The Virus, because they’re only testing people in certain populations or if you end up in the ER.

My husband came down with something about two weeks ago—same issue, but he was pretty sick. So he quarantined himself from the rest of us which meant I moved into my daughter’s bedroom (she’s still up north) and started sharing the kids’ bathroom with my son. Although the room is quite comfortable, I felt displaced, plus my son mostly stays in his bedroom and without my husband around, I spent almost all day alone. I had tremendous sympathy for everyone who is always in that position—and I’m an introvert!

Then I came down with something, somewhat different symptoms, but definitely sick. I had headaches and the cough and the over-reactive lungs (not drastically so), but the biggest issue was fatigue. I could only spend about an hour at my computer every day before I needed to go back to bed. At that point my son pretty much locked himself in his room as the last man standing. Last night, I was past contagious stage and feeling much better, so my husband and I took ourselves off quarantine from each other; I’m back in my own room and my own bathroom, and I suspect my son and I are both a lot happier now. It’s amazing what a difference that made to my mood.

However, low energy aside, I did have a very productive two hours on Easter Sunday completely cleaning out and reorganizing our pantry. With three of us living at home now, and all sorts of people running out for groceries at random times and having to buy whatever was available, the pantry had gotten to be a complete mess. I feel much better having that back under control and was quite pleased to be able to use several items that had gotten buried in the back of shelves to make dinner last night. I also think some bread-making is going to be on my schedule as I found a lot of flour. A. Lot. Of. Flour. No idea.

Reading-wise, I have a few updates. I abandoned the Eric Metarxas book on William Wilberforce (Amazing Grace). It irritated me because Metarxas completely hero-worshipped Wilberforce—nothing the guy did was ever wrong, even when he was a child. I was annoyed. I was surprised because the Luther book was eminently more readable and was more even-handed in his treatment of his subject. I think Amazing Grace was an earlier book so his style hadn’t developed. Anyway, glad I’d gotten it from the library so I could set it aside with no worries. (And now, of course, it’s still sitting on my dining room table as libraries shut down and stopped taking returns a few weeks ago.)

I’ve been doing a lot of reading, so that’s what I can write about at the moment. Top of the “really enjoyed” list is The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz, by Eric Larson. I’ve read several Larsons and have enjoyed most of them immensely. He does nonfiction extremely well. That was the only reason I picked this book from my Book of the Month Club because I’ve never been all that interested in a biography of Churchill. But, true to form, Larson did it with excellence. It focuses on the first year to 18 months of Churchill’s serving as prime minister, through the worst of the blitz. It is a pretty incredible story. And Eric Larson doesn’t hero-worship his main characters. He obviously has a lot of affection and admiration for Churchill but he also addresses the problematic aspects as well.

I’ve read several fiction works as well, but haven’t been blown away by any of them of late. I read both Akata Witch and Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor, the author of the Binti trilogy I loved so well. These two, however, read more awkwardly; I just couldn’t quite embrace these, although that was mostly in comparison to Binti. I did still enjoy them as some light fantasy reading. I also finished (in two days) my other Book of the Month Club pick for last month, The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn. It was just meh for me. It was well-written, but perhaps I’m just getting tired of the unreliable narrator trope. It was clear she was doing Girl on a Train with a Hitchcock Rear Window twist. Even given it was an homage, it could’ve been more original. Still, if you dig the unreliable narrator and like something with twists, you may certainly enjoy it more than I did! I’m about to start another Book of the Month Club book (I chose two for April as I felt like I’d probably have a lot of reading time!): The Library of Legends by Janie Chang. I have high hopes for this one as it ticks a lot of boxes for me: Asian history with Asian legend/folkore, a little bit of fantasy, a little bit of adventure. I’ve really enjoyed a lot of books in this genre in the past (cf The Astonishing Color of After, Pachinko) so hopefully I won’t be disappointed.

By the way, I’ve been doing Book of the Month Club for several years now. I’ve tested out a bunch over the years but this is the only one I’ve stayed subscribed to. If you’re interested, here’s my referral link: https://www.mybotm.com/wq8wna0bwoo?show_box=true.

I’ve added a widget to the side of this blog (the web version) in which you’ll see my “currently reading” shelf in GoodReads. It’s usually a mix of work and play. I’m trying to get better again about actually writing reviews but they don’t tend to be long. I don’t track quilt books in Goodreads anymore—though I probably should. I used to when I was buying a lot more books, so that I wouldn’t end up with duplicates. Now I might buy one or two a year (just ordered one yesterday, in fact).

Hopefully my next blog post will be back to quilting!

#CVSI Coronavirus Sew-in and some reading

Too soon?

As you may recall from last week’s post, I had expected to be busy with work events all day yesterday and most of today. Then we had our first couple of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Rochester.

Bam. Everything cancelled.

To be honest, I’m more concerned about the repercussions if I pick it up and then spread it than I am the consequences of getting sick myself. But after the last few months in which I was sick for a significant period of time in December, then again in January, and then again in February, catching every single bug that made its way through, I am feeling a bit fatalistic about the fact that I likely will catch this. My theory is that working from home for nearly 20 years lowered my immune system and now that I’ve been “released to the wild” with this new job, around boatloads of people every week, my body doesn’t know what to do with itself. And, frankly, I’m just sick of being sick. So I’m doin’ it hermit-style.

I also have one staffperson with a compromised immune system and a second one with 5 kids under 10 at home so, after the school system in the suburb in which our offices are located announced their closure for the next two weeks, I told the staff to work from home for the foreseeable future. They’re both very grateful. I’ll probably still go into my office on occasion because heck, I’ll be the only one there, and I’m taking advantage of all this “found time” to work on finally getting my filing system into shape.

In any case, yesterday (Saturday) I mostly read. I was oddly sleepy all day. I finished The Bookshop on the Shore by Jenny Colgan. It’s a cute enough chick-lit book. Although it’s partially a romance, it focuses more on the main character herself, her relationship with her son and other children who come into her care, and her friendships. The romance almost an afterthought, which I prefer. Good characters, fun writing. It’s a sequel of sorts to The Bookshop on the Corner, also cute. Both are good reads for when you just want to relax, enjoy, and not be challenged.

