Ummm...Loretta...You There????

Quote for the Day:

"Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings."
~Jane Austen

Oh, Lordy....what to say?  I never intended to drop off the face of the earth like this.  I so admire people who blog everyday...or at least frequently.  Many times I feel I have nothing to add to the blogosphere.  But, also, many times life gets hectic and time gets away from me.  I spend so much time going from appointment to appointment that when I'm not traipsing about, I just want to "veg".  

Remember two weeks ago when I told you about the epidural injection that wasn't?  Well, this past Thursday I had another, different kind of injection.  This one was a medial nerve block of L2, L3, L4, and L5 right medial nerves and was actually FOUR different injections...one into each of the lumbar levels mentioned.  This is supposed to relieve my lower right back pain, but will not do anything for the nerve pain down my legs.  So far, the injections seem to have helped.  The injections were done yesterday and as of today I've had no pain in my right lower back.  Time will tell how successful the injections were, (they aren't meant to be permanent) but I'm hoping the pain stays away for a while!

Now on to funner things!  :)

The construction company has finished their parts of the new garage, workshop, and carport.  We are waiting for the gutter company to come apply gutters to the garage and workshop and for the garage door company to come install electric garage doors to the garage.  At some point, we will also be having an electrician come in and install electricity to the garage (so those wonderful automatic garage doors will work!)  

Here are the pictures as they look now, sans the gutters and garage doors...

 

 

This picture shows the garage, carport and house.  You can see how closely the garage and carport match the house colors!  :)

In my "spare" time, I've been looking for a pattern that I can use to make my 1930's repros/vintage embroidered linen quilt.  I LOVE star quilts, so have been looking to find a pattern that I like and that will work with what I want to do.  The center of the star needs to be big enough that a crazy-pieced block using the vintage linen can be used.  I don't want the stars to touch each other, either.  I think.  

I think I've decided on a pattern and layout, so I made a practice star.

Does the pink fabric look familiar to you, Kristin???  ;)

I don't like the usual way of making flying geese (for the star points) where you sew squares on the diagonal and cut and toss the corner.  So I made this block using a "new to me" method of making flying geese called the "No Waste" method.  Let me just say that this new way is Da Bomb!!!

This will be the method I will be using to make ALL of the star points for my upcoming quilt!!! There is NO wasted fabric!!!  I only had to "sliver-trim" the flying geese blocks...and when I say "sliver-trim" I mean SLIVER-TRIM!!! There were only very slight shavings to get them the correct size!!!

The block is 12.5" unfinished.  Can't wait to get started on the real thing!!!  :)

Loretta

Updates From the Homestead...

 Quote for the Day:

Thought I'd update you all on a couple things going on around here...

First off, construction was started on our garage and workshop on the new property this week.  They were only able to work on them for 2 days this week because of rain, but things are moving right along, anyway.

Garage, street-view:

Garage, inside, looking from right front corner to left side:

Yes, this thing is HUGE for a garage...24' deep by 32' long!  :)  

The beginings of Andy's workshop located behind the garage:

The workshop is slightly smaller at only 20' deep by 32' long.  Still, though, plenty of room for storage of Andy's "stuff".  


Several months ago, a new client found me through the local quilt store and asked me to repair the bindings on 3 vintage quilts she had that had been passed down through her family.  I posted about the first one here.   I finally got around to completing the second one this past week.

This is that horrible red fabric that I posted about that just kept bleeding, no matter how many times I washed it.  The last time I rinsed it in vinegar, but it was still bleeding.  At that point I just gave up and went ahead and applied it to the quilt.  I have warned the customer that it bleeds and recommended that if she washes the quilt that she should use several color catchers to keep the red from bleeding onto the white.   

She has one more quilt that she wants me to repair the binding on, and when she picks up this quilt, she'll drop off that one for me to work on.  

And, last but not least, here is the latest update on the Blue Ridge Beauty quilt that is currently in my quilt frame...

This is the center block, meaning...I'M HALFWAY DONE!  woohooo!

You can see that now my lines of stitching are going in the opposite direction...following the layout of the quilt.



Uh-oh!!  Points that don't quite match???  Say it ain't so, Loretta!!  

Yep.  Just keepin' it real...

Loretta