First Birthday

It was Flynn's birthday yesterday, one whole year old and full of smiles and cheek.   We met up with the family this afternoon when my son Simon and his wife Julie held a Father's Day BBQ so I had an opportunity to take some photos of his lordship.

Flynn decided the stones tasted much better than the sausages.  He is beginning to talk to everyone and everything, lots of babble but a very distinct "want down".

Keith continues to progress well though he remains quite tired a lot of the time and when he's tired he has lapses of contentration.  He knows when he's tired though and rests but is finding it very frustrating that he doesn't have the energy to do what he took for granted before the stroke.   He has no recollection of the stroke at all and finds it dfficult sometimes to understand why he feels like he does.  At the moment they are trying to find the level of Warfarin to treat him, I think he's enjoying the attention of the nurse.

As for me, well everythin went fine, the op itself took almost twice as long as expected, mainly due to tryingto get all the pieces of the old implant from between my ribs.  I'm quite pleased with he result even if my consultat did leave the hospital that night for another post.  I'm still a bit sore and have quite colourful sticky out bits.  I have a check up tomorrow and don't anticipate any problems.

Last two photos, this beautiful basket of flowers is from Julie's parents and one last one of the birthday boy.

Just waiting for the Off

It's almost time to set off again for the awaited surgery, hope its not cancelled again.  I have to ring the ward in 30 minutes time to confirm what time they expect me in, phew.....   It's two weeks today since Keith had his stroke, he is very much better.  In fact he is back to normal except for the exhaustion.   His consultant told us he was very lucky we managed to get him to hospital in time for him to have the clot busting drug.  Thank goodness, not sure what I'd do without him.

In the meantime I have been making some small drunkard path blocks to turn into a bag to take into hospital, but never actually got any further than making the blocks.  However this morning in the post arrived a bag from Carol Jamieson, with whom I was swapping 12 inch blocks (oh I forgot I made a 12" block but didn't take a photo).  Carol had very cleverly made her block into a bag for me which is ideal to take into hospital as I am not allowed to carry anything over my shoulder.  This bag goes across the chest.

Carol's bag for me, it has a secret pocket on the front.

My Drunkard's Path blocks, as you can see this is as far as I got.

And the very last of the Crumb postcards.  This one is from Marian and she has used all Laura Ashley fabrics as a tribute to her.

Better go and pack the last bits and pieces now I have a nice new bag to put them in. See you all soon.

Last crumbs

Last of the crumbs swap, these cards are from Inge in Berlin (top) and Heather (bottom).

My cards have been ready for posting for over a week but with everything happening I haven't actually got them into the postbox.  Hopefully this will happen today.  Sorry girls for the wait.

Crumbs and Homophones

Two more swaps I showed my 'crumbs' in the last post these are ones I have received.

 Top crumb is from Jan and the bottom crum from Alice.

 

This one is from Miriam



The other swap is Homophones, words that are spelt differently but sound the same.

 Sail and Sale from Janet

 Sea and See (Eye of Horus) from Jacquie

And mine, Sew and So.

Family update is that Keith is home, still a little weak on the left side but improving.  He's very tired and his concentration is poor when tired but apart from that he seems to have come through unscathed thank goodness.   He is bored though, no driving and worse still no woodturning - he isn't allowed to use sharp tools.   He's having a doppler test tomorrow but as he has had the clot busting drug it may prove negative, still better late than never.

I though seem to have lost the will to sew at the moment but hopefully once the Bank Holiday is over and I can talk to Keith's GP and other carers I will relax and begin to shuffle bits of fabric around.

Wouldn't you just know it

Thank you for your kind thoughts they helped me get through this.  But wouldn't you just know it - I've been given a new date for my op.  Its the 5th June, now I'm in a quandary, do I accept it or do I decline.

I spoke to Keith's doctor yesterday who advised me to go ahead as Keith will improve and so long as he can look after himself making a simple meal ( the boys will take care of other things) he is okay to be left.

Hopefully he will come home today, the news is a bit mixed.  Physically he has returned to normal, slight weakness on the left but he can do everything he used to do.   The main problem is that there appears to have been some cognitive damage and they are less sure how much better this will get.   He favours his right side and although he is well able to use his left he forgets he has a left arm.  He was holding his Ipad when his fingers slowly opened and he dropped it because he had forgotten he had hold of it.   He can't drive, naturally but he doesn't seem to understand why he can't and is determined he will drive when he gets home.   I am looking forward to having him home again, its cold at night without him and I miss cuddles but I am also a little apprehensive.   But I'm sure we'll cope.

I did manage to get my 'crumb' cards finished but they have not as yet been posted.