I also read most of this morning. I’m still reading Children of Virtue and Vengeance, by Tomi Adeyemi. I actually hope to finish that this afternoon. So good! As soon as I finish that, the next book on my library stack is Amazing Grace: William Wilbeforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, by Eric Metaxas. This one has been on my to-read list ever since I read Metaxas’ Martin Luther last summer. He writes a great biography. I actually wasn’t all that interested in Luther until someone recommended the book to me so I thought, “What the heck.” And I ended up thoroughly enjoying it. I’m also about halfway through The Bat by Jo Nesbo. This is a highly reviewed mystery series with a Norwegian main character, detective Harry Hole (pronounced Ho-lay). Since I’m really into wonderfully noir TV mystery series from various Scandinavian countries available on Acorn TV, I thought it would be fun. I’m having a little difficulty really getting into it, though. Fortunately I got it through my local library (using Libby) onto my Kindle so I don’t have any money invested in it. We’ll see how it ends. If it ends well, I’ll probably read the second book in the series to see if character development brings it up a notch or two.

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And did I sew? Yes, I got about an hour in this afternoon. I’m not as sleepy-tired as I was yesterday so I thought I’d be able to get a solid session in.

I got month 4 of the way-overdue BOTM done.

I know—as a block on its own it’s fairly wild. But I think I can imagine how some pieces may come together in the end. I like doing a BOTM this way rather than other ones I’ve done where you do four of one block one month, 2 of another one another month…this has me intrigued. “How is that weird-butt piece going to fit in?”

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I then got started on month 5. But my husband came in to talk to me partway through and after I finished piecing the second step, I realized I’d done it backwards. And immediately it stopped being fun for me. So, abiding by my new rules, I put it down and walked away.

After all, I’m going to be home all week now…

#RDOSD: Random Day Off Sew Day

Or, perhaps more accurately, “Sew for a couple of hours.”

I took today (Tuesday) off because it was the only day this week I didn’t have any meetings scheduled and I’m working straight through this coming weekend. “Day off” is a bit loosely defined as I did work for a little bit on some critical things, but not for all that long, and I felt more relaxed once they were taken care of, so it’s all the name of reducing stress.

I started out my day off with a serious reading session. I finished the novel I’ve been working on, The Girl with the Louding Voice, a debut work by author Abi Daré. It was my Book of the Month Club pick from a couple of months ago. It was very good, although I felt like there were some inconsistencies here and there. Still, especially for a first novel, I don’t have too much to quibble with. Excellent sense of character, location, and time. I do recommend it, if you’re looking for a good read.

As soon as I finished that, I picked up the next novel on my stack (this time from a library so I’ve got a time limit!), Children of Virtue and Vengeance, by Tomi Adeyemi. I didn’t realize I’d entered a bit of an African novelist phase but there it is. This is the second book in her Legacy of Orisha series, and since it was just released in 2019, I expect I’ll be left on a cliff-hanger until the third book comes out. I’ve read enough fantasy in my life to know they usually come in threes. The only difficulty is that I read the first book probably a year ago, so it took me a few chapters to remember all the whos and whats. I highly recommend these books, as I do the Binti series by Nnedi Okorafor. They’re both young adult fantasy series but oh, so good!

After lunch, I granted myself a nap. With the drastic weather changes we’ve had the last few days my sinuses have been making their presence known, so I’m not sleeping well. Fortunately, Auggie is also worn out today after my son took him on a long walk with friends yesterday, so there was no mid-nap barking at squirrels to wake me up.

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Then I was ready for sewing. Or, rather, cutting. I now have all the pieces cut for the baby quilt. I had just enough scrap fabric left to do a small handful of 2 1/2” strips—I may do some coordinating piece of some sort, depending on when I get the main quilt done.

I got the blocks out to do another of my BOTM projects from 2018 (pictured in a previous post), but my headache came back. So it’s laid out in case I get a second wind today or have unexpected time some other day this week.

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Auggie enjoying the open window in my sewing room.

Time for more reading and a cup of tea. It’s nice that it’s rainy out—keeps me from feeling too bad about not taking advantage of the 50-degree-weather by trying to be outside.

A little bit on a Saturday

So the nice thing about having a clean sewing room is that I can actually sew for a few minutes when I get them. Today I did my usual morning Saturday things but by the time I got home from the grocery store and had lunch, I was ready for a nap. No idea why—I feel like I’d slept fine last night and I didn’t overly tax myself this morning. However, since I didn’t have any pressing reason not to take a nap and since tomorrow will be a full work day again (visiting a church in the morning and doing a Q&A with them during adult ed time, then attending a church dinner with a different church tomorrow night), I succumbed. I didn’t nap for too long but it was somewhat helpful.

However, it did cut into my planned sewing time.

That being said, after doing the easy Tetris puzzle work of the die-cut blocks of the month yesterday, I felt ready to tackle something very, very complicated: a baby quilt that’s all big squares and rectangles, LOL. The baby is due next weekend, if she’s on time—which her mother is anxiously hoping she will be at this point. I’m doubting I’ll get this done by the time the little one comes but it’s a quick-to-piece pattern so it shouldn’t take all that long.

I got about half the cutting done today. Isn’t the sloth on the left just adorbs? That’s the fabric that grabbed me—I’m using it as the backing too. I just went with the rest of the prints from the line and added in a couple of tone-on-tones for the sashing. No real thought went into this. In fact, I think I’m even using the pattern that was hanging as a store sample above the line, although I’ll give myself a little bit of credit as the sample was done in other fabrics. See? I can think for myself, at least a little bit. Still, it’ll be stinking cute and I don’t feel the need to have a ton of pride in the “Lookie what I can do” department when it’s done.

After all, as I said a couple of posts ago, my main goal is to just have fun these days. And this is fun, mostly because I keep grinning at the ridiculously cute fabric.

Okay, time to figure out what I’m making for dinner—probably one of my “open the package and toss it in the oven to cook” pre-fab dinners from Wegmans—I’m still a little sleepy. Besides, that way I can get to the sit-with-a-novel-and-tea-while-it-cooks part of dinner preparation a little faster.

Not sure what my schedule is this week but I’m going to have to grab some time off at some point as I’m booked all next weekend. So if all goes well, stay tuned for Random Sewing Reports in the middle of the week!

