Monday: Prayer, Peace, Tea, Quilting and Rebuilding

I had the first morning pot of tea with a sense of peace and well-being

that I have had in a long time.

I had forgotten what that felt like.

It was wonderful.

I realized that with my eyes suddenly

 having lots of halos around lights and then 

a bunch of eye appointments,

then 4 eye tests in May and then another 

appointment with my NYC Retina specialist

and then being told that I need to go to Philadelphia for more

eye tests and such,

that it has been MONTHS of thinking that I was losing my eye sight

in a way I never dreamed possible and I had no idea when or what was happening.

Now that the Philly Doctor has said what he has

and that he believes that I DON'T have the 2 eye diseases that cause blindness,

I feel so relieved.

I realize my eye case is not simple but I really see that I am called to have 

peace about this and patience and not to worry, it is not, at least at this point,

as bad as my NYC doctor had said. 

So this morning's pot of tea was rather blissful.

My friend was also coming over later and I think I was not only 

peaceful but still quite tired. 

But I managed to get a lot done, laundry, dishes, lunch, clean table, change table cloth...

and then my quilting guild local friend Y. came over and helped me do the following...

I had to sew 2 big pieces of fabric for the backing together 

and then a small 11 inch long rectangular piece to complete it.

I was so happy that I realized that I could make the small piece out of the extra

that was already part of the quilt backing, instead of taking it out of the large 

amount of fabric that I had left from the backing.

So the back of the quilt is now all sewn into one big piece and I am just thrilled!

The next thing we did was cut the batting (using a rotary cutter and my big cutting mat)

so that it was even, as I had to sew 2 pieces together to make the middle section of the quilt.

 You can see how my living room + dining room all became my "sewing room"

for the afternoon!  

This is the big piece of backing fabric that I saved from being cut into.

You may notice that the very top of the left hand picture has a "cut" in it,

but this is actually the strip we took from the quilt backing that I cut the 11 inch rectangular 

strip from to finish the backing.  I had sewn that together and the top bit is the part that 

is partially sewn together to the big piece. 

I am excited to have so much fabric leftover, surely it can be used for something beautiful! 

Maybe a small baby quilt or something! 

My two quilt guild friends both told me to use a "zig-zag" stitch to sew the batting together 

so that it would not have a long "lump" in the inside of the quilt.

So basically it was like putting 2 pieces of the same

 "blanket" together in a "seamless" way.

This batting will be the middle part of the quilt "sandwich" and will be felt 

(it makes it thick, soft and just lovely) but will not be seen when the quilt is done.

It provides the warmth of the quilt. 

Above you can see another part of the batting sewn together (left hand picture)

and the 3 layers of the quilt, top, batting (middle) and the back fabric (right hand picture)

Once this was done, then I cut off the extra foot of batting on the right side

and then pinned the rest of the now finished back and middle with the top.

This is called "basting" a quilt - making the 3 layers stay put until they are 

quilted (as in the 3 layers sewn together).

Can you see all the safety pins on the top left-hand picture? The quilt is all in place now!

The right hand is the quilt all folded up with the backing facing out.

 I am planning on doing "stitch in the ditch" for the quilting which basically means 

one is sewing in the lines of the quilt, not making a new pattern.

Here is a tutorial that I hope to watch soon about how to "stitch in the ditch."

It felt so encouraging to make progress on my sewing!

I hope to get back to this again next week.

Look who found the washing machine again! 

Silly Cleo! 

I went to vespers tonight! Met Mr Husband there...

We are doing, as per usual, the feasts 2x ... August is esp "funny"

as our local church is "new calendar" and the one we are offically members at

and serve at is "old calendar" and over an hour drive away, 

so I do a lot of feasts 2x.  I mean, who would not want to be in church, right? 

Well, at least if they knew how beautiful, life-giving, life-saving it is.

(One of our littlest members, so cute)

I love this Angel's worshipful stance at the foot of Christ

(you can't see the whole picture from where I am standing, 

but I love just seeing this detail...)

It was, as usual, wonderful to be in church.

All the church pictures this time were on my Husband's phone camera

as I forgot my phone in the rush out the door.

Thank God that my driving license was not in my phone pocket but in my purse,

since I drove there....!

I had dinner at home after while talking with Mr Husband who had 

been at a work event earlier that had lots of food... 

Did I show you my planner that I got at TJ Maxx the other week?

I am really loving it. 

I use an online calendar all the time, but putting things to pen and paper

is helping me a lot and I am thinking it will help the "email load" 

of reminders I get if I start using this planner more...

I finished listening to this book earlier,

the third in the Princess Academy books.

I wish the author, Shannon Hale, would continue the story... 

but I think she is done with this one.

***

I want to mention that I saw these recipes by Deb Perelman and hope to make them:

Cherry Brown Butter Bars

Apricot Pistachio Bars

And how did I miss this Thai inspired meat-ball coconut soup

Also Ina G's roasted broccoli dish sounds worth investigating...

I get a weekly email from Smitten Kitchen and all of the above were within 

the email, the 2 meals recipes from a lovely new piece that Deb wrote

on meal planning when you have kids

that was a super fun read.

***

I hope the bake the Cherry bars later this week!

And then freeze a bunch of them for the first of my Christmas baking,

that I promised myself I would make in advance this year.

***

I had a really helpful online chat with a friend and realized, as she

pointed it to me, that life is really a series of rebuilding

and reestablishing (inner) peace...

I think if I can keep this realization it will help when I get

discouraged feeling that I am still rebuilding (and getting no where) instead of 

seeing that life is a constant re-calibration, rebuilding and that it IS going 

somewhere and we pray somewhere good! 

***

Ok. I better get off to bed....tomorrow is a full day with liturgy,

hopefully visiting our candle desk man and then doing stuff at home....

***

May God help us, have mercy on us and save us!