Poking My Head Up

It has been a long roller coaster of a week. My MIL was admitted to the hospital last Friday and placed on the Palliative Care floor. They had a difficult time getting her pain under control but finally found a more successful combination of pain meds toward the end of the weekend. The plan was to move her to the nearby hospice facility at the beginning of the week but they encouraged the family to start visiting ASAP. The husband’s stepsisters arrived there last Sunday. The husband, his brother, our girls, and my MIL’s two brothers all flew in on Tuesday. My MIL was moved to the hospice house on Wednesday and seems to have stabilized. The husband said she had a steady stream of visitors yesterday. She is still sedated from the pain meds, but knows when people are there. 

The husband gets home today. I leave this weekend. We had many generous offers of help from friends who volunteered to come take care of the animals so I could go earlier, but it made more sense for the husband and me to tag-team our visits. The rest of the family will have returned home by the end of this weekend and we did not want to leave my FIL without some help. My in-laws live about an hour from where the husband and I went to college. I’ve house-sat for them several times and am familiar with the area and some of my MIL’s friends. 

I took the husband to the airport on Tuesday morning and then went to the hospital to sit with my friend, Susan (my kids’ other mother) while her husband was in surgery. The surgery went well and her husband is recovering, although I think they will keep him for a few more days yet. 

For the most part—except for a quick trip to town yesterday to run a few errands—I’ve been hunkered down here alone since then. My extroverted friends will probably find that horrifying, but it was the most comforting thing I could do for myself. I’ve spent the last three days transcribing, sewing, and talking to chickens. The husband and the girls provided regular updates by text and phone and a couple of our friends have also checked in from time to time. I don’t need a lot of social interaction, and when I do, I know how to find it. I just didn’t feel like being around people much this week. 

What sewing projects did I work on? 

I bought a simple jersey knit dress at the Gap last year and it has become one of my favorite pieces. I have wanted to try tracing that dress to make a pattern off of it. I pinned it out and made a tracing Wednesday afternoon, and now it’s a matter of making a test dress from my pattern. I even have the fabric for the test garment—some not-terribly-awful $3 a yard jersey bought at Joann’s during one of their massive clearance sales. If my pattern fits on the first iteration, I’ll have another dress. If I have to make some refinements, I won’t be out a lot of money for expensive fabric. 

I pulled out my 2-1/2” strip Accuquilt die and attacked my scrap bag. The scrap bag has a lot of strips approximately 3-4” wide. I tend to use up the skinnier strips and the wider ones hang around. I systematically worked my way through all those strips, layering them onto to the die and running it through the cutter. I was surprised at how much fun I had doing that. (Obviously, I am easily entertained.) I ended up with two bags of 2-1/2” strips:

No doubt these will find their way into some kind of jelly roll scrap quilts. I have a few ideas already. 

And I finished another quilt top:

This was the second Framed quilt, and to this one, I did add a border. This started out as a fat quarter bundle from the Quilting Bee in Spokane. That bundle didn’t contain enough fabric for an entire quilt, so I added some. The burnt orange, dark brown, the gold, and one of the turquoise fabrics all came from the stash. 

Without a border, the quilt measures 54” x 63”. I added a 6” border on each side to make it 66” x 75” and I like that size much better. I also feel like the border helps to finish it off. I’m going to add a similar border to the first Framed quilt before I quilt it. 

My machine quilting projects are piling up. 

I’ve got some knitting and embroidery projects to take with me to work on while I am sitting with my MIL. Don’t look for much blogging from me. My energies need to be directed elsewhere right now. And thank you all again for the notes, comments, and prayers.