Here's Hoping

 

Well, it's been a long, endless, dumb month for me so far. I've been very ill with what is very likely the parasite Cyclospora that's the subject of a lot of news these days. More testing will determine that, but thankfully my doctor listened to my begging and treated me "as if" I had it and the new antibiotics worked almost right away. Here's hoping!

I've been so ill that I literally haven't even sat in my chair in my workroom since 7/4 until today. That's a whole lot of ICAD days that I've missed. I found out quickly that I still can't sit up for very long at a time. I got surprisingly weak surprisingly fast and am trying my best to take it easy to regain my energy as soon as I can.

I finally felt like doing something creative today, but I wasn't up to sitting at the machine and sewing. Instead, I dragged my ICAD box of tools onto the bed and tried to use my lap desk to get some of the cards done. It felt good to use another muscle that has been weak. Here's hoping I can sew tomorrow maybe.

Think it might be time to go back to growing my own lettuce from here on out.

Blue Green Napkins

 

I really am attracted to these beautiful toweling fabrics from Ruby Star Society that have been out in the stores lately the texture is just so lovely. I bought a yard of a different color way than the rainbow one I worked with last year or the blue/brown stripes in 2022. Those napkins from four years ago are really holding up well to a lot of use and washing.

I stitched along the raw edge with the triple zig-zag stitch.

I also cut the one yard fabric length in half with pinking sheers to limit the fraying as I sewed.

I also stitched around the pre-stitched edges as some of the existing stitching wasn't regular, quite long in some spots.

And then I went around again a second time just for fun.

Now to pull threads and make a little fringe

And there they are, two completed napkins. Turns out I should have bought 2 yards to make the usual four. Maybe next time I make it to Hart's Fabrics again.

Vintage HRTs

 

The other project I worked on at Sew Day was cutting out the pairs of purple and white rectangles that I need to do clue #4 of the Lupine Mystery.

There are so many "vintage" purples in here, a lot of which were the very first quilt fabrics I ever bought as I've always been a purple person. It was quite fun to use them all and remember "way back when" and to finally be using them again. The one in the lower left corner comes from at least two yard piece of fabric that I had probably bought to make myself shorts or some other piece of clothing. That never happened and I can probably use the rest of it for the backing for this quilt - memo to me.

The rectangles that you start out with are quite large compared to the finished block unit size. It's funny to see them together. I didn't remember to bring my rulers to Sew Day, so I came home with the two large stacks of the 23 more sets of rectangles to work with.

12 Days of ICAD

 

I wish I could see a structure like this in real life.

These two go together.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeeze

The most bulbous stoplight ever

This one might be my favorite of the bunch. Hopefully I didn't need these tickets.

Maybe this is the completely unconscious "before" of the clear hues rainbow-y Pride card I did at the beginning of June. I say completely unconscious because I didn't sit down and make this as an intentional "before", it just happened and I noticed the similarity afterward when I was sorting the cards into date order. Interesting how that works.

Sound waves?

Celebrating the end of June by tearing up the calendar page.

Not really raspberries.

Sometimes there are inspiring candy wrappers around to use: FEEL the JOY

History standout

This is the end of the ICAD download for now.

Mosaic Back

The first thing I worked on at Sew Day was making a back for my Mosaic table runner. I had two pieces with the smaller piecing to start with. 

I used more of the fabrics that I'd used on the front. They look so different when seen in the larger chunks of them. Now to figure out how to quilt this piece.

 

Mini Pumpkins Done

 

The Mini Pumpkins quilt was put together and all ready and layered for quilting.

And so I quilted it, nothing too fancy, but done.

I decided to use on of the background fabrics for the binding.

I got it sewn on quickly.

And that's all done now.

Okay, done, just in time to show it at Sew Day for the #5 UFO Challenge. Now on to doing #3, which is my Bohemian Wife quilt...a real challenge.

Semiquincentennial Time

Happy 4th of July1

We're currently out at our town Volunteer Fire Department Pancake Breakfast and then the town parade celebrating the 250th anniversary of our country's founding. So here's a picture from last year.

I really loved this reading of the grievances to King George that are in the Declaration of Independence. Robert Reich was formerly a professor at my alma mater, University of California at Berkeley. Note that it does include some footage and sound from our current ruler who truly believes himself to be a sort of a king. Which of course entirely misses the main point of what we're celebrating today. Freedom from tyranny.

Tyranny Shall Not Prevail! Above sticker available here.

This one from the US Constitution Center has no current presidential administration content and has a lot more background information included on the grievances.

As my ancestor Tom Paine said, "we have within our power to begin the world over again." A good thing to keep in mind these days. This video is part of a series of video shorts called 250 to 250 which are great little snippets of US history.