In A Bookish, Quilty Mood

About six months ago I wrote a post about five weeks till the winter solstice . Funny to think that's about half a year ago already. Nothing felt summery earlier this month; all those gray days seemed like a weird winter, because it was chilly but light out. We had four fires in our fireplace, maybe more than we actually had during winter. It was lovely to go out for more wood at seven p.m. and it wasn't dark, LOL. Then suddenly, like a weather switch has been flipped, we've had mostly sunny days since Mother's Day! Windy but not cold. Bright and healing. Truly like summer is around the corner, though here in Humboldt County summer is a relative term. It's summer once the dragonflies arrive, mowing down the mosquitoes. It's summer in July because by then not only are the mosquitoes gone, but the days are still lengthy and the marine layer isn't quite the wet blanket it was in June because there's just enough heat soaked into the ground that makes it feel...

So much has occurred in the last few days, so many times I've wanted to sit at my office computer and write a post about.... Not merely chickens, but the beautiful SUN we enjoyed on Mother's Day, how gorgeous Monday was (more sun and quite warm), and then yesterday with MORE SUN! Please understand that after ten straight days of cloudy weather that was at times chilly, feeling the sun on my face has been a treat beyond explanation, and will give me patience during our summer of marine layer mornings that do eventually break into blue skies. Time to blog has been minimal in part due to those CHICKENS, LOL! Ruthie was her broody self, then on Sunday Icey revealed an outdoor nesting spot, nine eggs having been laid at the base of a camellia tree not far from our house. That dang hen! However... 1) She did reveal her location. 2) It wasn't hard to access. 3) It was easy to dismantle. And 4) She's not broody. She was attached to that spot, I'll say, but how we've dea...

I saw these earlier today and snapped them late this afternoon. Reminds me of some of the fabrics I encountered, hehehe. After I finished cutting fabric today, I had some four and a half inch wide strips left, and I put them in a tote notable for four and a half inch wide strips, among other scraps. I carried the tote into the living room with the desire to go through it later. Well, I just did so, and to my delight, what amounts to at least an entire quilt top/back is waiting for me to piece it together. Maybe more like two tops/backs, what with MANY strips as well as two stacks of varied sizes of large scraps, my goodness! It was like revisiting the last five-plus years of my stash, perhaps longer. One particular autumnal-hued piece went into the autumn-6.5" stack to be cut into squares, while another small collection of already cut 4.5" squares went into another tote. Only a few pieces were tossed from prints I don't need, and those pieces were small. Funny to think ho...

The inner panel does the heavy lifting here, but quilt math was employed to make sure the sizing was correct, as well as enough of the green border fabric to make that border! Kawandi as well as a panel completion. Yup, I love me some sewing! Except.... That sentiment is not this post. I'd planned to gleefully expand upon these two projects until late yesterday when my right shoulder ached not merely near my shoulder blade but actually at the top of my shoulder. Not that I'd done a heap of hand-sewing yesterday, but what I did wasn't what my body wanted. Sigh. It's better today, but still not a hundred percent. What it has done is make me reassess what I wanted to do with both projects, and the answer is to shelve them for now. The Kawandi wall hanging will live in a tote while the panel quilt top/back and its accompanying top/back will be folded, then placed on a stack of finished pieces. And that's what I can say about my hand-stitching endeavors. Sorting the bord...