I did intend to make a card using all the crumbs but decided to make crumb boats instead.

Day out

Last night my dh me if I fanced a day out tomorrow.   What he hadn't said was that the day out would start with a ride in an ambulance with flashing lights and a howling siren.  Keith had a stroke this morning and we've spent the day in the Stroke Unit at Durham.   Marc, Simon and Alix have all been with me and together we've rejoiced as slowly the droopy face and slurred speech improved.

He's not totally back to normal but tomorrow will tell whether or not he has recovered all functionality. I am quietly confident he will have.  I just hope he doesn't ask me again if I fancy a day out.

Crumbs

I've calmed down now but I wanted to sew something mindless where the only decision I had to make was which piece of fabric did I want to add next.   I had a postcard swap in mind when making these blocks, I say blocks in the widest sense of the word.  First I started by separating the colours into groups and blindly sewed them together into some sort of shape.

 First two colours, the photo doesn't show the raggy edges.

 Before going into hospital I had the idea of making Flynn a rag doll and had actually finished making the body.

Today I wrapped my green piece around the body and thought hmm... can I use this to make an costume doll.  Flynn can have one when he gets older I think this is going to be my play doll.

Just a quick blog to let you all know my op was cancelled - due to my medical records going walk about!!!!  My surgeon considered it too dangerous with my complex medical history to go ahead without being able to re-read his notes.   Whilst I accept his explanation I am darned mad that no one had the gumption to check that my case notes were available prior to my admission yesterday.  Why was it only when the consultant jumped up and down did they bother to look for them.   It appears from the casenote tracking system that they have gone walk about between one hospital and another.  

Now I am back on the waiting list with the instructions to the booking people not to give me a new date until my case notes return from their ramble.   What do I do if they never return?

Almost time

I'm clock watching - I have to ring the hospital at noon to confirm they have a bed for me.  My surgery is planned for tomorrow and over the past week I've undergone a battery of tests and scans.  Now all is in place, my bag is packed and Keith and I are hovering.  God I hate this waiting period.
So to take my mind off things I'm going to show you the swap postcards I've received recently.

First the 'Cake Swap'  there were only 3 of us in this swap I showed you my version previously now here is Jacquie and Valerie's versions.

Valerie;s card has some wonderful fancy cakes on it.  Could just do with one right now but got to watch the old glucose levels.



I love Jacquie's unique take on the swap theme and might even try out the recipe.

There were 7 of us in the Doodle swap and so far I've got five cards, I'm sure the sixth one will be waiting for me when I get home but here are the ones so far.

Top card is Jacquies and the bottom one is from Alice.  Jacquie has used free motion stitching and ribbon on her card whilst Jacquie has explored the stitches available on her machine.

 

This pair of cards is from (top) Jan and (bottom) Marian.  Both have doodled beautifully Jan looks as though she may have done the whole thing without stopping.  Love the colours on Marian's card they zing.

Lastly this card is from Sue and was actually the first to arrive.  I love what Sue has done with this card and it demonstrates just how effective you can be without having complicated stitches.

Now back to the present and I've just remembered I haven't packed my Kindle, also want to pack an Ipod so I can listen to a book when I can't sleep at night.  I find hospital beds so uncomfortable and usually there is a light on somewhere, I'm used to sleeping in the dark.  At the moment I'm listening to Elizabeth Peter's Amelia Peabody series, got to the "Lord of the Silent" so far.  I just love the whole Emmerson family sometimes Amelia sounds just like my mum.   Reading on the Kindle one of Paul Doherty's 'Sorrowful Tales of Brother Athelstan' series.

Better go and make a cuppa and a sandwich before I phone the hospital and I have to be in by 2:30pm and the traffic can be heavy at this time of the day.   Speak soon.

Dog Day Out

The sun was out and Buster was restless so we decided to pack a picnic and go out into the countryside to let him play in water - his favourite pastime (unless its a bath).  We drove up into Teesdale stopping in Middleton-in-Teesdale for a leg stretch.

One of the beautiful views over Teesdale and the Pennines

We stopped at Bowless for our picnic with the intention of walking up to the waterfall at Gibson's Cave.  Unfortunately there had been a landslide so we only got to this tiny one.

Still it allowed Buster to go stone fishing.  We had a bit of a job getting him out of the water, he went home a wet but happy dog.

At last I have been given a date for the removal of my dodgy and ruptured implants.  May the 14th is the big day, I'm told the op will take around 2 hours as its not a straight forward rip-em out and push-em in job.  With luck though I'll be back home by the 17th. I'm not looking forward to the process but for the last few weeks they have given me a bit of trouble so I will be pleased to be rid of them.  When they are done I'm hoping for cupcakes rather than the pancakes I have at the moment.

