Jumping From This to That

 Last week's goal was to finish 34 Cake Stand quilt blocks by Monday, two days ago.  I'm two days late posting and still have not finished them.  I knew when setting the goal that it was going to be a tough one to accomplish but challenges are fun, right?  I also had a veggie garden to weed, harvest and preserve.  Along with the normal summer chores, housework, errands and Mr. Podunk was having an out patient surgery on his foot.  We'll talk more about his foot later.  To prepare for his surgery I needed something to do while in the surgery waiting room.  The Yo-Yo Coverlet I started last year was perfect. So it was time to dig through the scrap bin and cut some circles.

Instead of cutting only what I thought was needed for surgery day I cut all that was needed for this color.  

I might as well go ahead and turn all the edges under so they will all be exactly the same size.  After about 100 I was ready to move on, my neck was sore and I had other things needing to be done before surgery day.  The mess you see below is still there today.

The week continued, I sewed a few Cake Stand blocks at the end of each day.  When I tired of setting I would jump over to the cutting table to work on the bag of scraps I had also wanted to get finished by Monday.

And I'm happy to report, they were all trimmed!  Yippee!  The pile on the right was added to the trash can.  Letting go of these itty bitty scraps feels so good.

And TADA! sorted and stored neatly ...  YIPPEE!  Yes, I really was quite pleased with myself.

Don't forget about the scraps I made from cutting Yo - Yo's.  I need to deal with those.  My rules states "deal with any new scraps as they are made,  no letting them pile up".

And the cutting table today .....  I deal with them when time permits.  They will stay just like this, no putting them away until they are cut!

My sewing room is a bit messy right now. The green arrow is pointing to the Cake Stand blocks that I finished but didn't press.  The sewing table has become a catch all in the last 4 or 5 days.  Like the spray bottle of water. I sprayed my fern on the front porch and then dropped it on the sewing table.  The red arrow is the Yo -Yo's I finished and dropped it on the table until I quit chasing my tail and taking care of hubby.

 I didn't make a lot of Yo - Yo's.  I knew this would be the case, I'm slow at making them.  It's meant to be relaxing not a race.  Plus the estimated 3 1/2 hour surgery only took 2 hours.  So I think that is pretty good for 2 hours of work.

In the last week I also processed 20 lbs of squash for freezer storage.  Then it was onto canning squash for adding to my homemade dog food that I make monthly.  16 jars of canned squash on Monday.  1 lb. of squash per quart jar, .5 lbs for pints, I only had one pint jar.

Then yesterday I canned a small batch of 3 jars.  I don't normally like to run the pressure canner for 3 jars but since I'm dealing with EVERYTHING, it's easier to process the squash as they ripen instead of holding off until I have a full canner.

The rest of this blog post is about hubby and his surgery. So if you're leaving now....

!!!WARNING!!!

!!!A YUKKY FOOT PHOTO COMING!!!  STOP SCROLLING IF YOU DON'T LIKE WOUND PHOTOS WITH STAPLES AND A LITTLE BLOOD!!!!

My husband has been suffering from severe arthritis in his foot, which resulted in cartilage loss and bone on bone friction, as well as a painful bunion caused by the arthritis in the rest of the foot. 

For the first 4 days after surgery he was laid up in bed and could only get up to go to the bathroom.  He could put no weight on this foot.  There's pins and all sorts of metal holding his bones together now.

Yesterday we went back to the doctor to have the bandages removed and replaced with a fiberglass cast.

He will go back in two weeks to have this cast removed and replaced with a new one.  He might get a black boot after 2-4  more weeks. Depending on how well he heals it could take 3 - 6 months before he's back to normal. He's a good patient and we are making the best of the situation.  The house is a little messier and the yard isn't 100% either.  I'm just doing what I can when I can.

Alright here's your last warning!

Ugly foot photo is coming!

you were warned!

It's not pretty!

I have nothing to say about this other than UGG...  Frankenstein's foot!

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Cake Stand Quilt Blocks

 I didn't get as much time at the sewing machine as I had hoped for this weekend.  Between catching up on summertime chores during the intense temperatures and humidity, and enjoying family time over the 4th of July, my energy for other projects was limited.  But I’m grateful to have made at least a little progress on these blocks.

The plan is to keep working on them little by little with the hopes of having this quilt finished by the end of the year.    

If I could give one piece of advice to a new quilter it would be....

Finish a quilt before starting another.  No exceptions to this rule...ever!  

Years ago I remember reading on a quilting blog .... There are basically three types of quilters.

1.  Quilters who like to collect quilting supplies and rarely start one let alone finish a quilt.

2.  Quilters who start lots of projects but rarely finish them.

3. Quilters who start quilts and finish them before starting another.

She also stated that she felt like the quilters that came to her sew alongs and retreats were #3's and she liked that because she too was a #3. 

