A Great Friday

Today I spent most of the day in the sewing room. First I finished embroidery on the outer border of the baby quilt. Then I did the small inner border. I am about ready to square up the sides and bind the quilt. Then you can see it.

After that I made some cards to send to friends. As I was watching them stitch, I decided I really needed to get some red paper for valentine's cards for the grandkids. Right now I have a few cards ready to mail and a few extras when needed.

Then I took some time to start cutting the pieces for a quilt called "Log Cabin Loco." I am supposed to teach this pattern in a class in February for the local quilt shop. So I will start piecing it together after stitching the binding on the baby quilt.

My new adventure has come to a standstill for a while. I am waiting for test results that will determine the extent of the aftercare for my breast cancer. As of right now I have had blood work, a chest x-ray, a CT scan, a bone density scan, two visits to the surgeon and had the stitches removed, two visits to the oncologist and waiting for the next one to be scheduled and have a chat scheduled with a genetic counselor. January has slipped away.

Everything Baby! almost quilted

The top was pieced last week and today I started quilting it. It really is a nice baby quilt with lots of color and interesting designs.

I hope to get it finished tomorrow. I still have to design quilting for the border but I may just use some small ducks, lambs, and rattles for that.

For those of you who are weather watchers, it is cold in eastern Kansas. We have had maybe a scant inch of snow today. The ice is south of Kansas in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.

The Adventure

I belong to several groups on the Internet. Before my breast cancer surgery I asked two of the groups to be my "prayer army". I know that there were family, friends, professional friends, Internet friends and friends of friends who have been praying for my recovery. One group have sent me angels to remind me of the power of prayer and to show their support. This picture shows the angels that have arrived in my mailbox from all across the United States. It is so overwhelming to know that so many people care and are providing prayers for me.

Elaine sent me a big support package that contained a book entitled, "90 Minutes in Heaven" by Don Piper. The book talks about Don's car wreck, his 90 minutes of death, and his long term recovery. But the real focus of the book for me is the power of prayer. Read it if you have any doubt about what prayer is doing for my health.

This is the top portion of the baby quilt. Some of the blocks are just "cute as a button". I have three more rattle blocks to embroider but I have run out of tear-away stabilizer. So I will have to wait a day or so to finish the quilt.

I continue to feel better each day. I usually have enough energy in the morning to get routine things completed. In the afternoon I do a little sewing but have been reading most of the afternoon and into the evening. Thanks to my granddaughter and my sister for bringing me a little food so that task is taken away from me. Today has been the first day that I have felt like spending several hours in the sewing room. I like that.

The Big Aventure Continues

Yesterday was breast surgery day and I was to report to Stormont at 11 am. I was sitting her at 9:30 when the phone rang and it was the women's center. They wanted to know why I missed my 9 am appointment to have the wire put in to show the surgeon the location of the lump. I told them no one had informed me of that appointment and they said that I couldn't have surgery because they were booked full for the morning. I sat in stunned silence. (I had left a voice message with the md's scheduler on Friday asking that question and had asked in my pre-op visit last week about that and she didn't know. So I decided I was asking too many questions and I just needed a little more patience.) I even talked to my DIL nurse the night before about how that was going to happen...So I called the surgeon's office to talk with Debbie, the scheduler. She said, yes, I did have an appointment at that time and I told her it was nowhere in my paperwork. So she said she would call the women's center and call me back. Ten minutes later, she called to say that they had a full schedule. Then she asked if I cared which hospital (there are two in Topeka.) and I told her the doctor and I had agreed on the first available. So ten minutes later she called back to tell me to go to St. Francis to the Breast Center and I could have my procedure and operation there...Off we headed and I showed up at the breast center and was promptly taken to intake. The lady there said I must have shown up on the wrong day because I was not on the schedule. After a little grumbling, she asked 10,000questions and I was off to pre-op. They were putting me in a room and I told them the breast center told me to come back there...so after more chatting, he took me to x-ray where the isotopes are usually injected. Fifteen minutes later a breast center nurse came and got me and took me back upstairs to their place.They were to put in the wire and inject the isotopes and dye (which drains through the breast so the surgeon can know which lymph nodes to remove). That took about 30 minutes as we waited for the isotope solution to be formulated and brought up. So they got the lowdown about the morning and why I was scheduled on short notice. As I asked many questions about what they were doing, one lady said I appeared controlling! I told her I was not controlling until 9:30 in the morning when I found out I had to be responsible for finding out the answers to all the little bits and pieces. Back to pre-op for a little while to have the IV put in, then surgery nurses showed up and I was headed for surgery. The lady surgeon--my DIL says she is the best with breast surgery--took out two lumps and three lymph nodes--no drain tubes. I don't know where that other lump was hiding...I'll ask that next week. The preliminary results show the lymph nodes to be clear. The best news I have heard since December 29. I was taken to surgery about 1:45 and left the hospital to come home about 5:45. Got home in time to watch the KU/K State game. I feel fine. I have taken off the ace bandage and dressings and taken a shower this evening. I have been somewhat tired today but not in any pain. More to come as I visit the surgeon next week and also the oncologist.
I didn't know when I called this an adventure that it would be a grand one!