#CDSI: Comp Day Sew-In

It’s Friday, and it’s a comp day off that I’ve been hanging onto by the skin of my teeth. Oh, so many meetings could’ve gotten scheduled today and, in fact, I briefly did schedule one that’s time sensitive and then decided I really needed to be true to my decision to take today off, so I emailed the person and rescheduled for Monday. That’s soon enough.

I’m writing the first part of this blog first thing in the morning as I’m waiting for a plumber to show up to replace our kitchen faucet. For a variety of reasons I won’t go into here, we can’t do it ourselves, much as that irked my husband to no end. In any case, while he’s here I’m keeping the dogs in my home office/sewing room with me so they’re not all up in his grill as he’s on his back under our sink. Auggie, in particular, would find that endlessly fascinating.

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• So my first #CDSI task is reinstalling a whole bunch of download add-ons I had in my Electric Quilt program up until I reformatted my computer about two years ago. Fortunately EQ keeps everything you’ve ever bought online so you can just download it again. While I was at it, I took advantage of a sale they’re having (15 more hours as of this writing!) on Stash Fabric collections and bought all four 2019 collections. With the sale, I essentially got all four for the price of 2 3/4. And then I played with EQ for a bit until the plumber was done. Opening one of Kimberly Einmo designs and then messing around with randomizing the color and mapping it to fabrics from Stash? Oh, what fun! That entertained me for quite some time.

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A couple hours later: Paid the plumber, ate breakfast, did a little work and a little reading, ate lunch with my son (he’s living at home with us again for a bit while he’s in transition), and practiced my Spanish. I’m using the Rosetta Stone app. We have a lot of Spanish-speaking churches in our denomination so I wouldn’t mind being able to at least sound like I’m making an attempt, even if I never get fluent. I’m not sure I have the patience or time at this point to shoot for fluency. Meanwhile, ella tiene una bicicleta roja. (I’m sure that will come up in conversation frequently.) Now—off to sew!

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Success! I spent a couple of hours sewing—woot! I decided to work on blocks from the 2018 Cotton Cuts BOTM. I only ever got the first month done, and month 2 started. Today I finished month 2 and month 3. Here’s the silver lining of being WAY behind on a BOTM—I don’t have to worry about spoilers!

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I’m trying not to have misgivings about the random triangles that were left over. Nothing is missing from either set of blocks so I’m just going to pretend they were a door prize for opening the envelope.

#CDSI complete! Off now to have dinner with a couple of my sisters.

Boy, it was nice to be playing with fabric again.

Trying to jumpstart my quilty but cutting myself some slack

Yep, life gets away from you. But it’s all about taking the small steps, right?

As you can tell, it’s been a long time since I posted—it’s been a long time since I got back in my sewing room. In fact, the day I made the last post is the last time I did anything at all quilt-related.

This (still-relatively-new) position hit me like a ton of bricks. Although I’m not feeling as overwhelmed now—I can actually answer a lot of questions now, with a reasonable confidence that I know what I’m talking about—I’m still having difficulty sorting out the schedule.

In fact, this morning Outlook sent me one of their little analysis things about my working habits in February. 3 days. I had 3 days where I didn’t work “outside of working hours.” Now, to be clear, “working hours” don’t always apply in my world as I’m working with churches and volunteers so a lot happens on weekends and evenings. But regardless of definition, I’ve not been good about making sure I’m taking commensurate time off.

So I’m writing this blog post on a Monday morning, after I realized I have calls all afternoon and into the evening, and could legitimately—and should legitimately—take some time to myself for a few hours before the calls start.

When I decided to take the morning, I thought, “What would feel the most satisfying to do right now?” And the answer came immediately, “Cleaning my sewing room.” It was fun to open up the couple of Sew Sampler boxes I hadn’t gotten to and put away the goodies inside, and it feels really good just to be touching fabric, rulers, and rotary cutters, even if I’m not producing anything with them. As for the rest of the cr*p stacked on the cutting table? It was satisfying to stash it away where it belonged so it wasn’t in my face every time I walked in the room.

I’ve designated Friday as another day off to make up for another busy weekend, and I’m hanging onto it by the skin of my teeth. My plan for at least part of the day? Mess up this cutting table again but for realsies!

That being said, I’ve also cut myself some serious slack in my quilting expectations. My last post was about a quilt I was going to make for my niece’s wedding. That wedding is at the beginning of April. About 6 weeks ago, I admitted to myself there was no freaking way I was going to be able to get that done, even if I vastly simplified the pattern. I also have a new baby niece on the way in early March. Their baby shower was a couple of weeks ago. I’d bought fabric and a pattern for that one too. Finally decided I wasn’t going to worry about getting it done in time for their shower. Will I get it done by the time the baby is born? Who knows?

I’d have loved to give them quilts. But it would have so totally stressed me out, it wouldn’t have served the purpose that quilting is supposed to serve in my life. For the time being, I’m only quilting if it can be relaxed and fun.

New Rules:

• Being more attentive to my creative life as emotional and mental recovery

• Consequently: Taking time to play with fabric and/or thread (embroidery counts) every week

• Only do either of the above if they’re relaxing and fun, not stressful and obligatory.

Now that my sewing room is ready for some fun, I have to decide what I’ll work on. Do I do a new, fun, fast, easy project? Do I work on the BOTMs I have stacked up? Do I finish up a UFO or two, to get them out of my head? I’m trying to decide what sounds enjoyable, not what I feel I should do. What are you working on?

The Lost Is Found!

Or, at least, partially found…

After I finished posting that last blog post I was reading through older posts to see how many times I had actually gotten in my sewing room, and I found reference to having received the fabrics for the wedding quilt. Once I saw the picture of them, I immediately found them on my shelves. They blended in too well with the rest of the fabric!

I also found my print out of the design, which is based on Judy Martin’s Shakespeare in the Park. I’d resized it, though, and hadn’t done the borders the way she had hers (I just want to do a simple binding to help it look a little more fresh and clean). Unfortunately, I only printed off the design and the fabric requirements, not the block design or cutting instructions. I still have hopes it exists somewhere in my computer, though! I shall persevere!

