Camp Blankets

Firstly let me thank you all for the well wishes sent for my Mom in my previous post.  I haven't had time to answer you all back individually, but you kind words meant a lot to me.  Mom is healing remarkably well for someone her age, and is being discharged to a rehabilitation center at the end of the week.  She will need plenty of rest and physical therapy in order to get her strength back and return home.

Now for the sewing part.  In the spirit of Pendleton and Hudson Bay, I made two camp blankets.  These are meant for camping, snuggling under at football games or singing around the campfire.  They're cut by width of fabric, so they measure about 44 inches across, but are about 60 inches long.  You need 1/4 yard of fabric for the colored stripes and about 1 1/4 yards for the background.

Since everything is cut by Width Of Fabric, there are no seams in the stripes, just piece the strips together and you're done!

The white one is made with Kona Snow, the darker one with Essex dyed linen.  The colored stripes are a combo of Kona and American Made solid cottons.
If you want to make one do this:
Cut 2 white (for each end, top and bottom) 5.5" x WOF
Cut 6 white strips 3" by WOF
Cut 2 each of black, yellow, red and green solid, 3"x WOF
Cut 1 white (middle) 15.5" x WOF

Sew a top section in this order:
One 5.5" white  (This is your top or bottom end piece)
black strip
white 3"strip
yellow strip
white 3" strip
red strip
white 3" strip
green strip

Now make a bottom section in the same order as the top.
Then sew the top section to the middle white 15.5" piece, then sew the bottom section to that.  The middle piece should have a green stripe on either side of it.  Done!
I chose a plaid flannel for the backing on the dark blanket, and a deer print from Birch fabrics for the white one.
As soon as this miserable heatwave is over I can snuggle with them.  Fall is still a couple of weeks away yet for us.  Looking forward to rain, wind, and cooler temperatures, just about anything Mother Nature has to throw at us that doesn't involve sweating.

*The dark blanket has wider stripes than the white because I wasn't paying attention and cut all the white and solid strips 3 1/2" instead of 3". Ooops.

In Limbo

What a summer/fall it's been.

Three birthdays, my daughter turned 33, my son - 21, my gosh, seems like I was just going to his t-ball games, and  I turned 57 in September.  What! How?  I don't even know what to think about that.
I finally grew my hair out to a style I'm actually happy with, particularly the gray streaks.  No more layers, all one length, bob.  I would have never guessed I would go there, but it works.  It only took  me 57 years to figure it out.

My middle daughter had a very large fibroid removed in a 4 hour surgery that scared the hell outta me.  She was off work for a month after that and needed help with, well, everything. Three months before the surgery they gave her a shot of Lupron (to help shrink the tumor before they operate) which temporarily shuts down all production of estrogen. She was thrown into menopause within a few days.  Meanwhile I have been cutting down on my estrogen dosage to eventually get off it altogether, and so the mother/daughter hot flash, cranky pants team was born. What a scene.  It's times like this that I'm really grateful I don't have to work.

I have been reading and reading and reading. I can't seem to get enough lately.  First,  Mrs. Poe, then this series, which is Young Adult, but really good, followed by All the Light We Cannot See (sooo well written) and now The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah.

My Mom went in for a relatively low risk outpatient procedure that turned into a nightmare.  The last few weeks we have been running back and forth to the ER, and three surgeries later she is now in ICU.  She's 78, and pretty tough, but it has taken a toll on her.  We just want her home.  Hell, I'd settle for a coherent conversation with her at this point, where she's not heavily medicated and doesn't think it's 1958.  It's weird, I keep thinking "I need to call Mom and talk to her about everything that's going on" but, then I catch myself. Sigh.

So you can see why I've been away for a while.  I'm still here lurking around the edges of blog land, reading your blogs, tying to remain inspired, but just not motivated to work on my sewing.
Before all the above happened, I managed to add some borders to my Tulip quilt, which is basted and ready for hand quilting.  Not much else, although I picked up a ball of Paton's wool yesterday and started to crochet row after row after row in moss stitch.  Simple, meditative, and repetitive.  Healing.
Maybe it will become a blanket for my Mom to snuggle with when she gets out of the hospital.

Thanks for listening.

Me and Mom, heading to a concert in 2012