Stories from the Sewing Room

I finally got a break from all the binding and got some of my own sewing done! 

I made the backing for Forever Neverland. I cut and applied the borders correctly for the quilt top. I got fancy and tried to match the print as best I could across the top and bottom borders.

It's ready to quilt!

I sewed more of the stitch-and-flip corners on the race car quilt blocks. 

I made good progress on Nancy's quilt, though all those foundations are going to take forever to trim. I have trimmed eight of 40 pieces so far. 

Meanwhile, I have spent a number of hours trying to figure out why I can no longer email people with Yahoo email addresses from first my blog domain and now my business domain. Ugh. No great resolution, but hopefully I can figure out something soon, especially for my business, where it's pretty critical. 

I've quilted a few things since last week. I love the variety of quilts that come through my door. 

First is Carol's, quilted with Cassava.

I quilted Radio Waves on Shelly's quilt.

Marsali picked 60s Mod Butterfly.

I had a great moment when I advanced the quilt and saw that the backing and the quilt top centers matched up perfectly. {She had requested I center the middle piece of fabric she used in her backing as closely as possible and I nailed it.}

I started quilting Diagonal Plaid Bias on Kayle's quilt. 

I quilted Paw Prints on Jae's quilt. 

Moving over to the rest of my life, the perimeter of our house has now been treated for termites. The porch is formed and ready for cement. Because the volume of cement for the porch isn't enough for a cement truck, my husband has been prepping a covered parking spot on the end of the barn as well. Hopefully those two together should be enough. 

We had a bit of a surprise when my husband fed the chickens the other day. 

Apparently none of us had checked for eggs in a week or so (or maybe four days if they both laid). 😳 I really thought I had checked, because I usually do when it's my turn to feed them, but I guess not. They haven't laid since then. LOL.

The garden is still hanging in there. I was sad to discover that all the cucumbers I harvested recently are inedible--super bitter. I think it's due to the crazy water fluctuations, but maybe the soil quality too. I have a ton of tomatoes; the picture shows only a fraction. The carrot tops were looking pretty raggedy, so I grabbed a couple and pulled out little carrots! This is the first time I've successfully grown them. I was super excited about that. 😄

We have a pumpkin that is growing up in the air. This picture isn't the greatest, but you can kind of tell. My husband put a block of fence post under it to support it. 

Here's a few other pictures I took the other day. 

Beyond that, my eye doctor and I have settled on a contact lens combo that is a good compromise to real the issues I was having. Not great, but good. I've been there three times in three and a half weeks. I still have the follow-up foot appointment next week. 

My son's developed an open bite over the last year, so it looks like we might have to do another round of orthodontic treatment. The poor kid already had braces for like seven years and his teeth are still totally straight and he wears his retainers as directed. We are switching providers since we weren't happy with the one who took over his original orthodontist's practice after he retired. I felt comfortable with the first place I called other than potential cost I was quoted was shocking. I'm debating calling a second as well. None of us is thrilled with this, but we need to fix it. 

Meanwhile, he has completed and submitted his application for next summer's internship. He's going to retake the SAT on Saturday. He's interested in a high-value scholarship where he has to apply to a selection committee at school with the hopes of being one of two who are picked to advance to the actual application at the college. He dropped the ball on that and it's due Monday, so not only does he have a lot of SAT studying to do, he also has to write three essays as part of the application. We haven't even made it to the actual college applications yet. It's going to be a busy few weeks.  

In other random news, I saw that Hulu now has Bewitched available. I thought it would be fun to watch--I used to watch it as a kid--but my son kind of pooh-poohed it. It turns out he really enjoys the show. It also turns out that the actor who played Darren lived fairly close to my aunt and my grandfather and is buried in the cemetery behind Grandpa's house. Who knew?