Slow, slow stitching

More or less four weeks since I wrote anything here,
I think that's a first!

Definitely slow progress on all fronts, but progress all the same.

March is officially the beginning of Autumn here in New Zealand 

already the leaves are turning on our Japanese Maple and the huge oak tree
in the garden next door.

I'm now in a heavy duty splint with permission to enjoy my stitching and
quilting in small chunks of time, there are only small chunks of time
because I have so many physio exercises to work on!

So, what have I been spending time on in the past week of cast freedom,

creating order in my blue quarter/half yard drawer,
sorting through scraps a little at a time and cutting hexagons
out of suitable sized small pieces

and to save time I decided to try one of the glue sticks made
for that purpose, it would also
put less pressure on my hands, never done this before and did wonder about the
removal of papers, after one hour I decided to see if I had success with a tidy removal - 
no, I did not!! I shall be back to basting with needle and thread.

I have a new book

and I don't truly know why I did this when Judy Newman quilts
are pretty detailed and I had limited myself to easy, peasy projects making
use of squares, decent sized triangles and so on.
However, there is one particular quilt in the book which I had seen earlier
Hedgerow
is deliciously scrappy and medallion style.
Just the name of the quilt took me back to my early years back home in
Lancashire living by the moors, farm fields with old stone walls
and also rambles through woodland with mixed hedgerows, collecting
bluebells to take back home to Mum, making daisy chains with friends.
I realised I was once again becoming excited about my quilting after the
past few months.

Hedgerow is definitely going to be started pretty soon, yes, I know have a few
projects on the go right now but I like to work that way. I love making a start on new 
new quilts.

So, guess what arrived in my little studio as I was feeling more energised

another squirrel!

Here is the beginning of my appropriately named quilt

FRACTURED 2

This is a pattern by Kathy Doughty and I made a quilt using this quite a few
years ago,  check out the Fractured QAL label below, given the circumstances I find myself in I just had to do another one!
The pieces are just placed on the design wall, a little stitching planned for the weekend
along with placing an order for the new Kaffe Collective fabric range.

Time to close, my fractured wrist is telling me enough  right now and
as it seems I have something by the name of a rotator cuff tear in my right
shoulder which is quite frankly extremely painful, even down the whole arm,
I really have to keep to my limits.

Happy Quilting

Maureen

Latest news from a bionic quilter!!

 Thank you all so very, very much for your kind words and thoughts on my last post,
they all helped me tremendously and I'm sorry I couldn't reply to all individually at the time.
I didn't ask John to update as he has been so busy during the last four
weeks, I'm sure you'll understand.
This little post will be written with rest times in-between for my hands.

Present situation ....

new fibreglass cast as of two weeks ago
Surgery of almost 2 hours went well, no problems with anaesthetic
and they also gave me a 16hr full arm block to help with the
initial pain when I came around.

I must tell you that I had a 'quilting fairy' as one of the two surgeons!!
I mentioned I was concerned about the outcome as I was a quilter, she said she too
was a quilter taught by her grandma and believe it or not she shops at the
very same store as myself a short ride away - her comment was
"Kaffe Fassett and Tula Pink  - can't get enough" HOORAY!!
She reached under the cover and held my hand as the anaesthetic struggled
to get access to my difficult to access veins and I drifted off quite happily.

Apologies for overlong medical detail in advance, this will be a one off!!

Discharged 24 hrs later after a few little hiccups with medications, two were
missed the night of the operation and two the morning of my discharge, I was also given
morphine. Having not slept for 24 hrs I was not feeling good at all and whilst
with John in the Discharge Lounge I became aware of all these coloured dots
when I closed my eyes, very strange. Home in the car on a very hot day,
seat reclining when I began to see beautiful groves of the most wonderful coloured
trees - purple ones, gorgeous, green even better and so on. Arrived in the drive
where I apparently passed out cold! John was able to get me out of the car as I
was gaining consciousness and we made it into the house. At this point I also had an amazingly heavy
plaster cast.