One step forward, three (or more back)...

So once again I’m taking baby steps towards getting quilting back in my life. I cleaned my sewing room this afternoon…well, just don’t look closely at that one corner…and was ready to print off the design I’d created on EQ a long time ago for an upcoming wedding quilt so I could get my head organized around it. I could swear I’d also taken advantage of a big sale online at one point to pick up some fabric for it.

That would seem like a step forward, right? Cleaning up, sorting fabric, getting ready to go?

I booted up my computer, only to find that somewhere along the way I’d had to reformat and not only was EQ8 not on there, but neither was the design file. Gone.

And even though I cleaned my sewing room, I can’t find that fabric anywhere. Did I even actually order it? Apparently only the Shadow knows at this point, ‘cause I sure don’t. I’ll have to spend some time online tonight digging around my various fabric site accounts to see if I can track down whether or not I did order it and I just can’t figure out where I stashed it when I came. That being said, I only have one wall of shelves on which I keep fabric. Can’t have gone far if it does exist. Goes to show my level of distraction this past year.

Plus, in the detritus on my cutting table, I found where I’d stuck my little container of embroidery supplies for my embroidery sampler quilt I’m working on—and remembered that Auggie had used it as a chew toy at one point so the lid doesn’t stay latched on the container and one of the corners is entirely gone. (Luckily he only chewed on the outside because the inside could’ve been bad news for him!)(Second parentheses: Auggie has also gone through three TV remotes and a few pairs of rubber-handled scissors in recent months. Definitely in his teenager phase, the dope.) So I have to track down a new solution for that, although it’s not a stopper of making progress. Just a little less convenient.

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Last weekend I took Friday and Saturday fully off. Other than when I was out of state on vacation at the end of August, it’s really hard for me to get a full day off from work, let alone two in a row. I was also alone that weekend as my husband went to visit my daughter to go hiking in the Adirondacks. It was a gorgeous weekend. I intended to do some sewing. Instead, I nested. I spent most of Friday repotting every indoor plant in the house. Believe you me, they needed it. And they’re all looking really enthusiastic now. Saturday I had some other more mundane housework to do, but it was such a beautiful day that after I got that squared away, I hopped in my car and went to three different farm markets to get seasonal decorations for outside and inside the house. I had a great time. Those two days made a huge difference in my spirit, even if I didn’t ever get into my sewing room.

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My other exciting news? I’m finally back in a heel for the first time since my foot nonsense began!

No, it’s not a particularly stunning nor even interesting heel, but it’s just enough to make me look that little bit more dressy-professional when I’m out and about doing my thing. These are Trotters brand and they’re made for people with a wide variety of foot problems.

I got them from the Healthy Feet store. I also got a pair of light leather flats that were incredibly comfortable and supportive but the leather was discolored so I’m sending them back for an exchange.

I don’t recall if I mentioned this in my last post but my podiatrist told me I have arthritis in the entire foot. Most pain now comes from the center top and that’s what’s been causing the bruising and swelling. Cortisone shots and Aleve to the rescue. Digging through my stacks of shoes I’d amassed trying to find anything that worked is what finally sent me online, willing to pay a whole lot more money for a much smaller shoe wardrobe but paring it down to what won’t make me have to ice my foot at night. I just put about 10 pairs of shoes in a donate bag—all of them almost worked, at least enough to fool me into buying them and trying to wear them a few times in hoping they’d eventually wear in or whatever. But I’m done playing these reindeer games.

So that’s an update. Such as it is. I’m out of town the next two weekends—first for vacay with my husband, second for work—so I still won’t be getting much, if any, sewing done. But I hope to at least get my head organized again around that blasted wedding quilt, as well as a very exciting baby quilt I just recently found out I get to make! (I have the pattern and fabrics for that one all neatly stored and labeled in a bin, so no worries about that one getting lost!)

Progress on the "Hunting and Gathering" front

So I spent most of this week moving our offices to a new location. In 90 degree, 90% humidity weather. Although we had some volunteers, I was still lifting and hauling furniture and cartons and such for a few days straight as I packed, we moved, and I unpacked. Needless to say, when the weekend got here, I was toast. It was time for a relaxed, straight-up weekend off. I even cut errands to the bare minimum.

(Top pic: old office mid-packing. Middle pic: new office after moving in. Bottom pic: panorama shot of new office with everything put away. Eventually the side with the round table with be set up for teleconferencing and the side with two chairs in the upper right corner will be set up as more of a living-room feel for smaller meetings. My actual workspace is all in the far right—same amount of space as I took up in the last office, despite this being four times the size! The administrative office is separate, and smaller, but still bigger than we used to have, and we have a small reception area leading to both offices. It’s a great space and I look forward to when we’re finally able to afford to fully furnish and decorate it! One step at a time….)

I did manage to get in some much-needed friend-time. I’ve recently reconnected with a high-school friend, who had married another high-school friend right out of high school. I actually knew her now-husband better than her in high school because he and I were in several classes together starting in elementary school; I saw her less often. Now that we’ve reconnected, though, I said to her, “I’m wondering why I wasn’t closer friends with you in high school!” It wasn’t that we weren’t friends—we were more along the lines of friendly acquaintances. When we were together, we got along great. We just weren’t together all that much. We’re fixing that now. She and her husband raise Siberian Huskies. They have 18 adult dogs and do their own breeding, very carefully, and only once a year or less. They have very strict rules about only having one female have two litters total, if that, because it takes such a toll on the mom’s body. They’re also very careful about who gets one of their puppies. They’re basically dog-lovers first who then offer some very loved, cared for puppies into the world on occasion.

They currently have a litter of pups who are about 3 or 4 weeks old and in need of socializing. And I was in need of puppy breath. So my BFF/BQF Katie (another one of our circle who all grew up together), Katie’s daughter and I went out to visit the puppies on Saturday.

I discovered that Husky puppies aren’t quite as face-oriented as Springer Spaniels (the puppies I grew up with) or Golden Retrievers (the puppies I’ve had as an adult), so getting my fill of puppy breath was a little more work with these little guys. But going nose-to-nose with them garnished enough nose nibbles and face licks that I got enough to get by. They were absolute sweeties. And hearing their carers/owners talk about their pack was a joy—they clearly love them so much.

