It's working!

Yep, the prednisone is most certainly working.  We had a like new bed last night, the night before I was awake tossing and turning most of the night.  Last night when I crawled into bed at 12:30 I fell right asleep.  That 12:30 is another sign it’s working, I usually am in bed by 10:30.  But the bed was so comfy it put me right to sleep.  Then I was wide awake at 5:30.  Whoops, too early, so I went back under the covers and dozed off and on until 7:30 when I gave up and got up. 

Next I noticed it was working when the coffee pot weighed a lot less than it did previously.  Yes, it was just as full, but my arms are already stronger.  Another sign, I was browsing the pantry at 7:30 for food, even before the coffee had finished brewing.  Normally I don’t eat breakfast until about 10 or sometimes I entirely skip it and don’t eat until lunch.  I realized what was happening and stepped away from the pantry without eating anything… coffee was ready so that will do for now.  I'm headed upstairs to sew!

Drs report

I am amazed at the emails I’ve gotten asking to know what the Doctor said today.  It’s nice to know so many of you care, thank you. 

Unfortunately, and I was expecting it, the report was not good.  My numbers are up again meaning the polymyalgia rheumatica is back.  But I knew that, I’ve known it since the middle of February.  I hoped I could stick it out, learn to live with the pain.  But that didn’t happen and I gave in.

So what happens now?  First, I am back on the prednisone, a large dose then decreasingly smaller doses until the numbers go down. 

I wonder how many of the prednisone side effects will bother me this time?  Will it make my hyper and keep me up all night?  That would be OK with me as long as it doesn’t give me the shakes.  Imagine the quilting I can get done if I don’t have to sleep. 

Will it make me want to eat everything in site?  Better get rid of all the goodies in the house again, hide the chocolate and sugar.  Although I did pretty well once I got the cravings under control this last year.  I actually lost 20 pounds in 2011, I hope I don’t find them again this year. 

I also wonder how long it will be before I can have another margarita.  Darn, should have gone out to dinner last night. 

For a little quilt...

For a little quilt it is sure is a lot of work.  I’m sure that if my body wasn’t aching so much and if my fingers worked better this would be finished and ready to go in the mail.  I’d hoped to mail it tomorrow when I have to go out, but it’s not ready yet.  The quilting part is done, I think, just a lot of ends to tie and bury.  Then the borders and binding. 

And tomorrow is another day.  But tomorrow I see the rheumatologist again and I’m guessing she’s going to put me back on the prednisone.  And then I will have some sleepless nights while I get used to it again.  And hopefully those nights I can spend doing something constructive, as long as I don’t get the shakes like I did last time.  Time will tell.

Yes, tomorrow is another day.  I’d hoped to cut out and get a head start on another mystery.  Saturday is mystery day again over at Mysteries For Relay, and I have a small sample done but wanted to start another one.  Hopefully I’ll get to it.  Fingers crossed!

So I spent the day quilting

Last night in the middle of the night as I laid in bed wide awake... how I wanted to quilt the wall hanging I’m making popped into my head.  Fortunately it was still there when I got up this morning.  I spent a good part of the day doing just that… and I’m still not finished.  What was I thinking?  It involves a lot of ends, which means a lot of knot tying, and my fingers don’t like tying very much. 

Oh well, tomorrow is another day!

I sewed!

I actually went upstairs and did some sewing today.  First I had to put away the fabrics I bought while on retreat, which was easy.  I didn’t buy much and what I did was for projects, so I made a few zip lock bags of projects.  Then I had to put away the projects I took on retreat with me and never touched, more projects in zip lock bags.  (I’m starting to have quite a few projects in plastic, PIPs)

Then I pulled out one of the projects I started at the retreat and finally got the top finished.  It’s only a wall hanging, but it’s almost done.  I hope to quilt it tomorrow and get it in the mail maybe even this weekend. 

I can’t show a real photo because the person it’s for reads this blog….  I’ll post a photo as soon as she gets it in the mail. 

more trees

I can’t remember these all blooming at once ever before. Daffodils almost finished, forsythia in full bloom, peach tree popping and the pear tree in its glory. Tonight we have a freeze warning, go figure. 

It makes me want to make a pink and yellow quilt with a w-o-w background.  But would you believe I have no pink in my stash, none at all.

and the lawyers got in the middle

Copyright is a scary thing.  And I respect copyright laws very much.  The law protects us.  The laws also make life miserable sometime. 

There is a well known designer who I’ve followed off and on for a while.  I like her style, well some of the time.  I don’t like my own style some of the time, so no offense if I don’t like everything someone makes all the time.

Anyway, this blogger is published.  I’ve been approached to publish several times.  I thought about it.  I said no.  I like my life the way it is minus the current pain of course.  I don’t need to go there. 

