Life has been full of surprises lately. I have done zero personal sewing. I have completed two quilts for others.
I quilted Marilyn's Deco quilt with Radiate.
I worked on Sara's owl quilt. She really wanted custom quilting. This quilt will hang on the wall in her soon-to-be-born daughter's room. When I took this picture, I'd been stitching for two days and you can barely tell.
I worked on it Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I spent Sunday burying what felt like 1000 threads, which took me at least three hours. I used eight colors of thread.I did a lot of stitch-in-the ditch around the various appliqué shapes and then added quilting to the owls, branches, and leaves to give them some definition. I quilted the background with the Midnight Sparkle pantograph. It required a lot of no-sew zones and splitting of the design so that it would stop and start around the appliqués without stitching back and forth a ton around the appliqué (hence the 1000 tie-offs).Meanwhile, we had our first FTC competition of the year on Sunday in West Lafayette. We were still proofing and printing documents Saturday morning. They left after lunch to drive up there. I'm not sure the robot was even functional at that point, but the hotel staff let them set up in the breakfast area and they spent many hours fine-tuning, finishing the script, and practicing. It was weird being home alone, but I spent many hours finishing the quilting of the owl quilt, wrapping up at 10:30 p.m.
Sunday I started watching the livestream of the tournament at 11 a.m. The boys' robot died about 40 seconds into their first match. Their control hub, sort of the brains of the robot, completely quit working. Luckily they had a spare, along with a two-hour window before their next match. Things still didn't go very well since they were still transferring programming to the new hub and their ranking was at or near the bottom most of the day; normally they are in the top few teams. They did win their last match and ended the day at 21 of 28. They were awarded a CONNECT Award, which was a first for us. The tournament manager asked everyone to stick around after the final matches because they'd be announcing which five teams would earn an advancement to state. FIRST has an advancement hierarchy, which I was frantically trying to find, since two of the winning teams had earned advancements at prior competitions. I thought there was a chance we'd squeak in to the fifth spot due to the CONNECT, and we did. Whew! We have two weeks before the next match, so hopefully they will get everything worked out.
Monday morning my son was running down the driveway to the bus at 6:50 a.m. He tripped and took a very hard fall and returned to the house very bloodied. I was still mostly asleep and my husband woke me up to help clean the boy up. The transportation garage called to make sure he'd made it back into the house--the bus driver had radioed it in. He scraped most of his nose, bit and bloodied his upper lip, which swelled quite a bit, hit one knee and the opposite elbow, and really ripped up his hands. He also ripped a hole all the way through the elbow of his jacket, ripped his pants on the opposite side, and broke his watch. Luckily his teeth and glasses were okay. Tuesday morning I removed the bandages, which took me 1/2 hour, and sought advice from my friend, who is a retired nurse. She thought his hand needed to be x-rayed. I got him out of his pajamas and into some clothes and we went to the smaller hospital's ER. We spent over 2.5 hours there. His fingers are not broken. They never cleaned his wounds, which I found odd. The waiting room clientele was...interesting. I made sure we brought good masks with us and we stayed masked the whole time. One lady had Covid and kept taking her mask off. Some sheriffs brought in an inmate in his orange jumpsuit. He was cuffed to the wheelchair. He scared me far less than the coughers. We'll know to try elsewhere next time.
I also got a pretty bad haircut last week. I don't understand why they keep insisting on basically shaving my head when I ask them not to. I am finding it embarrassing to be seen in public with this hair. What there is sticks straight out. Between all that and trying to keep up with the breakneck announcements and wondering how they affect us, it's been a lot. I'm very conflicted on social media use, but feel I need to remain for business purposes. I wish I could de-Zuck my life. I finally have plenty of work in the house and I haven't had time to start it. I'm scheduled to attend the big guild's retreat the next few days. I'm gonna drive back and forth each day. It will be nice to get my mind off things and I should have some sewing to share next week.
That Deco quilt is gorgeous!!!
ReplyDeleteThe Deco quilt, and the owl quilt are both looking wonderful. Hoping your son is well soon. Sorry about your haircut. I have never understood why some hairdressers just do not appear to listen to their clients.
ReplyDeleteOH MY WORD, what a week for you! I'm glad your son is okay from his tumble. It must have been mortifying to trip and fall like that in front of the other students on the bus. I chased so many school buses back in the day that I still have nightmares sometimes where I'm running down the street after a school bus that is driving away, with mean boys laughing at me and pointing out the back windows of the school bus. As for the Deco quilt -- gorgeous! Hopefully mine will be done sometime this year, too! As for the haircut -- can you let your wallet do the talking here and try someone else next time, or don't you have much in the way of options where you are? I am finally happy with the way my new stylist in Florida is doing my cuts and color, but NOT happy that it is so much more expensive than it was in North Carolina. Sometimes I look forward to getting far enough over the hill to reach the Point of No Return, when whatever straggly gray mess sprouts out of my skull in uneven patches will just have to compete for attention with the sun damage splatters, the wrinkles, and the eye bags! More money for fabric, am I right? ;-)
ReplyDeleteYou had a week!!!! Glad your kid is alright - but I HATE er waiting rooms - just for that !! I feel for you!! and hope your hair is growing out - So sorry!!! Do you have a hat you like? Love that Art Deco Quilt - so very pretty
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