Another Wednesday rolls around

Another week flew by and most of it went on by without me!  A little vertigo problem that I have occasionally has reared its lovely head.  I think I might have a little fluid on my ears that might have started it this time along with seasonal reactions to the flowering Chinese privet and Honeysuckle.  Smells great but plays Hobbs with the sinuses.  Thankfully, it has not progressed to bed spins or n&v but I am always afraid it might---dreadful when that happens. From past experience I have to stay down in bed and pray it just quits.  This time I have to watch bending over or getting up out of bed  too quickly as it is messing with my gait and balance.  I stayed home from Bama Belles yesterday as I didn't need to be driving the 15 miles or so over there especially medicated.

 I've been resting and trying to be still.  Oscar thinks he needs to lay down with me and he doesn't quite have the oomph to get up on the bed in the master bedroom.  Now,  having me flopped on the bed was a new wrinkle to begin with.  He kept hopping, hopping till I dragged him up.  Of course, he wants under the throw, not on it. With all the recent sewing I was getting tired of running back and forth from the kitchen where I was sewing, the design wall in the master and pressing in my sewing room having to open and close the gate.  He just wants to run to the sunny spot on the floor, chase the cat up and down the hall.  So far he is behaving himself with no errant peeing, that I can tell anyway.

My new friend Lucy had commented about the Floating Squares top I had mentioned I had wanted to do.  Seems she has the Peppered Cottons that Jenny mentions in her tutorial.  I asked Lucy if she wanted to sew her version "with me" across the miles.  She would but with it being Mother's Day weekend and all, it might be Monday or so before she was ready.  I didn't have much done so I could wait until she was ready.

That is about as far as I got though I sewed one strip on the side of the strip sets and had to quit.  Sewing crookedly--eye tracking component with this ear thing.

Lucy could not find her stash of peppered cottons so she used a charm pack called Daisy Stash and the Moda Bella Solid Evergreen 9900-234.  Her cat Jane is "helping" her.  Of course, I know all about kitty helpers at my house too.

This really is a fairly straight forward quilt---charm pack squares alternating between background squares and then floating blocks like the one Lucy completed in alternate rows.  Only 20 to actually piece!

We'll get back to it down the line as this was just something fun to do together.  Anyone else want to cut one of your own out??  We'll wait!

Lucy was going to a quilt show there in Utah this past weekend and Jenny Doan was the featured artist!  She missed her trunk show but there were featured quilts hanging.  Apparently Jenny made more than one of these as this is not the one on the tutorial AND she is listed as the quilter.   I know Missouri Star has long arm services but you would think someone else there would do that part so she could keep stitching!

So I became basically a lump.  I can't just sit or lay even if I do/did feel puny so I knit up a couple of dish cloths.  I have one more ball of Sugar & Cream (or equivalent) cotton yarn so I'll probably do two more.  I basically watched Celtic Thunder DVD's.....and knit on Sunday.

The JOY Quilt Guild met last Thursday and the plan is to display their challenge Disappearing Nine Patches or whatever disappeared at our next meeting's Show and Tell.  Those quilts will be going to the guild's comfort quilt coffers and the president has been quilting up most of them on his long arm.  It is time also for the Potluck Luncheon so the quilts will provide the best kind of decoration for the gymnasium area.  I won't have one but I do have this----- the ladies will need to see what I did with their blocks!

At our retreat I walked the participants through making a Charming Box block with the idea that they would go into a combined block comfort quilt.  I got 20 blocks from the group but I'll need 48 to get it in the target range.  Obviously I will need to make more.  I tossed in 3 blocks leftover from my Beach House version.  I found two of the bits from the tutorial pictures but had to re-sew part of it as that was when I said you could just leave the center untrimmed if you were doing all the blocks in the project.  For this project they were a half inch too long.

As I was putting the blocks up on on the "design wall" I found a couple had missed the verbal instruction to trim the middle down as well.  Easy enough to fix.  That is, by no means, a criticism! I personally came up with the idea for and wrote the Charming Boxes tutorial and STILL forgot to trim down the center on a block this morning, LOL!    You get it set next to another block and think "oh, oh!  Which one is not right?"  I know there are two blocks that are a bit small that will need some tweaking.  I think they just went a little deep on the seam allowance which happens with that many machines in action.  One is missing some seam allowance on the middle section, just eyeballing it there isn't enough to catch it in the seam.  I knew that one lady was concerned when she handed me her block but I can fix that so it can be included.

Quite a few of the group made purple blocks so I am trying to scatter it and add a few other colors to the mix.  (8th row is not present either.)  The fabrics are a variety from brights, a Civil War vibe, batiks, lovely florals and such.  It will be fine and really representative of the group ultimately.  I did make 5 blocks this morning digging in my Block Party charm packs, leftover bits of Prairie from two recent projects.  I've got a couple other things paired up to work in a bit more green and such.  Good spot to use some birthday fat quarters maybe?

That is what is happening---or more like, NOT happening around here.  Oh, I forgot about the two days of baking Friday and Saturday along with trying a crockpot chicken recipe for Enchiladas, tacos etc and poaching the remaining breasts the next day for the freezer.  I made Hummingbird Muffins and delivered some to the neighbors and the rest to the freezer.  I did Apricot Cheese Loaf as well.  Lucy suggested an Applesauce Oatmeal Bread from King Arthur Flour that they like so I tried that one too.   Pretty good and I think I'll put in some grated or chopped apple next time I make it.  I also made some Health Nut Spread for bagel topping with the leftover cream cheese from the Apricot Bread and made a pan of Quick and Easy Fudge Brownies also on the KAF site and the flour bag.  Those were good but the only leavening was the eggs and teeny amount of baking powder.  It says to "Beat" but I was not sure if they meant with a mixer or 50 strokes like you do with a mix.  I didn't and they came out only about a half inch thick and about what I spread out in the pan.  I may have overbaked them a bit but was using a different pan that my usual 9 x 13.  Maybe go with the 9 x 9 next time??  Taste wonderful though they went out to the freezer too.

I'm going to walk my poor neglected dog (or so he would have you think with those sad brown eyes!)--just in the lane as I am not ready for the trail just yet.  THX for stopping by to see what I might be up to.