Finished, finally!

I finally finished Ryan's little I-Spyish quilt!  I started it a year ago, decided I'd hand quilt it.  Got a ways on it when Ryan was born a premie with esophageal atresia (long gap in his esophagus).  Then since he wouldn't be home until summer it got put on the back, back burner.  After shoulder surgery I could do hand work but was a bit leery of the push-pull of machine work so I finished it up!

Here's a collage of the blocks:

I'll be taking it to him tomorrow, weather permitting, hope he likes it!

I'll have to say that my quilting did get better (although no one should ever look at the back of this quilt) but not faster, sigh.  
I've decided to make Sundays for handwork only.  Hand Quilting, hand piecing, cross stitch etc as I want to keep my progress with hand quilting moving along (I have a BIG quilt that will need hand quilting at some point.)   Today, I'm going to pin the borders on my Missouri Puzzle quilt for hand quilting.  Everything is cut and ready to go I just need to make the sandwich and stitch.  I also have a few blocks on the Civil War Sampler that need hand piecing-as all the rest is hand pieced and four more Christmas stockings to cross-stitch.  (Kolby's will be done by Christmas, I hope, leaving three more (Nora, Ethan, and Ryan.)

Now that the house is mostly ready for the market and for Christmas I have a LOT more time for stitching and other crafts and I think naming a day for slow stitching will be really helpful.

Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!  Hope your day is blessed with family, food, and fun!  Don't forget to actually be grateful!

Things in the Mail

I always forget how much is costs to send something in the mail!  Oh well, good things come in the mail (occasionally.)  I'm thinking of mail because today I sent this off to it's new home in Australia!

I can't tell you what's in it or who it's for but here's a tiny seek peek!

Off to make some dinner then binding!  You know what that means don't you?  Something is almost finished!

A Finished Project

Surgery on Friday went well and I am back at typing with both hands! Yeah!  I guess I'm an oddity (everyone who knows me well already knows this!) but there has been little to no pain.  The Doctors and nurses were adamant that I take the Percocet pain pills before the block wore off so I wouldn't chase pain so I took a few but really they didn't do much but make me sleep-not a good sleep either-I was, and am, sore and mobility it limited- although improving- but I am not in pain.  Pain was the Bakers cyst removal, pain was what I had this time when I twisted my arm, Pain puts you on the floor crying, sore just says "Oh, don't do that-ouch."

I wanted to show you my finished cabinet in the kitchen.  This space has undergone several attempts at use, three in the past few years who knows how many before that.  This is the latest-and I hope last!

I've already filled the drawers with kitchen supplies, some are not even full thanks to my purging efforts of the past couple of years.  The top is an IKEA table top, it's still to be attached firmly but I'm thinking I'll leave that for the next owners as they might have a different sized refrigerator.  The large overhang on one end helps to keep me from kicking Quinn's food and water dishes and creating a puddle to clean up!

I've been stitching some, hand work only.  I've finished my main gift for Chooyblues Secret Santa Christmas Swap and will finish the ornament for that today.  Probably get them wrapped up as well, it goes in the mail on the 23rd.  While not perfect, sigh, I am pleased with the gift and only hope the recipient likes it as well.  After that I will work on Ryan's quilt.  I hope to finish that this week as well but that will depend on whether I can use the machine to stitch down the binding.  I have a bear I want to dress as a dragon-I have crazy ideas, sometimes I can actually make them work!

All the home repair finished!

I have finished with all the bazillion little things that needed to be done on my house!  Okay there might be one or two more.  Most of the cleaning is done as well, whew.  I've also put all my Christmas decor up!  Five trees, North Pole Cottages, Santas, etc.  It's early for them to be up and I won't light them until Thanksgiving but I'm to have shoulder (left thanks goodness as I am VERY right handed) surgery tomorrow and will be in a sling for an unknown length of time so I didn't want to wait.  I figure I can still hold fabric with one the hand in the sling and stitch so some hand work will be done!

I have nearly finished my little gifts for Chookyblue's Christmas swap and have picked up a few extras to send along.  I really hope she likes it,  for a tiny hint it's festive!

Parade!

I survived the big parade! It was a sea of blue!  It is now estimated that 800,000 people attended the parade and rally for the Royals on Tuesday!  It helped turnout that it was a glorious, sunny, 70F, day.  Plus, all the Metro schools had a "Blue Snow" Day and called off school!  The population of the Kansas City Metroplex is around 2.2million (we're what they consider a "small market") we mostly think the 60,000 that fit in the football stadium to be a really big crowd so 800,000 is really beyond our belief.  I can't say that it was fun but it was certainly something I will never forget!  Amazing as it seems there were no riots, no burning, no looting (as so often happens in cities where sports teams win the World Series or Super Bowl) in fact there were only 3 arrests.  Kansas City is a pretty great place to be right now!

Parade Day!

For the first time in 30 years the Kansas City ROYALS have won the World Series! (That's baseball, Ann.)  The fireworks after Game 5 - won in extra innings, just like Game 1 - lit up the National Weather Service Radar!  Today there will be a Celebration Parade and Rally - Yes I'm going!  It may be crazy as several hundred thousand people are supposed to attend but I wouldn't miss it for anything!  It's become a Parade Day-like a Snow Day- No School in most of the districts in the area.  I stood in line for an hour to buy T-shirts and other World Series gear yesterday- it was like Christmas only without grumpy other shoppers!  For photos and articles on the Series, Video of the last out and today's parade go to MLB.Com.  Gotta go get ready, I'm so hyped!