Back in the studio....

This week I finally sat down at the sewing machine again!  For the past few weeks my quilting has been limited to perusing magazines and cruising blogs.  It was just too difficult to focus with a sick husband, a sick dog, and a sick me.  

But things are getting better!  My DH went to the office for a few hours the past couple days which allowed me a bit of time to try and get things back to normal.  Still a ways to go but I did finish his birthday quilt top...now I remember why I don't make a lot of king size quilts!  Putting borders on them is brutal!

Today I even got to slip out for a quilt bee with my quilt.  One of the members brought a box.  It belonged to a friend's grandmother and she asked her to make something with the pieces.

Isn't this piece of Alice and Wonderland fabric great!

Dating all of this is pretty easy...lots of paperwork with dates on it!

Even the box itself is interesting...

A finish of sorts....

With everything that has gone on this summer I've let some things slip...like the guild donation quilt!  In my mind I had moved this on to someone else when  my husband fell ill...well, I didn't.

Last week I saw it still sitting on my Dining Room table still missing one border....how hard can putting one border be right...silly me.  First you can really do a bad job with the math....(what is 10 inches give or take...)

Then you can cut angle with the inner border on the wrong side....

of course you can also sew the inner border on so the seam shows but I decided that was not worth a photo...

Anyway it is done.  Tonight I'll run it over the member of the guild that is going to quilt it.  We need to have if finished by the second week of October so we still have a bit of time....it wouldn't be the first donation quilt that has quilters still sewing down binding at its first showing.....

Home for Troops

Today SFC Sean Giddons received the key to his now accessible home thanks to lots of local volunteers and Homes for Troops.  It was a very touching ceremony.  His former NCOIC came out from Oklahoma and there were lots of vets in attendance.

Members of my quit guild had volunteered during build days and made a Quilt of Valor for him.  We wanted it to be both patriotic and to represent the new home that will provide more independence for him and his family.

(The pattern for this quilt is a variation on one from Bonnie Hunter's website - Quiltville.com.  I added a house block as a medallion and a checkered border.  Lots of members worked on the piecing.  It was quilted by Maggie Hunt and bound by Ille Waters.)

almost back...

I walked into my sewing room earlier today in a daze.  I haven't touched needle, thread of fabric for two weeks.  I walked back out to the living room a bit confused and not sure where to start!  Yikes!

I did read several quilting magazines, a few books, and did a lot of sketching.  (my favorite pass-time in the hospital had to be my block of graph paper and colored pencils...kept me entertained/distracted for hours.)  I'm not sure I am ready to start work on any of those.  I really feel like I should "finish" something on my design wall or the cutting table but here is my dilemma...I can't find my notes (that is if I made any!)  So even my old projects are like starting new ones again!  And that takes energy I don't have right now...

Speaking of energy...my husband came home from the hospital yesterday.  Yeahhhhh!!!  He is doing better but will still need a lot of time to recover.  He had a bout of acute pancreatitis...very, very painful.  My challenge now is to figure out a diet for him.  When they released him they said he had to be on a diabetic-soft diet.  I figured I should be able to find one on the internet...nope.  I can find soft and I can find diabetic but the closest to soft-diabetic is a list of things a diabetic can eat after dental surgery.  That is fine if you are on it for a couple of days but my DH is starting to sniffle at the idea of more soup and jello.  So I have been trolling the recipe sites and making a adjustments to fit what I think will make low fat, low sugar, low fiber meals.   Just trying to toss a bit a taste into the mix!  My first attempt was a faux "baked potato" soup...not bad and it really made him feel like he was getting real food...

The photos are of a Baltimore style crib quilt circa 1840 (39 by 39 inches.)  The applique is nice but the quilting is amazing.  One of the clues that it was made as a crib quilt and not a cut down bed size is how the feathers quilted around the border of the quilt fit perfectly...even making the curves in the corners.

Off the Grid for a bit...

Just wanted to let you know I will not be on blogger for at least another week.  My husband has been in ICU since Monday and will most likely be there a few more days.  It has been a bit crazy.  He has a good medical team though and I'm feeling more confident every day that he will recover.

Hope to have him home and be back to quilting soon....