Playing Catch-Up!

My new knee is getting better every day… or maybe I should say that I am getting better at using and trusting it every day!!  The bi-weekly physical therapy sessions (aka physical torture) while really painful, really help soooo much!  I get stronger and more stable after every one!  And yesterday, I drove myself to therapy for the first time!  Soooo good to be able to drive again… house arrest has been lifted finally!!  And my stalwart sidekick has been by my side every day!!

I am playing catch-up now, after not being able to get up to my sewing room for a month.  I still have not made the Schnibbles group monthly project for July…sigh

But I am slowly trying to catch up on my Farm Girl Vintage blocks. 

I LOVE the tea kettle block!  Such fun!!  My favorite part is choosing the fabrics for each block!!  If you are making these blocks, what’s your favorite part?

I love this Grandma’s Quilt block, too!

Do you use these mini- design boards and Alphabitties to keep your cut pieces organized?

I think they really help me make the blocks faster…easier to know which piece is which and such!

I fussy cut the center piece of the Hooks, Needles, & Brushes block!

My sweet Yogi is losing his hearing, along with vision in his right eye.  I can now come into the house carrying rustling bags, turn off the alarm system and he does not even hear any of that… sigh…  :-(

Farm Girl Vintage Catch-Up!

My bee friends and  I are really enjoying Lori Holt’s Farm Girl Vintage Sew-Along on her blog- Bee In My Bonnet.

The online Sew-Along, which debuts a new block or two every Friday, started on May 1st, when I was frantically sewing up some new clothes for our upcoming cruise. 

Then I was gone on the cruise for three weeks, so I’ve spent the last few weeks since getting home catching up on the blocks I missed, and also collecting more fabrics for the style of the quilt.  I’ve never been a small print fabric lover… the thirties were never my “thing”, so I had none in my stash…so you know what that means-

        TIME TO SHOP!!  LOL!!

In order to keep the many tiny pieces needed for each block organized, I made six small mini-design boards according to Lori’s online tutorial found HERE! 

Also, the Fat Quarter Shop sells small hard plastic pieces with the alphabet and numbers on them, which help you keep all those small pieces organized to coordinate with Lori’s lovely directions.

I’ll show you a photo of the organized cut pieces for each block, and then the finished block! Here are my blocks so far, starting with “Apron Strings” block on May 1st-

May 8th included two blocks- “Autumn Star”

 

and “Baby Chick”-

May 15th included two blocks-  “Baking Day”

and “Butter Churn”

May 22nd included two blocks- “Canning Season”

and “Chicken Foot”

May 29th included two blocks- “Churn Dash”

and “Cool Threads”

June 5th included two blocks- “Corn and Tomatoes”

and “Country Crossroads”

June 12th included two blocks - “Crops”

and “Egg Basket”

I’ve been living with a good deal of pain in my knees for a few years, but it’s been getting really bad lately, so I decided to get it checked out.  I went to my orthopedic doctor on Tuesday, and he told me both my knees are beyond bone on bone and are no longer aligned at all and need to be replaced.  The right one is the worst, so we will start with that one on July 6th!  So, I’ll be trying to get ahead on the Farm Girl Vintage blocks and get some projects lined up that I can do by hand downstairs.   My sewing room is upstairs, so won’t be able to do the stairs for a while!!  So, any of y’all out there already have had one or two total knee replacements?  Any words of wisdom to share??

Yogi is really worried about my upcoming surgeries…