Back in the groove again

Whoa! Can’t believe it’s the middle of July already – summer is flying by. It’s been awhile since I updated my poor neglected blog. I had my arthroscopic shoulder surgery in mid-April and am doing well. The surgeon removed 2 large bone spurs and cleaned out my whole shoulder joint making twice as much room in there as there was prior to the surgery. It was pretty painful the first 2 weeks but after 2 months of physical therapy I’m almost back to normal now. I can stitch and sew again finally – yeah!! I just have to not go too long at one sitting or the shoulder gets sore.

I have been busy the last month. I took a wonderful class in early June with Jane Timmers. It' was the "Madeira Tin Set". We lined a Moda jellyroll tin and made matching smalls. I love Jane’s patterns. She is so nice and brought wonderful things for us to see and patterns to purchase. Here is my finished Madeira Tin Set below. It includes a pinkeep/needlebook, biscornu, and folding ort jar. I loved learning how to make the ort jar - it's not included in the pattern but she was able to show us how to do it. I’m amazed at how creative people are. It twists up and looks like a little pyramid when closed. The set also included a pattern to make a tote bag and a cloth scissor fob. I didn't make the tote bag and decided to do a stitched fob instead using some design motifs from the other pieces in the set. In the front of the tin is a photograph of a matching sampler that Jane stitched. The whole set is just darling and it's one of the most fun things I've done. All the pictures are clickable if you want a closer look. Jane will be publishing this pattern maybe next year but for now it's just a class piece.

I also have been busy catching up on the “book quilt”. This is a quilt my friends and I are designing to go with a book we all read called “Like Water For Chocolate”. I got behind on the monthly assignments when I couldn’t sew for awhile. This was my month to present a design and I’m so glad my assignment is done. I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. Here is the quilt so far. It's been fun doing something a bit different and seeing the different color palettes each person used. Everything in the quilt pertains to something in the book so of course you wouldn't know unless you've read it but it's interesting anyway.

I haven't been doing any exchanges yet this year but just signed up for the fall sampler house exchange on SBEBB so I can get back to exchanging. While my shoulder was healing I had my sewing room painted and am doing a bit of redecorating in there as well. It used to be decorated in "primitive" style but I am trying to do a bit of shabby chic now. I hope to get some pictures up on my blog soon. Other than that I have a severe case of cross-stitch start-itis! I've been holding myself back trying to work on my UFO list but it's hard. I promised myself I'd get half of my list done before the end of the year and I've still got a lot to do. There are so many wonderful things calling my name though from my stash drawers! I'm convinced that many of you don't sleep - you just stitch all night. Either that or you have the Keebler Elves coming over to help you!