Boy, did I need that puppy breath.

But this is not, all signs pointing to the contrary, a dog blog.

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Because I was toast, I just couldn’t get my mojo up for any actual sewing again this weekend. Instead, I managed to push some UFOs forward in a non-sewing way.

I dropped the two jelly-roll race quilts off at an LQS for machine quilting. It felt good to get them off the hanger in my sewing room.

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I looked at the LQS for fabrics for backings for the other two pieced tops I have ready to go, but didn’t find anything that appealed and I was running late for meeting my friends for Puppy-a-looza so I bagged it for then. As I was driving home, my face covered in puppy licks, I realized it was too late to stop at any other quilt shops that afternoon. Given how little time I have to actually go shopping, I decided I was going to have to risk doing it online.

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Backing for shabby-chic sampler quilt

This afternoon I did a little looking around at various online fabric places and finally found what I think will work at The Fat Quarter Shop. It’s tricky trying to match colors in a physical quilt with what you’re seeing on your computer screen, but since I wasn’t going for an exact match and rather a “coordinate with” type of fabric, I think it should work. Plus, it’s only the back.

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Backing for taupe sampler

I’m not 100% convinced I have binding fabric for either of these two quilts but I decided that’s a problem for another day. I didn’t have enough puppy breath built up in my system to try to take care of that today too.

Not even a seam…

No sharp things were involved in today’s short stint in the sewing room.

This weekend is completely unscheduled but I also know better than to assume that would mean hours in the sewing room. Groceries needed to be gotten. Clothes needed putting away. And my main focus these last few days has been wrangling my work task list into something less overwhelming, so yes, I spent a little bit of time “working,” although it was all in the name of stress relief. Feeling like things may be dropping through cracks was giving me grief, so a few hours on the weekend spent making sure my organizational system is in order is basically self-care at this point.

So I managed about 20 minutes in the sewing room. Since I was also having an attack of the sleepies at the time, I decided it was safest not to work with rotary cutters or needles. So I measured.

These two UFOs will need a trip to the fabric store to procure backing fabrics. Measurements were taken and math done.

The UFO on the top already has backing fabric but I had lost steam by then and didn’t even feel up to measuring and math.

Tomorrow is another day.

Well, a little is better than nothing…

Going into the long weekend of the 4th of July, I had dreams of actually getting a chunk of time to spend in my sewing room.

It was not to be.

I think I managed about a half hour. But still, that was enough time to put together the backing for the other of my jelly roll race quilts to be taken to a long-arm quilter.

Gee, look at that. I sewed one whole seam. Look at me go.

(Believe it or not, I had ironed the fabric. So much for that.)

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And yet, despite the snail’s pace sewing, I still seem to find a way to collect for my stash. I’m blaming this one on those two wonderful books I posted about a few days ago. They have some wonderful designs for 2 1/2” strips! So, yes, when Missouri Star Quilt Company had some Laurel Burch on one of it’s daily deals, I bit.

I’m about to crack open the book with a cup of tea. It’s all about the dreaming, after all.

A girl can dream...

Judging by today’s mail, one might think I actually plan on doing more sewing soon.  

Unfortunately, this is a travel weekend so nothing is happening again for awhile, but at least I have pretty new books to help me dream.  

#CDSI (Comp Day Sew-In)

I did it! Look at me! I spent time in my sewing room!

It’s amazing what happens when you actually clean your sewing room, doesn’t it? With it all ready to go, it didn’t take much convincing to get myself back into it.

It wasn’t an incredibly productive day, but it was productive enough.

If you recall, I’d once again signed up for the Cotton Cuts Puzzle Mystery Quilt for this spring, a pattern named “Stratford.” I’m doing the Juliet colorway, which is 1930s-inspired. I’ve been collecting the monthly shipments in a pile in my sewing room and finally sat down to knock out the Month 1 clue today.

They come with a swatch sheet to keep track of which fabrics are which throughout the process, clear instructions, and the pre-cut fabric pieces. It’s the Legos of quilting. When I’m functioning at as little brain-power as I am right now, this is exactly what can get me to my machine. They’d be really fast to put together if you wanted, but I am moving very slowly these days so it was a bit of a meditative approach for me this afternoon. Just what the doctor ordered.

Those pieces eventually (meditatively) became this…

So unusually sweet for me.

I may have to give this one away when it’s done, we’ll see. Meanwhile, it’s nice to work outside of my usual color choices. Especially when someone else has done all the thinking for me.

I decided to take all the months’ clues out of the envelopes and put them in the bin (they’re in plastic bags within the envelopes). In doing so, I found the advertisement for the fall Mystery Puzzle Quilt. So I bit. I’ll be doing the large again (72x54) like I am this spring.

It’s named “Cosmos” this time, and I’m doing the Reiki colorway.

I love the aqua batiks—those aren’t at all unusual for me to use. The salmony-pink is a little outside my typical zone, though, as I’m not a pastel kind of person, so once again I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to do something a little off my normal beaten path.

And I doubt I’ll have much more time in the fall than I do now, so the Lego Approach to Quilting will once again come in handy.

The final bit of sewing I got done before I hit a wall (and it hit hard!) was to get the backing pieced and pressed for this jelly roll strip quilt that you may recall from way back when.

Not very exciting, but one step closer to having another finished project. Once I pay someone to nearly-finish it for me, that is.

I have a second jelly roll strip quilt I did at the same time that I thought I’d also prep today but, like I said, the wall got to me before I could do more than pull it off the shelf and locate the backing fabric I’d set aside to use for it. Still, knowing what my next sewing needs to be once I get back in my sewing room will make it that much quicker. It’s a fast back to piece (cut 4 yards of fabric in half, sew it back together in a different direction, good to go).

And with Mom back where she’s supposed to be, all is right in Auggie’s world.

June Sew Sampler Reveal

So I not only opened my Sew Sampler but I actually had the time to take everything out of the box and look at it this time!

This month’s theme is “Be Our Guest.” It contains two charm packs, which it often does, but this time the packs come from two different collections that coordinate well together, which is a fun twist. It’s “Walkabout” by Sherri & Chelsi and “Strawberry Jam” by Corey Yoder (both Moda). I’m finding myself in an unusual-for-me vintage mood these days with fabrics. These look just enough 30s or mid-century that I find them quite appealing. I’m not normally a traditional print kind of girl, but I’m also all about variation and new things so I’m just riding this wave for a bit.

