Update on Nothing Much Going On

I have begun the process of making the piano key borders for the second Framed 9 Patch and it has been a very slow process. There have been many interruptions  and more things to do all the time due to everyday life changes because of the corona virus. I am thankful that I am able to do them but it gobbles up my time for sewing. I have been spoiled  because for many years I had all the time I wanted to "do my own thing".

I find that I have to learn some new things. I have to download apps to my phone to make life easier when I use curbside pickup. I haveto work out how I can get our on line church services from my computer tour. our 'Smart" TV. (If it is so smart why do I have to figure it out?)I have to download and set up Zoom. All of our doctor appointments  turned into phone visits. They were all follow up visits or routine scheduled wellness visits. By the time our next appointments come around I will have our laptop set up for Zoom. I have 2 in person appointments coming up, a bone density test and a mammogram. I wish the mammogram could be a virtual visit. I feel reasonably safe about keeping both appointments after having gone in for routine lab work before my phone appointment. 

We don't see our family as often but we've had outdoor visits. Seeing the little ones is always special because they are changing so fast as they begin to walk and talk and add new skills. 

Not as much  fun as seeing the great grand children but the biggest distraction for us was a feline visitor for week,  His people had to go to an out of state funeral. Here he is on the cedar chest which is under my cutting table. Because of his coloring,  he looks a little like our last kitty, Lucy, but he is a much bigger cat. It is not easy to measure a cat but I measured 24 inches from his nose up to his tail and his tail is at least a foot long.
He spent most of the daytime hours way under our bed where he couldn't be reached. He came out to eat and use the litter box about 7 or 8 in the  evening and stayed out from under the bed until around 7 AM. H woke me up to feed him again him again. He ate, used the litter box and disappeared under the bed until evening. He is not a lap cat but he was always very friendly and he purred all the time when he was out.  The last day he was with us he stayed out from under the bed all day and he explored everywhere. He would stand at a closet door and meow until  I opened  the door and he went in and poked his nose in every corner and then went on to the next door. I am easily conditioned to be of service to felines companions. By the end of the last day, before he was picked up by his people, he had me trained to pull the curtains aside when he wanted to jump up on the window sill. 

This is what I am doing now and  where I am pretty much stalled. I have 2 sections of the lengthwise sections of the F9P  pinned across my wall. They are overlapping so I can work on both of the piano key  borders at once. It is really a slow process; working with random scraps is always slow because of all the decisions involved . It doesn't help that there are many interruptions and the mess made when working with scraps  doesn't help either.

I am making strip sets of 5 to 7 fabrics that look good together. I make them with strips that are 10+ inches to 15+ inches. I cut them into 5 inch sections and I add 5 inch scrap strips to separate them.

This is one of the 5 inch sections that I had cut from a strip set that was about 11 inches long.



Here it is with some audition strips and just below it is the other 5 inch section flipped to look different. There are some audition strips next to them. Some of my strips are longer that 5 inches but shorter than 10 inches.  If there is at least 1 3/4 left on a strip set I trim it and add it to a section turned the other way instead of a plain strip. Making longer strip sets makes the process go faster but it is still time consuming. However, there is no time limit on this quilt.

From time to time I get frustrated with the mess and start going through my fabric stash. Deciding what I want to give away makes it own kind of mess but when I am finished some of the mess will be gone and the rest should be more manageable. If I can keep focused this week on setting apart what I really want to keep, I should be able to pass on some of this on very soon. My immediate goal is to reclaim a large part of my sewing room closet.

So there is not much happening here, just like it is for a lot if other people.
Take care and be safe.