Unearthed While Cleaning

 I found a few old things while I was cleaning. 

 I found some flannel that I bought to make receiving blankets. 

 So I cut those up and made 2! 

I came across these 4 stars.

I made a UT quilt for my son YEARS ago and these were leftover.

I messaged my son, 

"Do you want me to make these into a pillow or donate?"

OF COURSE he opted for a pillow.

It couldn't be easy right?

I just wanted to move on, but NOOOOOOO. 

I was super productive today.

I put the sheets in the wash, made some candied pecans, made some keto tagalongs and put dinner in the crockpot, Crack Chicken.

I will go put the sheets in the dryer, thaw the bacon for the chicken, and get some lunch.

Then I'm off to work on the pillow.

What are you doing this fine day!

~XOP~

February Quilt Retreat

 Every February a few of my friends and I go on a fairly local quilt retreat.

  It's about 2 hours from home for me.  

This year I invited my friend Kailie.  

She is living close enough to drive here.  

So on Thursday she and her dog came to my house. 

 We packed up her car, left her dog with Chris and headed out to meet up with my other 2 friends.  

We always have such a great time!  

WAY too much food, talking, movies and laughter. 

Some shopping at the quilt shops nearby.

 Oh and we sewed...a LOT this time!

First quilt shop was Seven Sisters in Carson City.

Kailie, Mary, Me and Cori

Mary found a few things, LOL

Mary had the first finish of the weekend.

Followed by Cori.

Mine was up next.

I have 3 of these to do!

Pattern is by Apples and Beavers.

It is called Unicorn Garden.

One of 4 is completely finished and you saw it in the last post.

Saturday we went to Creative Passions quilt shop.

Kailie finished this baby quilt while working on her Cranberry and Lace quilt.

Mary finished three more tops for her granddaughters.

Such happy quilts!

Cori finished another top.

Pattern is Double Slice and uses a layer cake and a bit of white

I made the FPP fairy at home.

I managed to finish the 3rd unicorn.

Three down one to go!

I showed Mary how to glue baste and machine bind.

She was able to get binding on TWO pretty sizable quilts.

I only remembered to snap this photo though.

Kailie made significant progress on her Cranberry and Lace top.

She continued to work on it when we got back to my house on Sunday.

It is a beauty!

Pattern is Denim and Lace by A Crafty Fox.

It was tough to leave as we had all been so productive!

I will see them all in July at retreat though.

Kailie and I returned home and Chris prepared a great spread for watching the Super Bowl.

I think Chris tired Ebby out!

Apparently the cats were exhausted as well, LOL.

I was right there with them.

I think I stayed up past 2am every night we were there!!!

A good time was had by all and we are all looking forward to seeing each other in July.

I have my first mamogram since my breast cancer diagnosis on Monday.

Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers.

Last time I was in was for my annual, and we were supposed to leave for NC the next day.

Instead, BAM...breast cancer!

It's ok though, all is well as far as I can tell.

I will feel a lot better after Monday that's for sure!!

~XOP~

My Life

 Since we have been home from NC life has been a little hectic.  

I have been going to see a lymphedema specialist for fluid retention after my radiation.

The massage techniques I did before going helped it to all be gone.

The therapist gave me more to do.

In addition she gave me a lot of stretching exercises.

It appears that radiation can cause adhesions and make the scar hard.

It also restricts my arm movement a bit.

She said it is not uncommon for breast cancer survivors to develop rotator cuff injuries.

It seems we compensate in a way that harms our rotator cuff.

So I am learning new stretches.

They help with movement and with keeping the scar supple.

For Christmas we got our eldest daughter stuff to make sourdough bread.

She has made LOTS of bread.

She also discovered that she could make biscuits from the discard.

She brought some of the discard over the other day and I made biscuits today.

I had to take my car in to get the bumper fixed after a mild accident while I was in NC.

Finally got that back.

My regular sewing machine had to go in for service.

The cable that allowed me to use the hands free system frayed.

That meant I could not use hands free to lift the presser foot.

I didn't realize how much I used this until it was broken, sigh.

I got that back yesterday.

It's been a crazy few weeks!

I finally got in to get a haircut and highlight.

I haven't had a haircut or highlight since last summer.

It feels so much better!

I found a new slow cooker recipe for candied pecans.

Can you believe these are sugar free??

They were amazing!!

On top of all of this, I have been binding quilts as fast as I can.

It is so much easier to do the machine binding on the Bernina 770!

The LED lighting is AWESOME!

