Arrangement

It'll be a complete top tonight!  Very excited!

12 Swoon blocks done!

Swooning

I've started another quilt.  This one has brought me new skills.  I cannot believe I ever feared flying geese! They are so easy!  The blocks are large (24") and take time to prep and piece each one.  I hand selected the fabrics, they are from a few different collections.  I had a specific vision for this quilt.  It will be blacks, whites, and grays with some blues and teals.  I'm really loving my blocks so far! I finally invested in a Bloc Loc ruler, which should be in the mail today.  I have 4 more blocks prepped, and I plan on piecing them tonight and tomorrow.  The pattern has 9 blocks, but I think I will make 12, and make thicker sashing and borders so it will fit my king sized bed.  I've never been more excited about a quilt!

Floors, Boating, Etc.

So there really hasn't been much crafting going on in the last week or so... We had some floors refinished.  Three rooms.  Three rooms that held a lot of furniture and stuff.  Lots of stuff.  One of these rooms was my sewing room.  We had very little notice to move our furniture and rip up carpet.  Needless to say, my house is a mess.  However I am so happy with how our floors turned out.  They are original Beech wood floors:

After the carpet was ripped up:

After sanding:

After stain:

After seal/finish:

These pics are all of my dining room.  My sewing room looks the same.  Extremely happy with it.  

When I pulled out the furniture in my sewing room, which is/was a mish-mash of old furniture, furniture from my old apartment, etc., I decided it was time to make my sewing room more...everything.  I need more room, I need wall space, I need organization.  So, I don't have much in there now except piles and piles of fabric, yarn, and supplies.  And before I can, or want to, put it back together, I want to paint and finish it up all nice.  I also need to get some new organization and storage furniture.  This is all going to take some time.  I'm hoping by the end of the weekend, the painting and finishing will be done.

Of course, I also bought a new couch for my living room, which also needs to be painted, along with the vaulted ceilings, new fixtures, and new electrical devices.  I have my work cut out for me.  Think I can get it all done this weekend?  I hope so.... My couch will probably be ready for delivery in a couple weeks.

Picking paint colors...oy, still have to do that.  That will probably be the most time consuming part of it all... And patching the drywall.  So much to do!!!

We did manage to get some nice boating time in over the holiday weekend.  Spent the night on the boat with the kids.  It was wonderful!

And as for my health, well, I'm done with Cleveland Clinic.  Went back to my doctor, different medicine.  Tired, insomnia, hot flashes.  YAY  Could be worse though, could always be worse.

:)

Layer Cake Sampler-Better Pic

Layer Cake Sampler QAL

And Then There Was More Quilting

I've been pretty selfish with my sewing.  Since I enjoy it so much, and one can really only use *so* many quilts, I've started making one for my step-daughter.  She is becoming such a lovely young woman.  She's always bright and cheerful, so I wanted to make her something that reflected her personality.

I chose the fabrics and colors and surprised her:

 With my help (no pattern) we cut the pieces and arranged them randomly:

 She pieced almost all of it together herself (I did the border):

And slowly, it's getting quilted:

It's twin sized.  Super cute.  I hope she likes it and keeps it forever :)

Follow Up and More Quilting

For the last month or so I have been working on the layer cake sampler QAL hosted by Material Girl Quilts.  I've really enjoyed making these blocks.  I'm a novice quilter and was excited by the somewhat traditional looking blocks that I paired with modern fabrics.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE how this is turning out.  I started the sashing last night (sorry, don't have photos of that) and this quilt is going to be HUGE!  Those are 16" blocks!  I've somehow managed to screw up my lay out in sewing the rows together.  I don't have enough space in my sewing room to have this laid out on the floor, so going between my living room and sewing room are kind of screwing me up.  It doesn't matter though, it still looks gorgeous!

Last month, I posted a sneak peak of a quilt I'd just had quilted.  I'm not a good photographer, nor do I really have the space or place to take a full pic of the quilt, so here it is all folded up:

The quilting is absolutely beautiful. I'm so pleased with this quilt.  When I was organizing my fabric this weekend, I found all the scraps from the piecing of this quilt and decided to make two throw pillows to match.  They aren't really pretty, but I used almost all my scrap to make them, and only used fabrics that are in my quilt.

On a completely different note... The new meds were tried and rejected.  I've never felt so horrible in my life.  The side effects were too bad and I was told to stop taking them immediately.  Waiting for another call with another med...  I've put a call in to my local doctor, going to have my heart checked.  I have heart disease and issues on both sides of my family.  Might as well rule something else out.  My only consolation is that we have ruled out so many things...down side is we still just don't know what is causing the localized pain.  Frustrated.  Truly frustrated. 

Suffering

For the last 11 months I've been dealing with constant pain.  Sometimes the pain is annoying and sometimes it takes my breath away.  Sometimes I just want to curl into the fetal position and cry.  I was laying in bed last night in terrible pain...I'm almost at my cracking point.  11 months.  That's a long time.  That's a long time to have seen half a dozen doctors, and have had dozens of tests performed.

In March, I went to Cleveland Clinic.  Mayo wouldn't accept me; said they couldn't further my medical treatment.  Cleveland Clinic....what a joke.  Personally, I think your diagnosis really depends on what department they send you to.  In my case, they sent me to the gastroenterology dept.  Therefore, I must have a gastric problem, right?  Oh, how I disagree..but what do I know?  For two months, so far, I have gone along with these nut jobs.  I have taken the pills they wanted me to take.  Two months on these pills and NO relief.  No progress.  I finally put my foot down and told them it was time to try something else.  But the doctor is just "so sure" of his diagnosis.  "Here, try a different pill."

So, last night I was laying in bed...and nearly let myself fall.... As I said before, I'm almost at my cracking point.  I so badly wanted to give in to my emotions and let myself have a pity party.  I stopped myself last night, but I'm not sure how long I will be able to hold myself together...

At what point do you say "enough is enough"?  At what point do you give up trying to figure this out?  How fair would that be to me, to just give up?  I have tried everything I can to find a diagnosis.  Doctors, tests, research.  I'm not sure there is much more I can do.

Trimmings

Fun things have been going on lately.  I've done a little spinning and a lot of sewing.  I will post a few more pics in the next couple days of the Material Girl Quilts QAL.  Yesterday was a lot of prep work!

Boating season is about to start, crafting may start to slow because of it....hope not!

Sneak Peek

Let's hope I can take some better pictures to really show off the beautiful quilting. Best money I ever spent! In LOVE!

This quilt comes home from being professionally quilted today.  Can't wait to see it!

It's been quite a while, but....

...but there has been some knitting, and some quilting, and definitely lots of boating.

There has been knitting, but mostly for utility and friends.

There has been quilting, not as much as I'd like, but still plenty:

 There's been some crafting too:

AND...there has been lots and lots of boating...