Tag: jelly roll

Life

Where to start?

I often feel I am nearly a shell of my former self.

I have heard these words come out of my mouth at a doctor’s office “You ruined my life”

I know there are people that are suffering far worse than I am.

I was just served a big old piece of not what I expected and not what you told me.

I agreed to have the second spine surgery because I still had some spinal issues. The main one was that I have no feeling in my bowels. Use your Imagination on that one. It was my main reason for doing it. My only reason for doing it. I could manage the pain. As a woman, I feel we are predisposed to managing pain in general. I didn’t care about the pain. I cared about that one thing that often kept me confined to my home and sometimes kept me confined to a room in my home.

Besides not solving my main issue, this last spinal surgery gave me a few additional bonus issues. I have ridiculous shoulder pain. I cannot lift either arm over my head. My entire spine hurts with the exception of my neck. Pretty sure they cut all the nerves in my neck so I couldn’t complain about that. I have constant debilitating headaches. I have random whole-body weakness, I never know what I am going to wake up to. My body is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get.

So, I got some medication to help with the headaches. Took away 80% of them, which is good. The bad part is, it makes all carbonated stuff taste bad. I love my coke zero and now I can’t have that either.

Poor Poor Me……

Life goes on. I truly do understand why some people give up though. It would certainly be easy to do.

I am not the give-up type. Too many people depend on me.

Quilting and Sewing – Yes I do manage to do some. I am not super fast these days. I made all the blocks in the quilt in the photo on a retreat I went to in March. I am glad I went. Got them all put together a few weeks ago. This was in a jelly roll book that Nanette gave me. I find it an interesting-looking quilt.

Working on a few other items.Some new and some old. I will try to keep up better, even though I am super grouchy most of the time. I will do better.

Happy sewing

Happy Quitling

I don’t want to jinx myself

Two posts in the same week? Does that mean Normal is approaching? One can only hope.

I have spent some time getting a few things organized and that helped. I now have things in baskets ready to sew, should the mood take me. Honestly, I am preparing for the fact that my daughter is going off to college. Not much time left (Sad). She has been spending a lot of time working this summer, so it has been different for me. My life is changing. I know this happens and I remember thinking about the day she would go off to college. Now that it is nearly here, I find I don’t like thinking about it. It has been her and I against the world and now she needs to learn to navigate the world on her own ( as Mom wipes the tears from her eyes).

I am also trying to get things out of the sewing area so maybe someday I can actually be organized. Unlikely, but sounded good.

CUTTING – The bane of my existence. I think I despise it because…well, I suck at it.

I really try to be super careful, got my Creative grids ruler, and still, I stink.

As I sewed my strips together, I attempted to be careful and make sure they are accurate. Yet, cutting them apart? I was constantly evening up, which just wastes fabric. They still do not look square, but wonky. The cutting is so important and I am just awful at it. Maybe I need to watch some Youtube videos or something.

This is what the quilt is actually supposed to look like. I am using what I call “weird” batiks. They were in my stash and I am pretty sure that I have had them for years. They are colorful though.

The book is called “Jelly Roll Quilts” by Pam & Nicky Lintott. Nanette gave me this book. It has some great Jelly Roll ideas.

So I am in the process of sewing the blocks together. Have not even tried to see how square they are. Ugh. I am not looking forward to that.

I welcome all advice, on cutting, sewing, squaring, well everything.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting

Success!

I know nothing spectacular for all you wonderful quilters out there. However, I have had this quilt cut out for well over a year (It is really just cutting strips to length).

I find that one of the hardest things for me to do is accurately cut. I made the center block of this quilt multiple times and it always came out wonky. The entire quilt is based off the center block. You would think it would be pretty simple, but if you are off at all then it gets goofy, looks awful.

Cutting is the bane of my existence. It is my least favorite thing in quilting because I am so bad at it. I do not know why I picked this up last night to give it another whirl. But, for some odd reason (different ruler), I did much better.

I have a lot of rulers and decided to give a different one a try. It was a difference maker for me. I could match up the lines to everything.

So, this magic triangle ruler was the key. It helped me cut those corners of correctly. It is not a perfect block, but compared to the other ones, way better.

I did not save any of the disaster blocks. I was angry and put them in the fabric trash (to stuff dog beds) and they were horribly embarrassing.

I will continue to work on this quilt, but will have to move out to the sewing machine by my bigger cutting area. I have a small cutting area on my sewing machine cabinet, but the pieces from now on require a larger cutting area. At least I feel I can now go on without frustration.

Happy Sewing

Happy Quilting