OP appt two weeks ago I was checked and told I would have to be in a lighter
cast for four more weeks as the surgeons could see I had
thin bones - read osteoporosis here.- and I had really battered the bones .Infusion will be needed to try and
strengthen and stimulate new bone growth.

I could regain up to 80% use of my hand, it won't be as it was before, very stiff
because of the stainless steel and titanium plate going from palm down into the forearm on one bone
and pins and screws holding the other bone with fragments. Both carpal bones
were able to be re-aligned.

However

I decided to see what I could do right now - able to steady two of the
2 and 1/2" squares with two left H fingers and pin with right - bingo!!
In a few days I'll see how I go trying to feed through the machine - fingers crossed.

I have had a brief rummage through one of my huge scrap piles and was
thrilled to find

this beautiful Martha Negley fabric - it's her first, you can see 01
in the selvedge, not ironed as you can see,  I'm now excited to see what other
long hidden treasures are waiting for me in there,.

So, a long path ahead they tell me but I won't let this beat me,
I shall take all care necessary but will be quilting with the help of physio and splints.
I'm going to ask youngest grand-daughter to help me make my little room more
user friendly for a slightly handicapped quilter who has been told that presently
she is not to attempt to lift more than a teacup with my left hand - no problem there, I do
have a working right hand.
I always enjoy a cuppa!

On the subject of a cuppa I bought this fabric a week before my accident, had
to bring a half yard home with me.

I hope to post again in a week with quilting progress.

Happy Quilting

Maureen

taking a break - literally - and sadly

 well my friends this will be my last post for quite some time.

last thursday pulling out a few weeds by my path my neurological disorder kicked in, i lost my balance and use of legs briefly and headin g face down on to the concrete path, to try and save myself i put out my left hand to stop the fall, soon as my hand hit the groun d  i felt and heard the crac ks and crunch after crawling a few yards using r hand i was ab le to make it to gthe house before looking at my hand whic h was now twisted with obvious displacement of bone

 taken to local emergency clinic, x rays the extent of the damage severe off to the nain hospital emegency department, great team told me i had really done a major. tried closed reduction to try line the sheared radial bone, other bones moved and quite a number of fragments as bones had sheared.  ligaments partly torn been in hospital, allowed hoome yesterday for two days go back tomorrow 5am for surgery which i am dreading but without it they have told me straight up i would have a totally useless hand ,with isurgery and plates in with screws and so on at least i should be able to function but there is a long road ahead with casts, braces it support, physio and so on.

as you can imagine i am devestated and sit here in my cosy room surrounded by my lovingly collected fabrics with tears dripping down my face, i had makin g a collection  of aquas for a quilt just for myself so that will a long time off now.

i can use the index r hand finger to type this and whilst morphine dulls the pain it also dulls the senses

please make every minute of you quilting count at least i will be able to read your posts and your latest news

take good care of yourselv es and happy quilyin g

maureen

Welcome to 2022

 My hydrangeas are already changing colour - love it when this happens
and we have the muted antique tones.

So, here we are into another year and I hope we all stay happy, healthy and safe and
can make lots of quilts!

In a previous post I showed the beginnings of a quilt for our eldest grandson
here below

I loved the way I had set up the border but still wasn't happy with the Plus blocks,
I spent ages faffing around and in the end decided to 'close the door' on this
particular design and begin again. The border pieces are saved for use in a future project.

A book by Jen Kingwell had interested me a few months ago

and this quilt in particular

but I wanted more colour, especially for the two solids, shown above
as a grey and mustardy colour. I also had a few doubts about the 

patterned squares, as I often do I changed a few things around.

My choice for the solids shown below

and I decided on the large squares to be 16 patch, bearing in mind that

there would be some waste.

However, I went ahead. The triangles are actually sewn on as squares and then

cut on the diagonal, I decided to sew another line 1/2" from the centre

in order to have mini blocks after cutting between the two stitched lines.

Here are three finished sample blocks along with a side rectangular piece

and I also have the left over mini pieces below

Apart from playing with this new project I've been carrying on with reorganising

my fabric storage and generally having a tidy up in my room here, also

listing future projects and deciding which of the few already in the works

will reach the finish line first!

