Brother and SIL's Quilt

I spotted this pattern on Bonnie's Quiltville website a long time ago and it stuck in the back of my mind. Being a thrifty kind of person, I found myself with a huge box full of blue and turquoise strips that were left over from other projects and the need for a Christmas present for my brother and his wife. This was the first thing I thought of.

I was really hoping to show you pictures of Chris' Star Quilt all finished but it's turned into a bit of a disaster. The main quilting went fine but I turned it sideways to do the side borders and somehow I've managed to get great big puckers in the backing fabric which are going to require a huge frogging session. Sickeningly that part of the border quilted like a dream, I should have known that was a bad omen.

I'll photograph it tomorrow and laugh about it but right now I just want to scream.

I was downloading pictures from the camera and found a couple of things I haven't shared.

First there was this beautiful pink lemonade. It looked so pretty I just had to take a picture of it. Pity the quilting frame background isn't quite as photogenic.



Then there were these fabulous squares that Ally bought me as a present. They are so pretty and girly. I can't decide what to make with them but whatever they end up being part of, it can't fail to be wonderful.





I've just about finished quilting Chris' quilt. I don't think I'm going to have the binding done by the time she gets home on Thursday though.

The weather was lovely this morning. Sunny but breezy and not too hot. Perfect dog walking weather. They thought so too.

When I got back I worked in the garden for a bit. Had some lunch and felt energised and ready to finish Chris' quilt which has been on the frame for a week now. Unfortunately on my way to the quilt frame I slipped on a pile of books in a plastic bag and wrenched my leg badly and so instead I'm laid up in bed with my leg propped up on pillows.

Boring!

Biopsy Results

Teazle is feeling a lot better now. The drain has been taken out and everything is healing up nicely.

The vet phoned with the test results. The lump on her back was only a sebacious cyst so no problems there, the big one on her side was a lipoma and no cancer cells inside so no problem there either. The one on her tummy turned out not to be breast cancer as suspected but a mast cell cancer on the underside of her skin. They say it was in the early stages and that they got all it's margins so hopefully it hasn't spread further.

After losing Bracken so recently I was pretty wibbly about Teazle but that's a lot better result than I was fearing.

She hopeful gets her stitches out on Friday and then it's just a matter of waiting for her fur to grow back.

Sad dog

Teazle had some lumps that the vet was concerned about so yesterday she went in to have them taken out. She is now the saddest dog in the world. They were pretty big incisions and because there was one on her ribs, one on her back and one on her udders she's finding it hard to lie comfortably.

She was very cold and shaky from the anaesthetic and we took pity on her and she spent the night on our bed all wrapped up in fluffy towels. This made her a very happy dog but she is a dreadful bed-hog and whimpered under her breath all night so I dont think we got a wink of sleep.

Getting up at 4.00 to take my husband to the airport was very hard. She was feeling pretty perky by then and had a breakfast before I left, another one when I got back at 7.00 and then stole some of Sophie's too so I think she's back to normal.

We're now keeping our fingers crossed that they were benign.

It's been ages since I added anything to this blog but I have been insanely busy. As well as tackling the garden I've been clearing the attic with a view to making it into a clean, usable storage space to hold all my quilting stuff. The dining room/office is disappearing under piles of boxes full of fabric and sewing stuff and so it's going to have to go somewhere else.

The attic was totally suffed full of junk and tons and tons of books. Most of which has now been relocated. I've now started on the horrible task of removing the old insulation which is thick with dust and gooodness knows what else. Once that is done I need to clean everything and then we've got to reinforce the joists. It's amazing, given the number of books up there, that the ceiling didn't fall in years ago.

Then it's the joyful task of getting the electrics relocated, putting in a floor, insulating the roof and putting in a ceiling. This is going to be a VERY long job.