One of the patterns is Block #3 from the quilt-along for the year, “Goodness Grows” by Corey Yoder. I don’t do the quilt-alongs but I’m keeping all the block patterns ‘cause ya never know. The other patterns is “Sunday Best Pillows,” from the Sunday Best Quilts Book by Sherri McConnell and Corey Yoder (Martingale). The pillows are cute—one is quite simple, the other would be a little more pokey. Not sure I’d make them but it’s a nice gift idea.

The tchotchke in this box are some sewing machine cleaning brushes and some needle storage tubes. Not sure I’m seeing the needle storage tubes getting much use in my life. My favorite Tulip Hiroshima needles already come in tubes, although these new storage tubes have a magnet that pull the needles out and fan them to make them easier to select. So, maybe. And cleaning brushes? Absolutely!

My favorite little notion in here, though, is the small felted wool pressing mat. I already have one of the big ones and absolutely love it. This little one will be great for doing paper piecing or smaller seam pressing right next to my sewing machine. I’m so happy to have this!

Leading a workshop at our denominational conference

I have today off as a comp day, so I do plan on doing some sewing. I’m pretty darn exhausted (there’s a reason I have comp days after spending a long weekend networking at a denominational conference) so I’m not sure how productive I’ll be, but stay tuned!

Umm...well...yeah...it’s been awhile

if you hadn’t guessed, things got busy here in Western NY. The last time I posted (Boxing Day 2018) turned out to be the last time I touched my sewing machine. In fact, the few times I had enough breathing room to even think about sewing, I’d totally lost my mojo; something about being overtired, overwhelmed, and just a little bit strung out. The new job has been kicking my tuckus and I’ve just not had energy for anything other than reading in my free time. Not that there’s a whole lot of free time to begin with. That being said, I’m absolutely loving the job. I am so completely into what I’m doing now that it makes everything okay. And now, at about 8 months in, I’m starting to feel like I’m getting a little bit of the hang of things. A little, anyway.

Prisca’s new digs

This summer, as things slow down a bit here in the northeast (churches generally go program-lite in the summer and no one wants to be locked inside in meetings during our few nice weeks of the year) I’m trying to reclaim my personal life, slowly but surely. Trying to find space to once again return to things I love, like quilting. Earlier today I re-subscribed to a bunch of quilt magazines that I used to love. I think some of the no-quilting-issue has been out-of-sight-out-of-mind as I no longer work in the home office that shares space with my quilting studio. I’ve rarely been even going into that room. Just this week I moved my poor ignored Betta fish into a new aquarium in my family room so he’d have company again. 

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Auggie likes the idea of me settling into my office again.

Not using the sewing room much, of course, doesn’t mean it didn’t still get all stacked up with stuff. It’s been a dumping ground for the last several months. Today I gave myself a Sunday off from visiting a church as I’ve had quite a stretch of packed work-weekends (and work-weeks) and wanted to stay home with my hubby on Father’s Day. However, he’s feeling a bit under the weather so it turned into a very quiet day before heading to my MILs later for the family get-together. So, today’s return-to-sewing endeavor was to clean out my sewing room.

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Uncovered a few new spools of thread

Now that I’ve taken care of that, I’ve decided my next step in clearing the decks to get ready for actual sewing again will be sorting through my UFOs and sending off anything that just needs to be quilted so I can get them finished by check. I’d been delaying because I kept telling myself I should do it myself but, frankly, if they haven’t gotten done in the last four or five years, they won’t ever get done. Time to contract those puppies out. I also need to get myself organized for the two wedding quilts I have in my head. One niece gets married next April, the other probably the year after that (she’s finishing up nursing school first, she says). I have both designs and much of the fabric but haven’t created myself project boxes with everything in one place. So that needs to get organized.

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And a shipment of Tulip Hiroshima needles from Massdrop

Will I ever get to a quilt retreat again? Signs point to not-anytime-soon. With all the travel I’m doing, when I do have a weekend off I prefer to to nest. Someday, I’m sure, I’ll slow down enough to fit that kind of thing back in.

I have, however, started pondering whether there might be a role for an Accu-Quilt in my life. When one doesn’t have much time, one explores time-saving techniques. Feel free to share your opinions and experiences with me!

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And five months’ worth of Sew Sampler boxes, plus a fabric collection from Fat Quarter shop in prep for one niece’s wedding quilt

So that’s my update. I decided I should return to blogging with some sort of regularity, though, because I think everything goes hand-in-hand. When I was podcasting and blogging, I was quilting so I’d have something to talk and write about. I stopped podcasting and blogging and gee, there went the quilting. I don’t have time for the podcasting at this stage, but I should be able to start squeezing in a little sewing room time and some short updates here and there, I hope. 

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Clean, ready to go, and a very happy dog ensconced once again on his bed.

On the other hand, it may be another 6 months before you hear from me again. 

#BDSI Report (Boxing Day Sew-In)

I had a very relaxing day today. I’ve chosen to work tomorrow and Friday as it’ll be really quiet (everyone I serve is recovering from what Christmas is in congregational life so no one will want to talk to me). We’ve got lots of internal systems we’re working on so it’ll be good to have a couple of days without many phone calls or external demands on us to get things as settled as possible. All that’s to say today was my one serious pajama day, to just kick back and relax. ​I spent most of the morning reading a novel, as I said in a previous blog post. There was some cleaning to be done. But I did get to my sewing machine.

​The first thing I decided to take care of was finishing off the blocks from the Cotton Cuts Puzzle Mystery Quilt. If you recall, I was sent the wrong blocks the first time around and it caused several back and forth email exchanges with Kim from Cotton Cuts. However, I finally got the correct blocks and Kim was fantastic about the whole thing so the end result was that I have already signed up for their Spring Puzzle Mystery Quilt. It’s a fun, easy, fast way to keep myself sewing even when I have very little time or brain power.

