Redoing

Last night I commented that I wouldn't really know how the slanted corners fit until I finished the quilt.  I decided that was foolish.  Laying the finished part of the quilt on our bed, I pinned the panel for the foot of the bed onto the main part of the quilt.  The corners were TOO SHORT!!!  Was I ever glad I checked!

This morning I found out that sitting quietly in the morning light by an east window, carefully picking out seams can be a contentment inducing activity.  But first you have to let go of any ambitions to "get that quilt finished!"

The fix involved picking out the seams that held four blocks on each end of the finished panel, making eight new blocks, four for each end, and then sewing six of the eight that had been removed back onto the new ends.  I spent 5 1/2 hours working on it today.  Just one seam remains to be completed.

Of course, as soon as you spread a quilt on the floor the cat comes to investigate and invariably lies down on the quilt.  Unless, that is, his smooshed up ball of yarn is lying nearby.  That's too much of an invitation to knead that soft mess of yarn, much the same way that kittens knead their mother's belly to get her to let her milk down.

This little mess of black yarn has been Dickens' "mommy ball" for two years.  He always finds contentment in a little cuddle with his own yarn ball.

Cold Weather

This past week has been very cold, not suited for outdoor activity at all, but good weather to stay inside and sew.  So that's what I did.

This is the foot panel for the new quilt.  It took a lot of time at the machine to finish this part.  I did a lot of ripping out and resewing because I wanted the points to match as well as possible.

The corners are slanted so that they don't hang down on the floor.  I hope the amount I took off is the right amount.  I won't really know until it's finished.

Next step: make the three layers quilt sandwich and machine quilt it all together.  Then on to constructing the left hand side panel.

My next project is definitely going to be a smaller quilt!

Sneak Peek

This weekend I've been doing some work on the quilt in progress.  Here's a sneak peek at how it will eventually look on our bed.

The part that covers the mattress is finished, quilted and with the borders around three sides.  In the mirror you can see the right side panel.  That will have the same border at the bottom.

At the left side and the foot of the bed you can see what I have to do yet.  The blocks have to be made and sewn together, then quilted.  After that I will attach those two pieces to what is here and sew on the outer borders which will edge the quilt on all four sides.  Then I will quilt a design in the inner and outer borders, probably leaves, as that seems to be a "theme" in our home as you can see from the wall at the head of the bed.  Those leaves were all stencilled on that wall, one at a time, a six-hour job.

Sticking out from under the new partial quilt is the hand appliquéd, hand quilted Pennsylvania Dutch quilt that has been our "bedspread" since January of 1997.  It is beginning to fall apart, and this new quilt will replace it.  Underneath that scalloped edge is our "summer" quilt, which tops the winter duvet that I made a few years ago, which happens to be invisible in this picture.  We've had such a cold winter that we resorted to using the winter duvet and the summer quilt together to keep us warm enough.

I'm very happy with how the new quilt is turning out, but a little daunted by how much work remains to be done.

Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day arrived at our house yesterday when
Jim came home from town with this lovely surprise:

I'm very blessed with a loving, devoted husband, a good man!

Happy Valentine's Day to all of you, too!

News Flash!

Sighted this afternoon in Barbara Kingsolver's new book, Flight Behavior, the use of the word "were" as a SUBJUNCTIVE!!!!

Long thought to be extinct in modern prose the extremely rare, though perfectly delightful, SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD of the verb "to be" is to be found in the bottom line of print on page 236!!!

Let's all give three cheers and root for the return of the subjunctive mood!

Update

Jim's been home a week and a half now, and I can see gradual improvement happening.  We went to the pacemaker clinic this past Wednesday, and were introduced to some of the wonders of modern technology.  The nurse technician, by placing a device about the size of a computer mouse over the implanted pacemaker can find out minute by minute, day by day what his heart has done since the implant.

There have been times when he felt very dizzy and nauseous, and the readout confirmed that they were times when his heart was in atrial fibrillation.  There were some lengthy episodes, one of 14 hours and one of 19.  He is taking a daily medication that is supposed to prevent that.  My hope is that this situation will improve as the medication takes hold.

He must wear buttoned shirts for the first six weeks, as he should not lift his left arm over his shoulder.  His favourite daily wear is a long sleeved turtle neck tee shirt, and he had only one buttoned flannel shirt.  All his other buttoned shirts are simple cotton dress shirts.  My solution: make him another flannel shirt.  He's wearing his new shirt in this picture.  I'm very happy with how it turned out, and also happy that all of the fabric even the dressy snaps came from my "stash"!

I'm contemplating making him a third shirt, to ease the laundry situation.  But I'm also anxious to get back to the quilt I was working on.  What shall I choose?