Another project takes precedence

Our dear niece was in a horrific car accident early Sunday morning. The car flipped several times and she was ejected. 2 lumbar vertebrae were crushed and she had surgery yesterday afternoon. The doctors put a sleeve of some type around her spinal cord and inserted rods between the good vertebrae to support her spinal column. She will be hospitalized for 3 months - 2 weeks in the hospital and then the balance of the time in a rehab facility. It just breaks my heart. She is a beautiful young woman with a lot of spirit so I know she will get through all of this. She worked so hard to graduate from nursing school. My greatest hope is that she will recover and be able to work with geriatric patients again. She loves working with the elderly.

The new project is a healing quilt that my sister and I are going to start this evening. We hope to have it quilted and bound by the end of the week. (Thank goodness for the longarm in the spring house!) I would like my parents to take it to their parish (Kendra is a member there) and have it blessed on Sunday.

Please remind all the folks you love to wear their seatbelts. Kendra would have only been bruised if she had been wearing hers.

I think I need a design wall...

I don't have wall space for a design wall in the studio. Technically, that isn't true as I could put it on the wall at the very top of the stairs. However, I have a couple of prints that I love and a shelf with beach items I have collected and I want them displayed. So, I now have a design floor. I don't think this is going to work for me so I need another plan. I am thinking about 3 narrow doors (like for a linen closet), piano hinges to attach them to each other and then covering one side with felt. It would have to lean against something but at least I could fold it up and shove it into the eave space when I wasn't using it. Does anyone have any ideas for something that would be "portable" and relatively inexpensive?

Here's my shower curtain quilt...that may become just a quilt



This is using up a huge chunk of my "Vienna Nights" stash. See the little print in the 9 patch? I still have a little over 3 yards of that, 1 yard of the small green print and then a bunch of 1/2 yard, 1/4 yard and fat quarters of coordinating prints. It's like a sickness. Every time I saw the fabric somewhere, I bought more. I have quite a bit in the yellow colorway and just saw more at a shop in Lancaster. I think I will use that in a "Four on the Floor" and whip up a quick quilt for my niece's graduation from medical assistant training.

Anyway, I managed to sew every day over the weekend and I feel like a new woman! I really needed some time to just get into the zone with Jenny and relax. This is an uncomplicated design that looks nice. I need uncomplicated for a while!

At Last!

I am now officially "one with my studio" (I am feeling very Zen this morning). There are still some decorative things to do and I will finish those today. I don't have a straight on photo of my desk because the battery crapped out on my camera mid-photo session. Anyway, you get the idea.



All the bags you see hanging off the scrapbook shelves are camera bags. I have way too many digital cameras and still can't take a decent picture! I have collected a lot of "beachy" fabric that matches the quilt I have thrown over the futon. I was going to make another quilt for the guest room but have changed that decor to something a little more feminine - my collection of bears - so I am going to make curtains for the window and a skirt to go around the big, ugly white cutting table. I can move the table directly behind the sewing station to support a larger quilt if I am quilting on Jenny. My sewing table also has a leaf that pops up on the side to make it much larger but if I don't need the space, I will leave it down. I put an antique washstand behind the station and will use it for quick pressing and cutting. (Never leaving my chair!) Behind that is my "Izzy" beverage cooler. That is where I will keep my ever necessary Diet Mountain Dew and Diet Coke. (There will probably also be bottles of Hogue Fume' Blanc wine in there as well!!) The white wicker chest was a cutting station in my apartment. I keep fabric in there and have decided to use the top for my "library" of quilting books and magazines. As soon as I find one, there will also be a small lamp on there for reading light at the futon.

I sewed for several hours yesterday. I picked up "Grey's Anatomy" 2nd season at the library and am watching those as I sew. I am working on the nine patch/snowball quilt that I started as a shower curtain. I love the Battenburg lace shower curtain I have in there now so there isn't any rush to get the other one finished. It is pretty mindless sewing and that is what I was looking for yesterday.