Lamb Block

This is the cutest embroidered-applique lamb that I have seen. It is part of the quilt I have been working on. Each of the designs stitch out quickly and easily. The tiny swirls in the body are part of the embroidery design. I am really pleased with this block.

More Blocks

It seems that mornings are a good time for me to clean house. The sewing room and the laundry room have been swept and dusted. So the afternoon and until late this evening I have been in the sewing room completing some more of the blocks on the baby quilt. I now have made diaper pens, ducks, and lambs. I should have pictures in a couple of days.

We have been having some work done around the house. The new deck has finally been completed except for the railing. Our son does metal fabrication and he is making metal railing to fit between the upright posts. He has that finished and almost ready for the painter. We also had a retaining wall rebuilt which really looks nice. Now we have to get a load of dirt to reshape an area close to the retaining wall. I feel like Lucy (in Florida) with all of the outside projects.

Thinking of all our friends in Arizona who are enjoying the warmer weather as we are stuck inside because of the cold!!??

Everything Baby!

These are 15 of the 18 diaper pin blocks for the Everything Baby! quilt by Lunch Box Quilts. There are just cute. Too bad we don't really use diaper pins anymore. I met Angie, the digitizer, at her booth at the Houston Festival. She was also one of the presenters at Bernina University in Kansas City. She is working very hard on her business.

Today was a trip to the hospital for all the pre-op stuff...the worse problem was finding a parking place which was on the other side of the hospital. Since they are always building something, there are lots of construction areas to avoid. But it was quick and easy after answering another hundred questions or so--just had blood drawn and an EKG.

Internet Sources

This evening was the monthly meeting of the Santa Fe Trail Quilt Guild. Our program was about techniques of hand and machine applique. Two of our members did an excellent job of helping us non-appliquers understand the steps of applique. I do have a book called Women of Grace and Charm that does have an appliqued center. I plan on working on that quilt soon.



I showed my calendar quilt that has so many half square triangles. I had every size thangles except one inch. Since it was Sunday when I wanted to work on the one-inch half square triangles, I did an Internet search to find some papers to use to make over 150 of them. I found a site: http://www.quiltingandwhatnot.com/Half-Square-Triangle.html. It has different sizes of foundation papers to use. The real problem comes when your printer does not print the sheet at 100%. So you may have to work with the printer to adjust the printing percentage so that the sheet prints the correct size.



A site that was mentioned on one of my listserves shows Sharon Shamber demonstrating how to apply competition-quality binding to quilts. There are three you-tube clips that show how Sharon applies binding. You can see clip one at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PE0Yq9iGlc where she shows how she applied the binding to her Angel Quilt.

Sunflowers II

After looking at the small sunflower top for a while, I decided that the border wasn't working. So while I was in town on Friday, I stopped at the local quilt shop and found some sunflower batik. I like this border much better. I would like to have found some with a little more orange color in it--but this will do for the sample. The flash washed out the yellow a bit, but it is very striking. Now to get it quilted tomorrow.

In the other part of my life, I had an appointment with an oncologist on Friday. He is certainly a knowledgeable doctor and has a nice sense of humor. He wanted to know all my medical, personal, and vocational data. We discussed the different outcomes from the tissue results and the different plans. The plan of action will be made after the tissue results are known. Before leaving the cancer center, I did have blood drawn, a chest x-ray, and an appointment for a bone density scan. My lump and some lymph nodes will be removed on January 13th. So I have several projects that are now a top priority for the next week.

Sunflowers

Today I have been working on the small sunflower quilt from Lunch Box Quilts. I started with the small sunflowers that are a combination of embroidered petals and appliqued petals. I wish I would have changed the background in each of them. The medium sized sunflower was applique. The large sunflower had applique petals as the first round. Then the second round are dimensional petals that are sewn in the hoop, cut out, turned, and sewn down in the center. I really like the dimensional look of the large sunflower. I wish I had some batik for the outer border to really make this 21" X 24" quilt shine. I think I will wait to see if the quilt shop wants a different border before layering the quilt and finishing it. It was fun to make.

The more embroidery I do, the more I would like to have another machine for sewing.