Flynn Update

Boy has he grown and he's getting more and more like his grandfather and his great uncle Marc every day.   He's not quite walking, he stands for a few minutes then crawls to wherever he can climb up onto his feet. 

Dad and Granddad watching Flynn

This looks like good fun

Wish he would turn it faster I'm not dizzy yet.

They said I could help wash-up

But perhaps I'll just sit it the bowl instead.

Doodles

It's been awhile since my last post due in part to taking delivery of a new cooker.  I now have a freezer full of cakes, buns, bread and meals.   I've put them in the freezer so I don't go mad and eat all of them.  I'm rather pleased with my new cooker it has only taken me two years to decide on a replacement.

I've also been busy making several postcards. I've signed up for several swaps this one is called "Doodles".  Like many others I've always doodled.  It got me into trouble at school as I would doodle patterns, animals, flowers etc in the margins of my books then colour them in.  In the last couple of years this type of doodling has been named Zentangling and is lots of fun.  These are my latest quilty type doodles and will be posted in the morning to my partners.

I had great fun creating them, sorry about the colours they seem a bit paler on screen than in the flesh.

Back again

Thank you everyone who helped me with the problem of swapping readers.   I've got Feedly on my phone and on the desktop using Google Chrome and Bloglovin on my desktop too.   I like both of them, I particularly like the fact that Bloglovin sends me an email daily with the blogs I'm following.  I love Feedly's magazine format and find it easy to use.  I did have a problem with seeing my blogs on my phone as the background was black.  Then I found the settings and changed it to 'day' and now the background is white and I can actually read them.

I came across a couple of these the other day.

This one happens to be Sainsbury's but other supermarkets also have folders for their free recipe cards.  I bought several of them a while back and covered them to hold my collection of postcards and this is a leftover.   I'd been making fabric paper and thought I'd cover this one.

 Front

Back

I didn't have any muslim to paste the papers too so used a very fine lawn.  It's okay but I prefer the muslim.   I fm quilted all over then stitched down the shapes on top.  Finally zigzagged round the edges.   It's a bit stiffer than I like but I couldn't leave the poor little folder naked now could I.

Google Reader

Just a quick question before I get back to my cat.  I normally read my subscription blogs via Google Reader and as you will no doubt be aware they are turning it off on 1st July.   Has anyone moved from Google Reader to another Reader?  If so which one and how easy was it.   I've used Google Takeout to bundle all my subscripts together ready to import into another reader but am finding it frustrating to do so.   I understand Feedly is a good one but it doesn't appear to do desktop readers, only mobiles.  While it would be interesting to read my blogs via my phone I don't find it easy to do so.   Theoldreader is another RSS interface that appears to use the pc to view blogs but I don't know much about it.   Has anyone got experience of moving from Google to another RSS reader?

Well I'm in trouble again

I opened my mouth without thinking and I'm living to regret it.  I told my dh I was going upstairs to play with my pussy!!!   This is the pussy I was playing with...... (no not what you thought - naughty)

It all started when I bought this book

 

I was keen to try out Rose Hughes method of freezer paper applique.   I've tried several methods of this sort and thought hers looked fun.

 

Her method differs only in the way you sew the pieces together.   It starts the same as other methods

 

 

copying the pattern onto freezer paper, ironing it onto fabric, this method though you iron it onto the right side of the fabric and overlap the seams.   Sew down the pattern pieces and trim back.   The main advantage of this method over fused applique is the handle of the fabric when finished and the fact that you aren't sewing through adhesive.

I decided to use one of the patterns in Rose's book as I thought she had already done all the hard work of sorting out which piece to sew first and in which order to put them together.  I always think this is the hard part so well done Rose.   I really enjoyed the process at first as the pieces were quite large.  Then we got onto the smaller more complex pieces and I had to redo several as my trimming back got a bit enthusiastic and I sniped threads more times than I like.   But I've now got my pussy all tucked up tight and ready to make into a sandwich and quilt.  Not sure yet whether I'll leave it as it is or put borders round it and make it larger.

Still alive and kicking

I've not done anything for the last couple of weeks other than sleep and read my Kindle.  I got caught by a virus and it chased me all the way to bed.  Better now though but not got much motivation for sewing.  I've spent an hour this morning in my sewing room just moving stuff around and I've got a whole day to play - isn't it just a bummer when that happens.

The only thing I have done is make some crumb blocks, just don't ask me what I'm going to do with them.

I've got 50 of them any ideas?