This is one of the four blocks I finished (all identical). I had hoped to actually start working on piecing the top together but first, I had to get what was living on my design wall off of it. Which meant turning my attention to my other work in progress.​

I blogged about this one a few posts ago—I got all the blocks pieced a couple of weeks ago and had them up on my design wall as I’d had to work on the layout to avoid identical fabrics being too close. I had to give up in a couple of cases but it’s close enough. 

I still have to do the borders, of course. It’s not my favorite project but once I get the borders done it’ll be cute enough. Not sure what I’ll do with it once it’s finished—whether I’ll keep it or it’ll be put away as a future gift. 

By the time I got that piecing done, I was pretty much “put a fork in me, I’ done.” Christmas Day was a long day with family fun and such so I went back to my novel for a bit, then pulled out a Christmas gift from my mother-in-law that I was anxious to take for it’s maiden voyage for dinner....our new air fryer. ​

Yum.  

Using the air fryer for the breaded chicken and my instant pot for the rice (I went old school saucepan to heat up the sauce, though), I had chicken Parmesan in just about 15 minutes for dinner.  

I’m so happy. Cooking after a work day just got SO much more interesting! 

And now my husband, daughter, and I are off to see Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse.  

Yes, indeed, a relaxing vacation day all around.  

December Aurifil Thread Club

You may recall from some post a few months back that I had subscribed to the Aurifil Thread Club. Unfortunately, month’s one delivery went down for the count when my husband dropped the enveloped onto the driveway without noticing when he got the mail, and then later backed over it with his car. I tried to squeeze those poor little thread spools back into any sort of shape that would fit on my sewing machine to no avail. He felt terrible. I figured it was probably for the best as I wasn’t getting in my sewing room any time soon anyway and that gave me a good excuse as to why not. “Well, I’d be sewing right now, but my beautiful new thread is a pancake.”

I just got this month’s a day or two ago, and immediately spirited it to safety upstairs into my sewing room. The closest danger there is Auggie deciding the spools are chew toys, so I have to keep them off the floor.

So this month is the Peppermint Color Pack. I’m not entirely sure why. It looks more salmon-y than peppermint to me.

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Here are the spools in their non-plastic-covered splendor.

Left to right:

2230

2460

6729

2420

All 50 weight

And now, time to stop catching up on blog posts and get to actually sewing on this #BDSI. (As a sneak peek—I got the correction block for my Cotton Club Mystery Puzzle quilt last week so I think I may be able to finally get that top put together!)

December Sew Sampler Box

I’ve taken today, the day after Christmas, as a vacation day and, although my plan was to spend most of the day in my sewing room, a new novel beckoned this morning (from December’s BOTM: The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay. Loving it so far!). That, along with a certain level of weariness after yesterday’s family festivities, meant I spent most of the morning with coffee curled up in an armchair near the fireplace. Not a bad way to kick off a vacation day at all.

After lunch, I ventured into my sewing space. Oops, yes, there was some cleaning to be done first, as it was also gift-wrapping central. 15 minutes later I then realized I had the December Sew Sampler box that I had done little more than glance at when it arrived. So here’s my Sew Sampler box report. By now, I know anyone who has subscribed has already gotten theirs and knows what’s in it so I’m not ruining any reveals here!

The theme, as you can see here, is “Winter with You.” That being said, the box had a much more spring feeling to me. Not sure how they decided this was a winter box.

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This cute little pair of Cherry Gingham Heart Snips from Quiling in the Rain by Jera Brandvig definitely make me think of summer picnics with the red gingham. With their short blades, I think I might be able to get these on a plane, as I’m really working my brain into gear for taking my embroidery with me on all the trips I have lined up this spring. (I’ll mostly be doing carry-on luggage so the scissor blade length is critical.) I’ll be spending a fair number of evenings by myself in hotel rooms so there’s really NO REASON not to have it with me…or so I’m reminding myself now so I don’t get a fit of the lazies when I’m packing and decide to leave it behind.

If you look carefully, you’ll see the bit of plastic tubing they included in the package to put over the blade tip. Nice touch.

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In the same “handy tool” theme, this box also included 4.5” swiss style tweezers, by Tula Pink Hardware. According to the package, you can use it for pulling threads, of course, but also as a stilletto or to get a hold of embellishments and such. I’m trying to decide where it’s best for me to store this tool—would I use it more in my embroidery life, and therefore it should be in my embroidery case? Or would I use it more at my sewing machine, therefore warranting a space in my tool holder next to my machine? Pondering. In either case, it looks like it’ll be a nice tool and, although I already have tweezers in several places in my sewing collection, these have a nice angled point that sets them apart.

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Ah, Aurifil. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways! (Which we’ll be able to do with my next blog post as well.) I suppose you could think of this color as a wintery blue but, again, it definitely feels spring to me. Still, it’s a gorgeous color. (MK50-2805 if you want to look it up.)

The color is selected to match the fabric…

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This box includes the Woodland Rose Mini-Origami Squares (two packages) and a finishing kit for the totebag pattern below.

I messed up the nice packaging to show both fabrics in the photo. It’s a very nice collection, although not entirely my style. I went through a Shabby Chic phase many years ago but haven’t been there in awhile. Still, I certainly know people who might appreciate it as a gift.

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The fabrics and thread are all intended for this pattern, The Avondale Tote Bag Pattern, a Fat Quarter Shop Exclusive.

It’s a nice pattern but, as a tote bag, it’s just not quite my bag. Ar ar ar. Nope, couldn’t resist, especially as overtired as I am today.

I prefer to use totebags that have some sort of closure at the top. However, there is certainly use for open totebags—think “packing for a quilt retreat,” although I haven’t been on a quilt retreat in quite some time and, with all my upcoming work travel, don’t see myself getting to another one any time soon. If I am looking for a relatively straight-forward project at some point, though, this might eventually fit the bill. We’ll see.

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Last is the usual Barn Block Recipe, and we’re up to #9. I’m keeping all of these although I’m not sure, again, if I’ll ever use them. But I can’t predict the future and they don’t take up much space in my sewing room, so it’s not a problem to hang onto them just in case.

So that’s it—my December Sew Sampler box opened, examined, and blogged about, and I even managed to get it done before getting my January Sew Sampler box!

