Home At Last!

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, thank you all again for your thoughts and prayers as I travel this bumpy road to recovery.

Kudos to all the staff at the Restorative Care Center at our local hospital. Without their assistance and encouragement, I wouldn't be home today. They helped me get to the point where I am now able to get around with a walker which was my ultimate goal in order to be able to return home.  

Our house is literally upside down and in a state of chaos.  While I was in the hospital, Mr. Painted Quilt moved our bedroom downstairs into the living room because I won't be able to navigate stairs until I am able to walk without the aid of a walker.  In order to make things easier for me to get around, much of our furniture has been moved either into the workshop and/or sunroom.  It sure looks different around here which has got me to thinking that perhaps this is the little push I needed to think about downsizing and parting with of some of my stuff treasures.  I envision a HUGE yard sale in the Spring!

Because my sewing room is upstairs, it goes without saying that nothing is happening in that area.  How I miss it! 

Unbeknownst to me while I was in the hospital, Debbie, a member of our guild who also happens to manage our local quilt shop, organized and collected fat quarters for me from both guild members and the gals who meet and sew in her shop.  I was totally surprised when she came to visit me in the hospital bearing this basket filled to the brim with fat quarters!

I love them all and they will all be put to good use as soon as I can get back to sewing.  Thank you again, my friends!

Even though I'm not sewing, I am staying busy.  My best friend and quilting buddy Debra told me that it was time for me to get "back in the saddle" and suggested that we make a Baltimore quilt.  I've always loved Baltimore quilts and vowed when I started quilting about seven years ago that I would make one someday.

There are twenty-five blocks to this quilt so you know it's going to be a work-in-progress.  

We decided to make ours using the raw edge machine applique method using scraps and offcuts of batik fabrics from Debra's stash.

  
Yes, you read correctly...batiks!  I do like batiks but I love my Civil War and reproduction fabrics more.  I've never made anything from batiks and this for me will really be stepping out of that proverbial box!

To date we've traced and cut out seven blocks leaving eighteen more to go...but who's counting?  *wink*

  
Tomorrow we are getting together again to cut out and prep another four or five blocks and hopefully more.  It is our goal to have all twenty-five blocks prepped in time so that we can start to applique them at our long weekend "Dogpatch" retreat in October.

NOTE *  A few of you asked me about the pattern that I used to make the scrappy star quilt that I posted about before being hospitalized.  As soon as I can get into my sewing room I'll locate the pattern and provide you with the details.  If I forget, please don't hesitate to remind me.  I don't know how long this "anesthetic fog" is going to hang around.

Happy stitching!