Christmas Whirlwind

As you know I had a procedure last week.  I love the term procedure.  It used to be called surgery, now it is a procedure--makes me feel like I had a face lift, tummy tuck, some old parts perked up or something, not getting a hernia in my abdomen repaired.  Leaving me with a 6 inch line which is just glued together.  Things that make you go hmmm. 

Anyway I am having a hard time sleeping, I can't take the pain pills they make me ill and I get really tired quickly.  Yesterday DH came home and looked at me and asked what have you been doing today?  It wasn't one of those I am interested in what you were doing it is one of those OMG how do you cause so much destruction while you are supposed to be resting!

I made cookies, well cookie dough I explained and he just looked at me and asked.  "You do realize you are like a mini tornado that hits the house everyday.  With working, the overtime, my mamma, and grandmother I can barely keep one tiny step ahead of you."

His next question since you are not feeling well by the way where are your cookies?  In the fridge I explained.  They get made then can chill for up to 48 hours before being baked. 

I felt bad.  I decided I would try to get a wee bit more done.  But heck when you can get 1 dozen cookies done and you are just exhausted and feeling queasy it is not easy.  I powered through though and made these Crown Jewel Cookies:

I know what you are thinking.  She ate all those cookies and this is all that is left.  No there are others laid out on a cookie plate.  I was good I only ate 2.  Honest!

These the youngest daughter Sam and my favorite cookies.  The recipe barely makes about 2 dozen cookies in all and I doubled the recipe, so we have about 4 dozen cookies. 

I was good I put everything away, I even washed the cookie pans.

Yesterday I received my Christmas Exchange gift from the Batik Swap I participate in. 

It is gorgeous.  I love the colors the star is fabulous.  Add to it the 3 dimensional holly leaves, and the holly berries it will just blow you away.  Then the quilting is even better! 

I am starting to feel a bit more in the holiday spirit.  Maybe this will help a wee bit.

Taking it Slow

I am feeling a wee bit better today.  Still very sore, but more tired. 

I worked a bit on my knitting.

I am very slow.  I am about 1/4 of the way done though.  I stitch a little then snooze a little.

DH took my keys and driver's license so I can't leave the house.  Probably for the best since the weather is very cold, there is still snow on the ground and it is slippery so I should just stay wrapped up inside.

I won 2 recent giveaways.

One from Pauline at Quilt N Queen.  Two charm packs of Moda's Fairy Tale Friends and 3/4 yard of Moda Bella Betty's Teal.

This will make something fun I am sure.  I went out of my comfort zone I had a choice between red (my favorite color) and the teal and chose the teal.  Something about it just reminds me of vintage for some reason.

The second give away was by Julia Graber at Life as a Quilter-Julia Graber.  Julia does fabulous art quilts and has such a lovely family.  If you enter Julia's house for sure you will make a quilt.  The giveaway was during Quilting Gallery's Giving Thanks Blog Hop.

Love the puppies panel and this will make a lovely quilt.  This is 4 yards of fabric!  Plus some CD's with lovely inspirational music. 

Finally I did wander into the dining room where I had DH set up a "found" machine for me to work on.  The middle daughter needs a machine to mend with and while I can't afford a new machine, this machine is lovely.  She was "found" at the garbage pit last year and has been sitting under my sewing table for the past year.  DH cleaned her up, I found a manual online, threaded her, and adjusted the tension.  I think she will suit the bill just right. 

While she is missing a couple of feet and her button holer free is a very nice price.

Well I think I am ready for another little cat nap.  I have had a busy morning... breakfast, read some blogs, second cup of coffee, knit a little, pinterest, have lunch, post blog.....

An Old Whirlyball Injury

Once long ago when I worked in the corporate world they did these outings called "team building" exercises.  Frankly many of the times it was an excuse for them to leave work, get paid, and drink copious amounts of alcohol.  One outing which I did join was the Whirlyball outing.

As you can see bumper cars driven by a joystick, no seat belt and you are playing a game with a ball and basket kind of like Jai Lai.  (No this is not our outing, it is just a video so you can see what it is like.)  A few days later I noticed that I had a huge swollen bruise on my abdomen to the side of my belly button.  I thought nothing of it.  

A few weeks later the MIL dog was climbing on me and put her foot right on that spot.  I spent several days in extreme pain afterwards.  By the time I could get into the doctors the pain was gone.  They finally sent me for a CT scan told me I had arthritis in my spine, a very small hernia (nothing to worry about) a pretty severe case of acid reflex, and COPD via letter.  The doctor's office kept cancelling my follow up appointments and I finally said heck with it.  

