I survived!!! I'm alive! I'm alive! I survived my rotator cuff surgery and, more importantly, I survived the mister as my caretaker!!! I know you'll be expecting me to complain and whine, as per normal, about the mister and all of his blunderings, but I have to say, he done good!!! I'm not going to mention the food he burned in the oven, "Who the hell put the BROIL button next to the BAKE button!!!" or the delicious dinner of applesauce, yogurt, carrots, crackers and cold chicken (?????) Nope, I'm not going to diss the mister at all, he took excellent care of me! He waited on me hand and foot for days - every hour on the hour coming in to see if I needed ice or water or something to eat and I would mumble something as he picked up the remote and said, "You're not watching this are you?" Then he would change the channel and leave the room. And he would leave the remote on the other side of the room...so I had no choice but to take more pain pills and fall back asleep. The mister made the bed (as long as the covers were on top of the mattress it was made) and he picked up after himself (but everything was thrown into the closet and now the door won't open!) and he even volunteered to do the laundry...I had to draw the line there...I told him he could wash HIS clothes but not mine...he wasn't listening and now he has pink undershirts! It seems like all I did was sleep for the first week - or maybe I have just blocked that painful week from my memory. You know things are going to be bad when you doctor says, "I'm not going to lie, the first two weeks are hellish." I asked him if that was a medical term, he smiled and said, "It is now!" I'm now almost 3 weeks out and as long as I don't lift anything or move my arm, all is good!! I still have one good arm, so really, I can't complain! And, as luck would have it, I was even able to sew with my one good arm at our Sew Day for American Hero Quilts!
Let's talk about quilts - oh how I've missed them! I haven't sewn for about a month - which is a really, really long time for me! I do have a quilt in my machine, ready to be quilted, but unfortunately my arm just can't do that yet!
Okay, so there we were at the Happy Valley Grange - the sweet little building on the old farm road that is like walking back into time when you go in the front doors. We love this place - it holds special memories for our quilt group as we have done two quilt shows there! On this day, however, we were there to sew all of the blocks we've made each month together into quilts for American Hero Quilts. Just as we were getting underway one very special lady showed up with her daughter. Her daughter Brianna, said her mom, JoAnne had something she wanted to give us...and she opened up a little plastic bag and pulled out this quilt! Our jaws hit the floor! Just look at this work of art! JoAnne said she would never finish it and her daughters don't sew and said they didn't want it...so JoAnne decided it would be a good thing to donate it to American Hero Quilts. I'll say it's a good thing!!! We were all gobsmacked by her generosity. There are still really, really good people in the world and JoAnne is one of them! Thank you so very much and thank you Brianna, for not knowing how to sew!!
We will get this top finished and sent to American Hero Quilts and you just know this quilt is going to be loved and cherished. It will probably go to the mom or wife of someone who was killed, like the quilt below.
This quilt was made by Stephanie, I've shown it here before but now it is all quilted and bound and ready to be mailed. It is going to the mother of a soldier who was killed in Afghanistan. Stephanie's son was in his unit and knew him and Stephanie wanted to let her know her son is not forgotten and to thank her for her sacrifice. You know she will love this quilt and what it represents. Stephanie is like JoAnne, generous to a fault and so dang good!
We set out the blocks we'd made all over the floor and slowly we worked them into 5 different groups and then we worked them into some patterns - they're not perfect but they went together pretty well and we were happy. When we made the blocks we didn't have too many rules, just 12 1/2-inches and red, white and blue...next time we might say all stars or something like that so the quilts have a bit more uniformity but we did okay!
American Hero Quilts likes all of their tops to be 63 by 83 inches - big enough for a soldier or Marine to wrap themselves up in - and that's pretty big!
We had a pretty sweet ironing station set up - Stephanie brought in her "kitchen sink" quilt and classed up the place. Things were going swimmingly until we blew a fuse! Did I mention the Grange is old?!?!
Jenny brought in two of her quilts that she had just picked up from the quilter - they are worth seeing again, no? Both of them she is giving away, Jenny is like Stephanie and JoAnne, generous, kind and good-to-the-bone.
These other two quilts are Stephanie's, she made them from scraps. The quilt on the right was from scraps from a friend that were destined for the trash can until Stephanie rescued them about 8 years ago...and when they had aged properly she sewed them into this darling little quilt. Nothing goes to waste around Stephanie!
We can't meet at the Grange unless I can take a picture of the quilt we made and for the Grange in 2009. It was truly a work of love - and the "Grangers" love it as much as we do - it's been hanging in the Grange since the day we gave it to them.
I hope you liked the show - it was super fun getting together with friends to sew, even if my arm gave out half-way through and I ended up on pain meds the rest of the day - it was worth it!
I'll be back posting on a regular schedule soon...don't give up on me just yet!