Recently this designer/blogger has had lawyers threatening her.  I’m not going into it, if you read quilt blogs you most likely know who I’m talking about.  I am very sorry that this talented young designer is going through this heart and head ache. 

And I am so happy I’ve said no when asked.  And I will say no if ever asked again. 

Today’s tree

Today’s pretty tree is my camellia tree in the front yard.  This is the most blossoms it has ever given us, and it is absolutely beautiful.  John said it looks like a Christmas tree decorated in pink, it is simply gorgeous. 

One of my regular readers said that I hadn’t mentioned quilting since the retreat… well there is a reason for that.  I seem to be having some a lot a heck of a lot of pain lately.  I took my last prednisone on January 29th and within two weeks I was feeling aches and pains.  I made it through the retreat and I think I hid it pretty well, probably only because my roommate uses a CPAP machine and didn’t hear my moans in the middle of the night.  John says I wake up 5 or 6 times a night groaning. 

However since coming home it’s been a different story.  I’m living on Tylenol and am actually looking forward to seeing the rheumatologist next week… how’s that for different?  

In the meantime I have a decision to make, pain or prednisone?  Which is the lesser of two evils, I have to decide that.  Right now the prednisone is winning. 

I never know

Living in the country I never know what I’m going to find in my yard, or on my deck.

My special tree

What’s so special about this tree?  You have to understand its history really because that is what makes it so special. 

When we came home from living in Europe for six years we bought a lovely home in Woodbridge VA.  It became its own little paradise in the spring when the trees blossomed.  There were several dozen azaleas, rhododendrons galore, lilac bushes and one gigantic cherry tree.  I loved the pink blossoms of the cherry tree and when we bought our home here I wanted a tree just like it here. 

John on the other hand did not.  He didn’t like it just because it bore fruit which made a mess in the driveway.  And I do mean a mess.  When the cherries dropped we had cherry jam on the driveway and sidewalk and on the car if it was left there.  And we only had a one car garage and two cars… so…

Before we left VA to move here I found a twig which had rooted in the hedge.  The leaves were the same as the cherry tree, so I was pretty sure it was a baby.  I climbed in the hedge and carefully pulled it up.  I got about five inches of thread like roots, which made John happy, he was sure it would never grow. 

But grow it did.  That little twig grew and grew and grew.  Before long it was higher than our two story house.  But it didn’t blossom.  That made John very happy, because no blossoms meant no cherry jam.

Then all of a sudden about five years ago it started to bloom.  Every spring more and more blossoms appear and depending on the weather, two weeks or more.  Then it snows cherry petals all over the yard.  And this year is it has more blossoms then ever and I truly love it.  And John is happy too, so far, no cherries!

 

Really?

A friend sent me this via email today, and I just had to share it. 

Read carefully and think about it. 

Prepare yourself mentally for sewing.  Yes I do that every day.  All I think about is sewing and getting done what I am working on so I can start one of the many next things I want to do. 

Think about what you’re going to do . . . Never approach sewing with a sigh or lackadaisically.  Yes, I do that too, I think. 

Good results are difficult when indifference predominates.  Is that so?

Never try to sew with a sink full of dishes or the beds unmade.  No problem, I have a dishwasher and I have to make the bed before I sew, my bed is my design board and an unmade bed makes for some funny bumps on the design bed. 

When there are urgent housekeeping chores, do these first so your mind is free to enjoy your sewing… no problem there either, I don’t have any “urgent housekeeping chores”  Nope, not one. 

Well from there on it gets a little foreign to me.  Clean dress?  French chalk?  Powder and lipstick?  All things that I just don’t own, unless you count the dress I wore to the wedding, but I hardly want to sew in that!  And my hair is never in order, never ever… it does what it wants to do no matter what I do to it. 

And the only problem I have with a visitor or my husband coming home is that they would be interrupting my sewing and with them hanging around there is no way I could get my project neatly put together.  Oh wait, it means me looking neatly put together… that hasn’t happened in years!

Getting back to the routine

At least I think I am getting back to my normal routine, much sooner than years past when it’s taken me a week to recover from a retreat.  That says a lot about this retreat, I was able to go and relax and not come home so dead I couldn’t function for a week.  Today I can honestly say I have completed the retreat work that needs to be done except for a few little things.

I need to make a deposit, which will be done when I go to the Doctor’s tomorrow for my check up.  (I thought the appointment was today, but it’s not until Wednesday)  I still need to take my sewing things upstairs to the sewing room too.  The fabric is in the washer and I haven’t taken up my projects basket yet. 