So, back to work now in a beautifully air-conditioned room escaping

the terrific heat outside! See you next week.

Maureen

Heading towards the end of 2021

Only 13 more days before we reach the last day of 2021,
 I'm hoping that 2022 will be an improvement!

There's nothing exciting to show in this post, frankly I haven't had the energy
nor enthusiasm nor health  this year to enjoy much time in my little sewing haven but I'm hoping
that will change in 2022. My batteries desperately need re-charging, my little studio
needs an overhaul and I'm going to work
on both over the next two weeks.

Two areas I need to address:

the contents above  from one of my four scrap bins.
For many years I just tossed pieces large and small into these bins, no sorting whatsoever,
no neat storage containers for each colour and now I am paying the price!

The mound of fabric you see above actually measures 35" in width,
29" in depth and 18" high - that's a lot of sorting and as I say, I do have four bins of the same size, at least I thought
I had four but it seems I do have two more in a spare closet, I had forgotten about them but DH
found them!

You can see I also have a good collection of strips and strings,
one container of three shown here, 18" x 12" and these also need sorting.
I see a lot of time spent with an iron in my hand remedying the situation!

Before making a start on these chores in the last few days of 2021 my time will be spent, I hope,
relaxing under the maple tree in the garden with a stack of books,  sharing
 lunch on Christmas Day with our family at our eldest son's home, very
handy because  he lives on the opposite side of the road just five houses along.
We are still wearing masks and living lives under what is known as the
Traffic Light System, hopefully it will work with managing Covid cases. 

One good thing right now is that the garden is blooming - good for the soul -
I was able to collect a few flowers to place on Mum's resting place remembering her
birthday on the 9th.

Alstromeria, hydrangeas, lavender, dahlias and one of my much loved
roses Buff Beauty. The yellow and pink dahlia is one from my new collection,
named Pacific Ocean.

Reverse  I placed a sprig of Philadelphus, this has a glorious perfume.

Well, I think I'm going to finish up now and leave you with a photo of
my Pacific Ocean dahlia and wish you all lots of love and happiness
for Christmas and see you in New Year 2022.

Love and God Bless

Maureen

                                            

A little more progress - a new quilt

My last post I was debating which binding to use on
Dolly Mixtures I had a photo of two binding samples against the quilt and asked
for thoughts on which to go with.
Julie aka quiltdivajulie
said in her comment that she was torn between the two shown and the backing
fabric I intending using could influence her choice - good point made.

I've decided on the Green Guinea Flower to go with the bright backing,
this fabric has been sitting on the shelf for a number of years, the many coloured parrots
nicely fit with the fabrics in Dolly Mixtures.

It's been a slow two weeks involving a visit to the hospital
for a consult with a Neurologist, I won't bore you with the medical details
apart from saying that there may be mistakes in words and phrasing
in my posts, these and other symptoms are felt to be consistent
 with a functional neurological disorder.
I know also that my comments on blog posts from others have perhaps been brief
so please forgive me if I do slip up here and there.

A bright spot on the day of the visit was stopping off at our local beach at
Cockle Bay on the drive home

the tide was  out and the sand positively glowed!

Quilting - a quilt for our eldest grandson - 21yrs in January - needed to be
dealt to reasonable quickly, having enjoyed working with the simple squares
of Dolly Mixtures I decided to go with the same format but larger squares,
progress so far

the very dark one on the left will probably be moved, it's looking a little overpowering
just there I think and you can see I'm going with the same format used with DM to create a border
of just  one fabric - KF  Baba Ganoush - another favourite fabric. Fussy cutting is
necessary to create the effect here, I can see there are two squares in the top row
which I'll change out tomorrow. The squares will finish at 4"

Luckily grandson loves colour and will not be averse to having a few
flowery squares in the quilt but I am trying to keep those to a minimum, a 
little tricky when you're a collector of KF Collective fabrics!!

Summer officially began yesterday here in New Zealand, flowers are blooming
and my hydrangeas have excelled themselves, here are two below

the pink one truly is a rich pink.

See you soon, until then happy quilting.

Maureen