I am planning on sewing for a while this morning and then checking out the Lutheran church two blocks away. This afternoon, my quilty sister Julie and I are going to Joann's and Walmart in Lebanon. I don't really need to go shopping but since I moved I haven't spent anytime with Julie and I need a "sister fix". Hope you all have a great day!

Photos on the other blog!

I have uploaded a slideshow on my "Nesting" blog. The slide show is sort of convoluted but you get the idea. I still don't have the updated photos of my studio but thought I would share these.

Nope...

I tried...I really gave it a valiant effort but the studio wasn't finished. Every other room looked good - quilts hung, fall decor out, etc. I just could not finish the studio. I did manage to get it "presentable" in that most of the stuff was up off the floor and had mostly found a home (at least temporarily). I still have not decided on a final furniture placement.

I had a huge problem when I put Jenny in place on the sewing table. I could not find the quilting table attachment. I was frantic. I knew that nothing was left in the apartment but where could it be? I opened drawers, went through EVERY large plastic container in the basement and dug through everything in the storage under the eaves. My last thought was that maybe someone had put it into my antique blanket chest. As I went into my bedroom to open the chest, I had an "ah ha!" moment and looked under my bed. There it was! I did the dance of joy and then ran (ok, I use the word "ran" very loosely) up to the studio and finished setting up Jenny. I still have not sewn a stitch but I absolutely will this weekend...after a trip to the vet with Gracie and a trip to Garden Spot and a lunch date with my Mom.

I know that posts without photos are boring. The camera is on the first floor. I am on the third floor right now. Need I say more?

Lest you think I am kidding...

Brace yourselves - this is the studio this morning.



Think I can have it with some semblance of order by Sunday morning?

Liar, liar pants on fire...

No sewing...It is so hot up in the studio that my only forays upstairs have been to drop something off and head back down to stand in front of a fan. Thank goodness the temperatures are due to drop. If I get my shelf units installed tomorrow after work and start putting some stuff away, I think I will be able to at least get Jenny up off the floor!

September 11, 2001

Not to Worry...

Quick post - I am not blogging right now because I am still overwhelmed with the move. I finally got the last of my stuff out of the apartment at 9:10 last night and left my key. I drove in to work this morning with a car load of "stuff" (I am editing myself here!) Seriously, there is a baby doll in the passenger seat that I got for Christmas when I was 8. I call her "Jeannie doll" and she is 47-1/2 years old. I have a trash can in the back, several plants, a carpet cleaner, two deck tables, a lovely piece of yard art and some other stuff that is clanging around when I drive. I was just too tired last night to unload.

When I get home this evening I have several projects. None of them will be in my studio. I am saving that for the weekend when I install shelving and start getting organized. It is a train wreck right now.

So, until I have something quilty to relate, y'all stay safe!

Overwhelmed

Thanks for reading but I have nothing even close to "quilty" to report. I am totally overwhelmed with packing, tossing stuff, trips to the Salvation Army and moving.

My guys are supposed to arrive this weekend but with Hurricane Hannah heading in their direction, I don't know how they are going to leave their families and come here. Should the boys not come to help me move, I truly have no idea what I am going to do.

I will wait until Saturday to start crying...

And the winner is...

Here it is!



Trish! (I will send you an email to get the mailing particulars.)

Thanks to everyone who left a comment. I love blogging. I told someone that it was just about the most fun you can have with your pants on!!

I need to sew!

First - I just saw a commercial for Werther's Caramel Chocolates which come in two flavors, milk and DARK! Caramel and dark chocolate...my two favorite flavors. I just lost 7 pounds. I think there may be a conspiracy...

Second - I really need to sew. I need to sew so badly that I am cutting fabric for the valances to be hung in my kitchen. I bought the last of a bolt of "Bordeaux" from P&B Textiles. Apparently it was introduced in 2002 so the chances of me finding more are pretty slim. I love the fabric - shades of rich green in a fruit pattern of apples, grapes, peaches and (I think) plums. Wish I had more 'cause place mats would be gorgeous.

Today is the day of the drawing so if you haven't entered your name yet, please go back to my "Blogoversary" post and leave a comment. I will do the drawing late tonight.

Back to packing...