And now I’ve gotten my first "#BDSI* project done—cleaning off my cutting table and dealing with the first past-due blog post.

On to blog post #2…

*Boxing Day Sew-In, if you’re not in the loop.

A more successful Saturday afternoon

I did, indeed, go back to sewing after posting yesterday’s blog, and finished the blocks for the random jell roll strip top I’d started in those two weeks I had off between jobs. ​

So here are all the blocks laid out. I didn’t end up with as much contrast as I really should have in the nine-patches but it’s good enough for horseshoes. The design calls for a pieced border which I will do as it’ll use up more strips from the jelly roll, which is a good thing.​

I don’t know if I’ll have sewing time today—I need to do groceries and some food prep for the week, plus my MIL is having folks over for a casual gathering for my husband’s aunt’s birthday. Several of the Fam are at the Bills game, though, so it’s not an all-out family gathering. Frankly, I’m still in enough of an introvert-recovery mode that I’d love to just spend the whole day at home in silence but I know I’ll have a good time once I drag myself out of the house-nest.​

It does feel so good to have finally played with fabric again. ​

Oh—and the almost-ending to the Cotton Cuts story: Kimberly got back to me this morning with a very apologetic email and refunding me the cost of month 6, and a promise she’s putting the correct one in the mail tomorrow. Turns out (as I’d sent her the picture of the block I’d made in error), that was month 6 of the previous mystery quilt. She has no idea how it happened that I’d get the wrong instructions with the right fabrics and the team who bagged all those clues is now gone. Anyway, her response was very nice and very prompt and she solved the problem exactly as she should have. So yes, I’ve just signed up for the next one. The Spring 2019 Puzzle Mystery Quilt “Stratford” just launched. I’m doing the larger one this time, and I’ve taken a complete left turn in terms of the color way as I chose one that looks very 1930s (“Juliet”). It’s not my normal schtick but I’ve been feeling a yen for doing a 30s quilt lately so this seemed like an easy way to work that yen out of my system.

So, that’s that! Tune in (probably next week) for more adventures in Sandy’s sewing room... 

Trying to re-enter the quilting world with limited success

So my last post was entitled “Survived my first week” and then you didn’t hear from me again. I guess that’s about as descriptive as I can be about life in my new job. Still loving it, but it has been busy! I took yesterday (Friday) as a comp day for the fact I’d worked most of the last weekend and realized it was probably the third full day off I’d had since I started five weeks ago. I’m slowly learning how to control my schedule better. Yesterday I spent running some errands and doing some Christmas decorating.

I decided to bag doing housework and such today (which has also fallen behind a bit) and focus on reading Michelle Obama’s Becoming (loving it!), and getting back into my sewing room.

Unfortunately, the sewing room part has been a bit frustrating. I have been sadly reminded of why I gave up doing blocks of the month. The first one I tried many years ago kept sending me incorrrect sizes of fabric to cut my pieces out of, and I ended up giving up and cancelling about four months into it. This time around, last year I bit on the Cotton Cuts puzzle mystery quilt. I loved the fabrics and the idea of everything being die-cut so all I had to do was assemble seemed tailor-made for my busy schedule while I was finishing my doctoral work.

However, I’ve had multiple go-arounds with Kim at Cotton Cuts trying to correct mistakes—I was sent the wrong size piece for month 6, then when she sent me the correction I received the same wrongly-sized pieces. We finally got that straightened out but, today when I went to finally assemble the quilt, I’ve discovered I was actually sent the wrong month 6 altogether. Each month we were instructed to label our completed pieces by some letter/number combination, which I did faithfully. The layout for the size I’m working on requires blocks labeled F. I looked over my stacks of blocks. “F? Where’s F? I have no F!”

I spent about 15 minutes going back through everything, laying them out in the order of the months I received (I did always keep the instructions each month, thank God, or I’d have been totally lost), and came to the conclusion that nope, I was never instructed to make blocks labeled F. Also fortunately, the last layout “clue” includes a list of which months we were supposed to make which blocks, so I could pinpoint the exact month that went awry—yep, the one I kept getting the wrong sized pieces for. Strangely, though, my instructions for month 6 are labeled for the correct size quilt I’m making, but the blocks are distinctly not what’s needed. Stranger and stranger.

I’ve sent yet another email to Kim at Cotton Cuts with photos of the two blocks I ended up with and instructions for month 6 to point out how messed up all this is, and then said that I had originally been thinking I’d join the new BOM mystery puzzle quilt that just opened this week but am now hesitant to do so because of these problems. It’s frustrating that something I was enjoying should have this kind of an end-story. Especially frustrating that I get so little time to sew and I was stymied at the get-go.

So I have it all laid out on my design wall with big gaps where block F is supposed to go. I can certainly start sewing together the pieces that form the borders and such so I’m ready to finish it when I get the corrected month, but at this point I’m already a little worried they’ll be out of the fabrics needed. Fingers crossed I won’t end up with a slew of orphan blocks all for want of month 6.

At the moment, I’m also not keen on the fabric they sent for the binding. I’m going to wait until I get everything assembled and then decide final steps. But that’s a small thing. I would just love to finally be able to have a finish under my belt, for the first time in months!

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Meanwhile, I am happy to say that my desk got assembled and my office is finally put together!

The panoramic style makes it look a little bigger than it is, but it’s a comfortable space for me now. Note the space heater—the radiator under the windows is finicky and often needs help.

The quilt on the wall is one my mother made. I don’t know the origin story although it’s a sampler that smacks of a block of the month or class or something. But one of the blocks is a church and most of the rest are either crosses or biblically-related blocks (ie Jacob’s Ladder), and the office really needed some warmth and color in it, so it seemed fitting.

And no, I can’t put an area rug under the conference table because it’s strategically placed over a large old-fashioned metal outlet box that protrudes up from the middle of the floor. I do now (after this pic was taken) have a small quilted Christmas table-topper on the round wooden table at the side. Eventually more little bits and pieces may make their way into the office but for now I’m comfortable for working and have room for people to come visit and drink tea or coffee with me. And that’s happened a lot!

After 17 years of working from home, I have to confess that I’m enjoying having an office.

Now, back to my sewing table and figuring out what I might actually be able to accomplish today, that’s not under the control of external forces!