It has been raining here so no pics of the most recent bindings.

I went to bind my oldest WIP only to realize that I don't have enough of the fabric I need to make enough binding.

I am not sure of the name either so I took my best guess and placed an order.

We will see when it gets here is it is the right choice.

Fingers crossed!

~XOP~

Prismata

 My eldest daughter drew an incredible water dragon when she was in high school.  

At the time I told her that someday I would make him into a quilt for her. 

My skill level was not where I felt comfortable at that time.

I had just started quilting.

This is the original I was working from.

Over time I picked away at the project.

Always in between other things and with zero regularity.

I took it to a retreat a LONG time ago and the people there sort of made fun of the project.

I shoved it in a bag and it was literally YEARS before I took it out again.

I had taken the drawing and enlarged it.

(bite marks are from Finny)

I numbered all the areas on the drawing.

I traced all the pieced on to fusible.

I had chosen the fabrics and fused the pieces.

I brought everything with me to the Reject's Retreat.

I worked really hard on getting started on him.

His name is Prismata.

He is a rainbow, water dragon.

I managed to get him all fused to the background. 

Then I brought him home.

Afraid once again to go any further.

I finally took him out and brought him to my local LQS to ask about interfacing and thread.

They had excellent suggestions.

I bought the sharps sewing machine needles.

I bought 100 weight thread to stitch around him.

I used tear away fusible on the back of the piece.

I stitched all around him and he was amazing.

BUT, he needed amazing quilting.

So he flew on a plane to Washington to Quilting is My Bliss.

Let me tell you, he turned out better than I could have imagined!!!

This is the backing I chose.  I even put a hanging sleeve on it!

Let me tell you, my daughter was so excited to finally have him in her hands!

I gifted it to her on her birthday too.

So now you think this is the end, right?

Well you would be wrong.

If you noticed in the original drawing, he has rainbow colors and bubbles coming off him.

I was nervous to do this on the quilt.

My idea was to possibly use Intense pencils to create the rainbow in the water.

I also considered using hot fix crystals for the bubbles.

Since BOTH are things I couldn't remove, I wanted to see what she thought.

Of course she loved BOTH of those things.

YIKES!

I have not picked him back up to finish, yet.

I need to quilt up a sample to practice with the pencils.

You can color with them and then use water over the top to blend them into the fabric.

I had placed some crystals over the quilted bubbles just to see what how it looked before I even made this as a suggestion.

I remembered to take a picture of those so here is what I put in place, it was not all, as I would fill all the bubbles but I just wanted to see if I even liked it.

She assured me I could not make it too "rainbowy".

I sure hope she's right!

She seems to be the child I make the most complex quilts for.

(Remember her Hallowedding quilt??)

So Prismata is with me for just a little bit longer.

Until I become brave enough to use the colored pencils and put in his bubbles.

He is already an very handsome boy.

I'd love to hear what you think of him.

I think he is gorgeous!

More to come.

~XOP~

I Rang The Bell

 Yesterday was my last radiation treatment.  

A total of 15 treatments finished! 

 I believe I am now considered NED (no evidence of disease) 

 I brought cookies for my amazing radiation team. 

 They took great care of me and made my treatments easier. 

 I got a certificate and everything, LOL.

They invited me to come back and visit them, haha.  

Such sweet people.

They came out into the hall with me and cheered for me when I got to ring the bell too.

Chris took this video of me ringing the bell while my team cheered me on!

As you walk into the building for treatment there is a rock garden.

 People paint rocks with encouraging words, and sayings, memorials to loved ones, and things like you beat this, or we love you mom etc. 

As we were walking into the building on this day some of the workers were outside at a table painting rocks and invited us to join them on our way out.

I was so excited to have a rock there!

Imagine my surprise when I walked out and saw this in the garden.

Chris took a rock home and painted it for me!

I burst into tears and cried into his shoulder.

He teared up as we stood there, overwhelmed in the moment with how fortunate we were.

Fortunate that the BC was managable. 

Fortunate that the big treatments were over.

Fortunate that God loved me enough to save me.

Next week I will have a bone scan before I begin on an aromatase inhibitor.

I have 2 weeks before I begin that.

I'm not going to lie, that makes me really nervous.

It starves the body of Estrogen (which my cancer needs to grow).

No Estrogen?  No cancer growth.

I pray that God will continue to hold me in his arms and get us through this as well.

So far He has been SO good to me.

In the mean time.

I SEW BEAT THIS!

~XOP~