Flash to 2 years later.  I would have occasional problems with extreme pain and tenderness in the spot where the hernia is.  But it is was getting to be more often.  I found a new doctor who immediately sent me for a new CT scan, and then I was sent to the Surgeon.  Less than a month later I have had a colonoscopy, and last Friday I had my hernia repaired.  Now I am just extremely sore, I am not supposed to move a whole lot for a few days.  I spend my days cuddled up in a recliner sleeping a lot.  Anesthesia and pain pills are not my friend.  

To add to the fun-- it snowed, the kind of snow that it is very icy, so DH has to go and take care of the old folks to make sure they are not attempting to go out.  (I already promised I would not leave the house).  For once most of the people driving down the road in front of our house are not trying to break the land speed record.  

DH's ex wife got married, so the 2nd to the youngest of our daughters is in from out of town and DH wanted to see her.  I got bundled up we and went to breakfast on Sunday and that was over doing it most definitely.  

Finally DH received a call soon after returning from breakfast that his grandmother who lives in a care facility was non- responsive and they were taking her to the hospital but they were positive she had passed away on the way to the hospital-so off he went in the snow and ice.  I opted to stay  home bundled up.  Grandma has a do not resuscitate and by the time DH got to the hospital she was just getting brought in, and she was awake.  She knew DH but no one else and they were running tests on her.   DH said she was getting very confused and unresponsive as he was leaving but he did not want to leave me alone for as long as he was gone and was worried about me. 

While I get to sit bundled up in the recliner I work a little bit on some quilting, or should I say unquilting.

I bought this pattern years ago.  The pattern says 1998.  I sewed it all together and then started stitching.  I am not too sure if I did not read the directions or I looked at the example and it showed that the applique was stitched through to the back, but that is what I started to do.  I have decided that I will take it apart and stitch it correctly.  I can handle little bouts of removing stitches a few at a time so maybe when I have it all unsewn I will be ready to sit and machine applique' a little at a time. 

Looking at the short snippet of weather I have seen it is extremely cold, icy or snowy.  Everyone keep warm and I am going to snuggle down for another little snooze. 

Laugh it Off

I know there are many people who take themselves very seriously.  I will admit.  I do goofball things all the time, and I will narc myself out. 

I filled the dishwasher the other day, and washed all the pots and pans.  Put away the pots and pans, opened the dishwasher, only to discover that I had not ran it.  Put soap in it, closed the door.  Heard the dryer finish.  Later in the day I went to put the dishes away.  I had not turned it on.  Hey at least it had soap right?

A few weeks ago while out to dinner with DH the middle daughter called since I was concerned about a post on Facebook about her being at the Children's hospital with Cayden the youngest grandson.  I sent her a text, tried calling her but she did not pick up.  On the way home the Middle daughter finally called to let me know that Cayden's doctor has his offices at that hospital.  DH pulled into the driveway and while I was chatting away with the daughter I proceeded to tear everything out of the center console.
DH looked at me and asked?  "What are you looking for?"
I answered in frustration, "My phone!"  as I continued to chat with the daughter.
DH looked at me and said, "And just what do you think you are talking on?"

I can take the easiest project and turn it into Mount Everest.  As evidenced with my Magic Carpet Ride throw or as I now term it the Waterfall quilt, someone said it looked like water falling.  You can read about my foibles and the lessons I learned here.Now I laugh about it because I set it aside for a couple of weeks, and even though the binding had pins DH was determined he was going to use it. 

Or for some reason I have binding block.  I cannot bind a quilt to save my life, and I sure as heck cannot get the ends together.  I have read tutorials, watched YouTube Videos, had my mother and sister tell me how to do it.,  It just did not click.  Finally the last two times I have done binding it worked.  OMG!  High five!

I write to voice my frustration, but also I get some wonderful hints from people who read my blog.  I thank you so much for all the encouragement and suggestions. 

I finished the binding this morning and I think it looks cool and icy just like the Exchange partner requested.

I put the little blocks on the back so that they can use it as a wall hanging or a table topper.  While my top stitching, quilting is not perfect I think it looks nice.  I love the block it is Swoon by Camille Roskelley.  I would consider this a  modern block and it is a big one.  24 inches!  Think about this if you had just a little time 9 blocks would make a pretty substantial quilt. 

Now to get it wrapped and in the mail and I can check this off my list.

The other day while I was at the grocery store I saw these little towels.  I call them dish towels, others may call them tea towels.