I had such plans, seven projects.  No I didn’t expect to finish all seven, but I thought I’d put a dent in them.  I finished a sample for the next mystery although it was smaller than I intended it to be.  I found myself very distracted by retreat antics while cutting and didn’t do a very accurate job.  But the top is finished and I do love it.  I also made a few blocks for another project but time ran out and that was all I got done. 

 
My plans are to finish the project I started at the retreat then start another one of the mystery projects.  Hopefully my accuracy will be better here with no distractions.

What I did on retreat

I laughed and sewed and laughed and ate and laughed and slept and then got up and started all over again.  Five days of the same thing all over and over again…. Pure delight. 

Want to see photos? 

I sewed some too, but can’t show you photos of what I was working on.  And no, it wasn’t a jelly roll quilt, I promise.

Still having fun

Nothing better for getting in the sewing mood than seeing what others are making. I’m enjoying watching the Jelly Rolls, Bali Pops, Tonga Treats and what ever else they are called being sewn into quilts. I will admit, I didn’t really like them until now. Am I making one… no. But I am having a delightful time.

All is fine in Retreat land!

Having a wonderful time, laughing a lot and getting some quilting done. Perfect retreat so far!

Happy Birthday MIchael

You may be an old married man, but you will always be my baby.
Love ya,

Car is loaded, almost

The car is loaded except for a few last minute things…   my toothbrush and toothpaste, my alarm clock, and the driver! When I ran my errands this morning nothing shifted at all, so it was packed tighter than I thought it was.  But the last minute things went in nice and tomorrow just those few thing and we’re on our way. 

When I got home from errands I did some sewing, finished another charity quilt, this one is for May.  I sure hope I get April’s done at the retreat, or maybe I will have to switch them around… either way is fine I guess since I’m the only one who knows what is coming up.

I also hope to get a special fabric for the June project while retreating.  I have stuff that will work, but plan to look for something better, something special! 

 
I’ll try to post while retreating, but you know how that goes.  The days seem to fly past and when I get home I’ve forgotten again.  I’ll try, but no promises.  Oh..  check Facebook too, maybe I can figure out how to post on there from my cell phone. 

Car is loaded, almost

The car is loaded except for a few last minute things…  the lap top, the rulers, the cutting table, the projects basket, flashlight, the briefcase, the camera, alarm clock, my toothbrush and toothpaste, my spare shoes, bobbins, spray bottle, flashlight, slotted ruler and who knows what else!

Why did we pack today?  Tomorrow is a work day and by time all the after work running around is done it will be dark… or so I thought.  I just, just now as I wrote that, remembered the time change.  We could have done all this tomorrow night.  But then I wouldn’t have time to gather what I’m missing.   I'll need that extra time too! 

So tomorrow as I run my errands my load will have time to shift and settle and make room (I hope) for what still needs to be packed. 

Don't forget....

Tonight’s the night that we turn the clocks ahead an hour, don’t forget.  These time changes sometimes mess up my personal clock, but I’m glad it is this weekend and not next weekend when I won’t be home.  I don’t want to lose an hour of any retreat!

I’ve been sewing today, finished another baby bowtie top, almost identical to the last one.  I need to get some batting and then I can quilt them, and the green Jacob’s Ladder.  Then I found some left over fabrics from a baby quilt I made years ago, almost enough to make another baby quilt, just need to figure out which pattern to use. 

Nice day for sewing, so I’m getting back to it!

Lookin' good!

No snow in the forecast. Then again, there wasn’t any in October either and we all know what happened then!

Today's sewing

Today I am trying something a little different, not a quilt and nothing related to quilting.  Today I am altering a few shirts.  I have these wonderful Grand Club shirts which were given to me by ACS and they are too big.  (Yippee)  So this morning I took the sleeves off of one.  Yep, that’s it, that’s all I got done. 

I think the person who assembled that shirt went serger crazy.  I swear there were three rounds of serging stitches on both sleeves.  And the underarm section of the shirt and sleeve both had excess folded fabric wrapped up in all that stitching.  No wonder it was always uncomfortable when I wore it before   (At least twice, then I stuck it in the drawer since it was so uncomfortable) 

This afternoon’s job is to take the shirt in a wee bit and then sew the sleeves back on.  My guess is that will take me all of ten minutes, fingers crossed!  Then another shirt to be altered and then back to quilting.

What was I making yesterday?

Well I was making a baby’s bowtie quilt, but I rushed, and this happened. 



So this morning I worked with Jack the ripper and took out and turned around the booboo row and this afternoon I finished this. 

Now to get it quilted and then I'll show a much better picture. 

Guess

Guess what I’m working on today. Hint, it’s the project of the month!

So what did you do?

