What I've been doing

Home once again from a fantastic reunion/visit with family in Jackson Hole. Everybody had fun and we survived lots of babysitting time including overnight with the 3 am bottle and 5:30 am wakeup. I had one afternoon with time to myself so I traced several Burda WOF styles for future sewing. I chose simple ones with just 3 or 4 pattern pieces as my time was limited and the set up awkward. Hopefully sewing will start soon.

I'm recovering slowly from a bizarre medical situation that has me functioning more slowly than usual. I woke up 3 am in the motel on the way home Monday with an increasingly painful elbow. After a few hours I got up and looked in the mirror to find a very swollen elbow and arm. A little black mark made me think I had been stung or bitten. Asked the Motel manager if they had scorpions. Fast forward.... fever, chills, red and hot arm. Finally Wednesday I went to the doctor who didn't buy into the sting/bite theory but called it a staph infection. Asked if I had banged my elbow recently. I couldn't remember doing so but what with hiking, rafting, and playing with babies maybe I did. Apparently the bursa at the elbow is a very vulnerable place so that if it gets hurt and then has a open cut, the staph bacteria, which is around us all the time, can invade. I did have roughness on my elbow as though scraped so that must have led to this. Hopefully the antibiotics will work for me although I read that the staph bacteria is very resistant. I'm saying all this so you will attend to any scrapes with disinfectant!!

Pattern Reviews

I finally got all my reviews written. Boy, when you do a lot of sewing, the reviews pile up. I'm leaving, as soon as I pack, for a 3 week trip to visit the babies in Jackson Hole. So, sorry, I don't have time to add anything to my reviews. I hope you enjoy reading them. They are linked to the right. No sewing for me for a while unless my DIL has dreamed up some projects for me to do while visiting. She usually does....

Quilt/wall hanging

When I got involved in making the Wyoming themed flannel rag quilt for Oz I noticed some lovely designs that would make nice wall hangings for the town house in Jackson. I don't really intend to become a quilter but once and a while it is a pleasant diversion. I had never done an applique type project, or at least I haven't for 30 years or so, so I didn't want to start with too huge a design. This one is only 28 x 38 so it didn't take forever. In fact I did all but the binding when we were visiting Jackson at the birth of our second grandson, Oliver. My very, very old Kenmore machine which I gave to my DIL stood up well to the task. It is awkward to thread but handled the monofiliment thread I used to do the quilting quite well. 

It is a little small for the wall I intended it to hang on so maybe I will get ambitious again and try a bigger design.

I purchased the design and followed the colors pretty closely so there is not much originality on my part. I changed the inner border to the brick color to compliment colors in the house.

The photo shows the quilt finished except for the binding. That is done now so all I have left to do is the sleeve on the back and a label.