I thought they were fun and naughty....I am not feeling very Christmasy this year.  Think Santa will give me a lump of coal because of these?

Have a blessed day and don't forget to laugh. 

Tension Headache

I started quilting my Christmas Exchange present;  I have this lovely silver metallic thread and I thought it would look lovely in a pretty simple decorative stitch with the icy colors that I chose.

Wound a brand new bobbin or two, threaded my machine.  Read the manual about metallic threads.   Got one row of decorative stitching done.  Easy peasy not one problem.  I started row 2 and I  was almost finished and I started having some challenges.  My top thread broke suddenly.  I rethreaded the machine, found in the decorative stitch pattern where to start and finished out the row. 

Then in the middle of the next row DH accidentally unplugged my machine so I had to do a complete reset.  Sometimes there is a lot to be said for antique machines. I was done for the day.

The next morning I was getting ready to work on the piece again.I flipped over the piece and there was a birdsnest of silver thread in the 2nd row where it had broken.  That just would not do.  So I found Jack, and wandered to the family room to look up information on the internet while I removed those two rows of stitching.

Everything said I should be using a special needle for metallics, and sew slow.  Hopped in the car and drove to the closest sewing machine repair shop.  (Living where I live it is 30 miles away).  Bought the needles, and some more Microtex needles because I sew with Batiks so often and headed back home.  New needle.  Check.  Pull up the needle plate, and remove the bobbin, bobbin case, and thoroughly clean to make sure there is nothing else that could be going on.  Sewed 2 rows not a problem then the top thread broke again. Grrr.  Back to the internet.  I don't know about you but I don't think that a 12 inch row should take 15 minutes to sew but I am committed at this time.  Or maybe I should be committed.  I don't know. 

Lower my tension.  Lower one click.  Sew about 10 inches then I see it happen.  There is like a knot that forms almost as if the metallic threads stick to each other.  Lower the tension one more click.  Little bit better but then again start having the thread breaking problem.  I notice that right before the thread breaks there is one outside stitch that will not catch the bobbin thread.  I may be able to sew 3-4 more motifs then the thread breaks.

I am determined that I am going to finish this piece with the metallic thread and the specialty stitch.  I am about 2/3 done and I don't want to rip it out and start over with just plain thread. 

OMG and then I had a whole different tangle.  I actually could not bring my needle up out of the fabric.  I turned the machine off, and then back on.  Still could not get the needle to come up. I undid the needle screw, tried to remove the foot, but could not do that either.  I then looked at the bobbin case.  It was a mess.  I removed the bobbin cover, and snipped a thread.  Doing that released the needle immediately. 

I flipped the piece over and it was worse than ever.

I showed DH when he got home and he took the machine apart as much as he could. 

Yep you I had a whole hutch of dust bunnies in there.  I will clean up that tangle above and try again. 

Quilting in the Dining Room

Sunday was the only day of the week that DH did not work.  It was decided we would work on those poor dining room walls again.

The hole was filled in.

All the glue scrubbed off of the walls, DH fixed the hole in the wall.  Bye-bye yellow and green foil trees behind that weird wall.  I am sure I will see you again in the near future. 

 Then he did a light skim coat to try to cover up all the tears in the drywall, and where the (what we think may have been primer) peeled up.

After it dried he then had to sand.  And we killed the shop vac.  Ugh!   But he had a little tiny shop vac he found in the garage pit at work so he got the rest of the drywall sanded, and put another skim coat over the wall.  One more sanding and I should be able to prime. Then we can paint.

Do you do this wait before the holidays to do a pretty large project? 

December Goals

The end of 2013 is just a short time away.  Time to link up my goals with Carrie at A Passion for Applique.

Here is my December list of goals.
1.  Farmer's Wife I am going to stick with my 8 blocks a month.  I am almost 1/2 way done!

2. Christmas Exchange gift.  Just need to sandwich, quilt with a pretty motif and bind.

3.  Family Room Curtains.  I would love to get this one done before Christmas. 

4.  Country Charmer-  Only 12 more blocks to go.  I am going to set a goal of 4 this month. 

5.  Ginger Rose I am starting to feel more confident about quilting this on my domestic machine.

6.  Quilty Barn along-  Lots of sashing to do.

7.  Lazy Sunday mystery part 4 which is the final installment.  I think this one may end up being donated.

8.  Jewel Box I would like to get this at least to the completed flimsy stage

9.  I have a table runner all cut and labeled for Christmas.  I would love to get it done this year.

10.  I would love to pull some of my UFO's out of my pile to work on.