Well…. I went upstairs and wandered around looking for something to get my creative juices flowing. Then I decided since the Spring Retreat was only a week away I’d better start packing for that. I pulled out the projects from my friends UFO box that I want to work on, and then pulled fabrics for another little something I promised a long time ago but never got around to making, and then… well then I hit that what next wall again.

Oh wait, I have a few untested mysteries, perhaps I will work on a few of them up there. I cut fabrics for one and then checked the lap top for instructions for another one… found one that I think will be a good mindless retreat project.

Why mindless… I usually sew alone and there will be a room full of friends up there and I’m sure my mind will wander into many conversations, so the more mindless the work I have to do the better, less mistakes.

I think I have enough to keep me busy while retreating and if not, there are a few quilt shops up there I can find more fabric in… I do need to get some little boy fabric, and maybe some little girl fabric too, so there are endless possibilities up there to keep me busy.

And that Kathy is what I did today.

Trying to decide

I know I am not alone in this problem, but I’m having a horrible time deciding what pattern to use for my next quilt.  There are so many patterns out there, including my own.  I’ve made quilts from all of my published patterns and still own some of those quilts, so I certainly don’t want to make another quilt using those patterns.  Then there are the quilts that I’ve given away, but I already made quilts like that, do I want to make them again.  And then there are all the patterns that are in the works… I try to make a sample from each one.  There are a few in the files that I haven’t tried yet, but how do I decide which one to make next?  Decisions decisions… what to do what to do.

Wastin away again in margaritaville

Let me explain… I love margaritas and I have since I had my first one way back in the 70s when we lived in San Antonio.  I do not drink them often although I would if I wanted to be a boozer.  Margaritas are my most favorite alcoholic beverage… pretty much the only one I drink any more. 

However, because of the prednisone and other medications that I was on before that started over two years ago, I haven’t had a margarita in foooooorrreeeeevvvver…. Until tonight. 

I took my last dose of prednisone on January 29th and have been waiting patiently for it all to get out of my system.  And tonight we went out for a delicious Mexican dinner and guess what I had.  Only one, and it was enough… it was wonderful … no it was magnificent.  Yummylicious. 

Answers to questions about pinterest

Did you join?  No I did not

Are you going to join?  No I am not

If you aren’t a member, how do you know what they have of yours pinned? 
Now that is a good question.  If you own a domain you can see what people have pinned from your domain easily.  http://pinterest.com/source/PUT YOUR DOMAIN NAME HERE.COM  So for my blog I would put http://pinterest.com/source/DelawareQuilts.blogspotcom/ and see no one has pinned from my blog.  Oh wait a minute, I left out a period. That should be http://pinterest.com/source/DelawareQuilts.blogspot.com/ and one of my November Stars photos was pinned. 

Gee, I wonder if I should be upset about that?   Oh my… what shall I do… NOTHING, just like I did about the things pinned from my web site. 

Someone else said to me, “a bookmark is fine but saving the picture actually reminds me better what I wanted to save.  It is a photo bookmark and way to get back to your web site” 

So pin away people I have other things to do, like quilting!

 

Pinterest?

A friend sent me an email and said she saw one of my quilts on someone’s pinboard.  Now, I’ve heard people talking about this pinterest thingy, but like so many other things I figured I had enough things to do and keep track of so I’ve never checked it out.  But since one of my quilts was on there maybe I should, so I did.  Not one of my quilts, several of my quilts, and a large number of my BOMs and other pictures and more.

So, should I be upset about it?  I really don’t know.  I mean in a way it’s a compliment, they like what they see enough to want to go back to it, kind of like a bookmark sort of…  should I get upset when people bookmark my site?  But if they like it, why not just bookmark it? 

I really don’t think it bothers me, except maybe….  I don’t think I would want anyone to copy any of my original ideas.  But what is really original?  And why get all upset over it.  Yes I know there is a code so people can’t pin my photos, but come on… wow, all that work.  If I had to put that code on ALL of my pages that would be over 1000 pages, and honestly, I don’t think I have time to do that. 

As I said at the beginning, I have enough to do already..... so back to it!

Look what came in the mail

More boxes of more cast offs, but these were not UFOs, or blocks or pieces of blocks.  Nope these were just plain old fabric… hand dyed fabrics that is!  Two huge boxes, all hand dyeds.  WOW… I have ideas bursting in my head and can’t wait to get at them.  Trip Around the World, Broken Dishes, Jacob’s Ladder, Scrappy Gridlock, Quarter of a Court House, Scrappy Stars, Wonky Squares, and when I am done making any one of those quilts, a strings quilt!

First load, darks, in the washer.  Then a small load of lights, another small load of pinks and a smallish load of oranges, then I get to play with them. 

WOW!  Thanks friend!