No Sew Day

Yesterday was absolutely a no sew day.  As I'd mentioned, I had an appointment with the surgeon in the afternoon to schedule my second knee replacement, which will be Oct 18.  I was very frank with him and told him I could probably go another year with medication but I've scheduled a 2 week trip to Viet Nam for November, 12018, and I want to be totally recovered from this procedure before I go.  If I don't have it done now, it'll have to wait until April, and based on my experience with the other knee replacement, I won't have the stamina and endurance in November that I'll need to make the trip.  The doc seemed to have no problem with this logic and we proceeded to get it scheduled.

The appointment took longer than I'd expected and I had to make a stop at Target while I was in Eau Claire as there's no Target here in Menomonie. Don't know about you, but I've never managed to make a "quick" stop at Target, so that took longer as well.  By the time I returned home and put things away, I was ready to go to the sewing room, but checked my email and got a reminder that the Hand Stitching group was meeting at 7.  I've been working on knitting an "eternity scarf" so I could take that along. Although we call it the Hand Stitching group, it's for anyone who wants to leave the machines behind and spend a couple of hours with friendly people, working on any hand work they like--crochet, cross stitch, embroidery, sewing on bindings even.  So, if I was to go to the group, that meant I had to get some dinner thrown together and that meant no time in the sewing room.  A sorry thing that is!

What I managed to get done in the morning was to check the paper pieced block, Cock's Comb, that I'd made the day before and which ended up too small.  This is it, measuring 5 3/4" instead of 6 1/2".

I returned to the quilters Cache website, printed out another copy of the foundation piece and measured the 1" square. Sure enough, the square was a little shy of 1" and that's what made the block come out too small. I finally found the spot where I can adjust the size of the document and despite many efforts to enlarge that page, I've had no luck. Time to move on to another block and leave the Cock's Comb behind.  I'll be making the Hourglass block instead, shown here from the website.

I already printed and measured the foundation page and the box is 1" exact!  With luck I 'll get this one and maybe another done today.

First, though, I decided to finally get to work on Clover & Violet, who's button I've had on my blog for several years.  I'll need a hand stitching project to work on while I'm recovering from the knee replacement, and this seems like the time to get it done.  This is the finished quilt:  12 blocks, embroidered and pieced in Courthouse Steps blocks. I figure I can get the embroidery done and sew the blocks when I'm able to go downstairs to my sewing room again.  

This is the first block, so you can get an idea of how they look. Quite feminine and pretty, I think. This quilt will finish as a generous throw quilt, and I may decide to give it to my very good friend, Marilyn, as she's caring for her husband who has dementia.

I think this will be a fun project to work on, and I have to choose some fabrics to use for the framing blocks.  Don't know if a trip to a quilt store in is my near future but it'll be fun when I do go. Maybe instead of the florals, I could find coordinating modern fabrics to give it a more whimsical look. We'll see.

Today, I'm going to spend some time in the garden, getting a start on my part of the harvest.  I have jalapenos that will be dehydrated, green bell peppers that will be chopped and frozen, and I want to harvest the beets and get them in the freezer.  That's enough for one day, I think.