Back Into The Swing Of Things

My goodness has it been a rough several weeks!  Just when I thought I was doing better, exhaustion set in!  However, this past week has been very promising and things are definitely looking up.  The trouble with that is, of course, everything else that has fallen behind while I have been out of commission gets first dibs on my time...  And that means that all you lovely folks in blogland get the remnants.  Sorry about that.

Snuggling with Chloe on my sick-bed (aka: the couch).

However, today has been my best day so far, and I even had enough energy and spring in my step to clean the kitchen, do two loads of dishes, make a full breakfast for my dear Mrs. Neighbour-Friend who was feeling under the weather this morning, tidy up and clean off all the counters, visit the post office, AND...  Are you ready...  Now please make sure you are sitting down since this next statement may cause a moment of faintness and we don't want your loveliness to hit the floor...  AND...  I was working on cutting and assembling several quilting projects in my crafty room!

Click any photo to see a bigger, brighter, clearer version.

I KNOW!!  Are you cheering too!!??  Oh goodness does it feel fabulous to play with fabric again!  It's been way too long.  Now, don't get me wrong, I really do enjoy yarny things and playing hooky-hook, but quilting is my favourite.  And what exactly have I been up to?  Well, I know you're dieing to see!

The courthouse steps I am working on is a Jo Morton pattern from a magazine and I am having a blast sewing it all together.  My cutting table certainly looks a bit disastrous in this photo, however it is really very organized!  The left pile is all 1" medium and dark fabric strips, and the right pile is full of 1" light strips.  Every fabric in the quilt so far, and all the fabric in my two Mount Stripmore piles are all Jo Morton's produced by Andover fabrics.

The quilt is made up of 144 courthouse steps blocks.  I am assembling them in "16-patch" sections with no-two-fabrics-alike in each segment, which means I need nine 16-patches to complete the top.  I finished another set of blocks and now just have to sew them together to make the 16-patch segment.

Last week I got a message from my sister that our grandfather has been moved into a care facility.  He is a fighter and a crazy old Dutchman, so I'm hoping he doesn't feel too cooped up there after being quite the outdoorsman for most of his life.  I decided to make a charm-pack quilt for him using Kansas Troubles fabrics.  The little booklet of quilt patterns from This & That is a great one for easy, quick, charm-pack patterns.  I am making the one on the front, but without the applique since I don't have the time for it right now.

I have everything ready to go.  Fabrics chosen, cut, sorted and colours figured out.  I had a hard time finding the right border fabric, but I think what I ended up with will work well.  The shops in my area don't sell Kansas Troubles very often and I had to go with a very similarly toned Buggy Barn instead.  You'll see it when I get the top assembled.

Since I was on a cutting spree, I thought I would cut some of the pieces needed for the current small quilt challenge on Kathleen Tracy's Yahoo Group "Small Quilt Talk".  It's a darling little nine-patch and all I had to do was cut 2" squares from various lights and darks as well as four 5" light squares.  There are some other pieces that have to be added, so they'll come together when I assemble the blocks.

For now, that's all the productivity I have to show you.  I still get tired easily and have to have a nap at some point during the day - even 30 minutes is helpful.  But as the to-do list gets dwindled down, I'm hoping the tiredness will do the same!  Thank you to everyone who has emailed, written, and phoned to wish me well, send prayers of better health and comfort, and offer your encouragement.  Dare I say I'm finally on the mend without "jinxing" it?!  Good thing I don't really believe in that sort of thing!

Happy stitching everyone!
Heather