I think I've been a mixture of all three types but I long for the day that I become a #3.  The chaos of so many unfinished projects is overwhelming at times.

I've been trying for the last 2 or 3 years to get to place where I can be a #3.  I could make it easy on myself and just give away the unfinished projects that I no longer love.  In my mind that's cheating because a #3 starts them and finishes them.  

Well all I can do is keep plugging along.  I'm making progress, it's slow going but it's still progress.  

This week's plan

by next monday

#1 Trim up the fabrics in this baggie.

#2  Make 34 more Cake Stand Blocks

See you next Monday with an update.

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Playtime! Cake Stand Quilt Blocks

 In the last few weeks there's been a lot of digging through scrap fabrics out here in Podunk.  All that digging stirred up the need to sew up something...... and it's all cut and ready to go!  Remember these tiny Cake Stand blocks?  

They have been hanging out on the cutting table since January, waiting patiently for me to come out and play.  You can see them tucked away in the corner of the image below.  There's another reason for showing them in THIS picture...the scrap drawer.  I got a wild hair last week to once again "deal" with the itty bitty fabrics scrap bin.

I was doing pretty good about trimming up a few pieces when time permitted.  I would grab a small handful at a time, trim them and sort them by color.  It was working okay but I thought, if I only cut one color at a time it would make for less handling of the fabric and not so much organizing and searching for the right stack.  All those years of working in a factory and always looking for quicker ways to get my job done is deeply engraved in my brain.  Work smart not hard.

And so the sorting by color began.  The process only took a little over an hour, leaving me with one big question... what is the best way to store these pretty little mounds of scraps?

The solution? Zip bags, of course! I had  a collection of them from last year's "2 Bucks a Block". It turns out that being a bit of a hoarder really does come in handy sometimes.

I grabbed a Rubbermaid Brilliance container, which I previously used to store the quilt patterns I sold on Etsy.  Sadly all but one baggie fit into the container.  So the one baggie of scraps is officially next on the list for trimming ... but that will have to wait for another day because right now, I’m in the mood to sew!

I also need to decide what to do with the empty drawer?  Its been almost a full week since it was emptied and it's still empty as of today,  I’m pretty sure it won’t stay that way for long ...HAHA!  

The one inch squares that I've been cutting and the ones I did years ago have been packed into a cute little tin.  Looks like there's enough room for one more row of squares if I smoosh them in there a little tighter.   That gives me plenty of time to figure out a better way to store them.  I'd really like to start sewing some of them up into cute little blocks.  But I'm NOT GOING TO START ANOTHER PROJECT.  There's about 40 UFO's waiting ... I'M NOT GOING TO START ANOTHER PROJECT.  Yes I was screaming so me, myself and I got the message loud and clear.

While sorting through the drawer, I discovered a few triangles that were too small to be cut into one inch squares. Rather than letting them go to waste, I decided to pair them up and sew them into HSTs. Finding those pieces really got me itching to get back to the machine.  It's been a long time since I pieced anything. So I did just that, and you know, there's just something so satisfying about sewing up tiny scraps, and it was exactly the therapy I needed. The whole world just feels a little brighter after a few minutes of stitching.

Within no time I had a new batch of HST's sewn, trimmed and ready to add to my stash.  I’m definitely not as organized as this blog makes it look. I have a bad habit of putting things in weird places ... like the first three large HSTs I found hiding in the drawer and tucked away by my sewing machine.

Then it was time to store them with the other HST's.  Pulling out the HST stash made my quilty wheels start turning.  I LOVE them and would love to play with them for weeks on end but I'm a woman on a mission and I have to stop being so squirrelly ... just stick to the plan Lea Anne!

After a few minutes of petting my HST stash, the ole fuddy duddy mean Lea Anne told me it was time to put away my little pretties and get back to work.  Stick to the plan! she said.  I'll tell you where to stick your idea you ole fuddy duddy!  But I knew she was right.  So back in the box they went, we'll get to play again someday.  For now, I'm going to go play with your friends in the tiny Cake Stand blocks because even the ole fuddy duddy agrees that I need a little time out and more sewing therapy.

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Starbound Finished

 Starbound is bound!  I can't wait to get her washed and on the bed.  This quilt was a great way to use up some bigger scraps of fabric.

The quilting is entirely ruler work. The outer border didn’t turn out as planned, so I added a bit more quilting than I thought was necessary. Since the outer border ended up over quilted, I left the red inner border unquilted to balance it out and keep it softer since it’s bed sized and will be used. Seems logical to me, though it might just be laziness. Haha!

The star block quilting was copied from a quilt I saw on Pinterest.  Reminds me of fireworks exploding.

Two fabrics were used for the backing.  The floral is a Walmart Pioneer Woman fabric and the dot is an old Riley Blake print.

I didn't plan for the gingham binding to look like a stripe on the front of the quilt, it's just one of those happy mistakes.

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