Monday, October 31, 2016

Half-pieced

Wow! I really haven't been doing much quilting this year. Yes I have been out in the woods and marsh alot. It was so pretty I would have had a hard time staying away. Since I am not writing anymore books and I really don't need anymore quilts and I feel no need to use all my fabric before I die I am content to sew when I have the chance. Yes I am still quilting with the ladies at church and Studio 3 but mostly helping or teaching and not doin my own stuff.
Actually I cancelled Thursdays for a while with several gals out on medical leave and all the work I was doing cause Mark was injured and had surgery. He's fine now though will never be 100 % but now it is my turn. I have a painful shoulder. Whether it is a torn rotator cuff and/or  bursitis/tendonitis irritating a 50 year old broken bone is unknown at this point. An MRI scheduled in 2 weeks will tell me if I am a candidate for surgery. Meanwhile I can do little and hope even this doesn't irritate it.
Earlier this summer I told myself to put together more kits for just such an occasion but didn't so am forced to play with my collection of 2" squares and triangles or walk in the woods. But it has been so pretty out there I am not complaining. Not. O Well, it could be worse.
Sew, this is all I have accomplished in the studio this summer:

 This lap sized blue and orange and pink thing. Status of border is unknown; not quilted yet.


and these are the sampler blocks begun w Thursday group. Will add a few now with the Friday group working on sampler blocks again. Most of the blocks are from Barbara Brackman's book Civil War Sampler. I wonder if she would recognize them. I love the Civil War fabrics but had grown tired of them earlier this year. Of course, I got over that and now with my shoulder I started to assemble my 1800's charm quilt, 1000 Pyramids, since it was partially cut out. I still need a few hundred more prints. I have the 5" charm squares collected but not cut into triangles yet. With any luck I should be able to cut more of those and sew. Otherwise I will just keep collecting till I can cut again.

I did a little work on comfort quilts. And I had some prep work for a few classes and lectures I gave but nothun worth showing here.

But this is what is drawing me outside now:
This is the woods from across the creek at edge of the road in front of my house.  The trees blooming are mostly hickory and some ash which we are loosing to green ash borer.



 that was last week. And now the oaks have turned colors. This is a young red oak.We have a bunch of old red and white oak trees. The red are now dying due to old age and oak wilt disease. That makes me very sad. Not sure what we will do about it. But we do have a big bunch of young red oak to replace those we loose. It would be better to get a white oak variety to replace the dying red cause they aren't as affected by the disease. I'm making it my mission to get some white oaks started in the woods. For that to happen we need to get more sunlight into the forest floor. But since we are loosing red oaks and ash trees and some elm to dutch elm disease and removing the invasive buckthorn,  I dont see a problem.  The bigger problem I see is getting Mark to recognize we should get some help cleaning up the mess. He's always been a do-it-yourselfer.

 So you know where you can find me, and its not the kitchen.