Reading and reading and....

 It's only been a week since my surgery, and I am already feeling reader's fatigue. 

Even though I can't do any stitching, my Lap App has come in pretty handy. I'm using a strip of tee shirt sleeve (from what's left of my go-to mask making shirt) as a phone holder while I read. it's been working great--glad I thought of it! I have two Kindles but they are old school push-button navigation, so I prefer swiping on my phone's Kindle app.

It's also is helpful for reading books--wish I had realized this a long time ago!

I haven't tried a magazine but I'm excited to dig into this one--just arrived yesterday. 

The last thing I worked on before my wrist surgery were the appliques for my Di Ford quilt. It's hard to know that everything is ready to go but I have to leave it all untouched.

  My post-op appt. is still a week away, so I am trying to be good. The most strenuous thing I have done is to deadhead my petunias--lol! Actually, writing this post hasn't been easy. Thank goodness for the undo button! If I post again, I may forego caps and punctuation--just a warning. 

August One Monthly Goal

My One Monthly Goal for August is to complete the applique blocks for this months Afternoon Delight BOM. I have five days to get them done. I'm going easy on myself since after the sixth I will be "out of commission". I'm finally biting the bullet and having bone fusion surgery on my left wrist as the cortisone hasn't been helping with the pain anymore. I've had my Covid test and am self isolating until the "big day". 

I was hoping to get all twenty Clayton James blocks completed before surgery, but only managed to get this far. I've been cleaning cupboards, relining shelves and drawers, washing windows and weeding my gardens. I have been feeling like I will never be able to do anything ever again! My instructions are to keep my wrist absolutely immobile after surgery for up to 6 weeks (possibly longer) to allow the fusion to heal, so I won't attempt to finish any of more of these blocks for quite a while. 

In anticipation of getting back to sewing this fall, I have cut out and made test blocks for several quilts from Linda Koenig's Ratsburg Road Quilts book. 

In the meantime, I will be catching up on my reading! 

Linking with One Monthly Goal here:

 https://www.elmstreetquilts.com/2020/08/one-monthly-goal-august-link-up.html

July One Monthly Goal Finish

My July One Monthly Goal was to complete the Broken Star quilt. You can see I did  an edge to edge design--Amoebas Gone Wild. 

I originally began quilting this with straight lines, but when I was almost a third of the way through, I realized that I didn't like the way it was looking--so many lines going on between the blocks and the quilting! Too bad I didn't figure that out before I was so far into it.
Needless to say, the next two days were not happy--especially since my sewing room registered 89 degrees--whew! 

I managed to use up some nice chunks of leftover fabric for the backing--always a good thing. 

And a sweet check that was gifted to me, cut on the bias for the binding--love it! 

Linking with One Monthly Goal HERE

The Parade Continues.....

Are you feeling the Sweet William block parade fatigue? I know I am, so here are all the rest of the blocks in one fell swoop. I think I managed not to repeat any of the previously shown blocks. 

Now I have some big decisions to make. 

I am having second thoughts on the yellow gingham alternate blocks (do I really want a yellow quilt?). Also, do I set the blocks like the original quilt or a regular on point setting?

 So many things to ponder! 

Block Parade

Since I have finished all the pieced Afternoon Delight blocks, this is all I have to show for July's block of the month. As you can see, I'm still focusing on adding more green and yellow fabrics.

And here are four more of my finished Sweet William blocks. There's not too much else going on in the sewing room since I'm finishing up my Broken Star quilt. The binding is on and being stitched closed--yay!

More SW blocks coming soon.....

Happy Fourth!

I did a little patriotic stitching last week. 

This project been bookmarked in a magazine for years (Quilting Ideas Spring 2001!). In my defense, it's paper pieced, so that was a huge roadblock for me. Surprisingly it was much easier than I anticipated.

And a few bowl fillers made from scraps. I used a Miss Rosie pattern for inspiration, but the size of the scraps kind of dictated the sizes. 

Have a fun and safe Fourth of July!

July One Monthly Goal

I'm pretty excited to get my Broken Star finished, so it will be my July One Monthly Goal. I plan to add a narrow sashing between the top and bottom rows (not shown in this photo) and also a small border. I'm not sure how I will quilt it yet--that decision seems to happen after I get it loaded onto the quilting machine. 

As promised, here are four of my finished Sweet William blocks--more to come soon.

I'm linking with Elm Street Quilts for July's One Monthly Goal here:

https://www.elmstreetquilts.com/2020/07/one-monthly-goal-july-link-up.html