Back to the sewing room!

It has been six weeks since my shoulder surgery.  About a week into the surgery, I started being restless.
As much as I would like to call myself ambidextrous, pressing and cutting the fabrics is not fun when I use my left hand. So I had to wait and be the good girl, listen to the therapists and follow the plan!

Those of you who have had to stay away from creative process know how difficult this waiting game can be!

Scraps from Zigzag 40" X 45"

Leftover scraps from the quilt, "Gridlock"  40" X 48"

At four weeks' mark, I decided to start sewing. I came up with enough scraps (already cut squares) to make three baby quilts. I am not sure when I will be able to quilt them but whenever they get done, they are going to keep some babies warm .

It feels good that I have used up most of those leftover squares. Now I can make more! Hopefully, of different colors!  Having finished some of the quilts just before the surgery, now I have enough confidence to machine quilt and find them good homes.

As far as the shoulder goes, you can see that it is recovering surprisingly well!
Thank you all for your emails and notes, comments and well wishes on my previous post. It is good to be back. I have missed being here and staying connected!

Show and Tell...

I am so excited!

 Yes, I actually have finished quilts to talk about!

Not just one.. but four!

Remember this? 

Done!
 

and, this?

Finished!

Hand quilted and bound!

This one waited for two years to be machine quilted..

Done!

And finally, K's quilt is also machine quilted and on her bed.

I sat on my machine (on my chair) last week and kept repeating like that little engine that could.

I think, I can! I think, I can!

I was quite apprehensive about quilting these big quilts myself on the machine.

 But here is the truth...

The house does not get cleaned unless someone has those cleaning gloves on 

and...

I can not turn that tall pile of quilt tops into quilts unless I put on my quilting gloves!

So I did!

 I basted those quilts and got right to it.

Two out of four quilts were done last week.

I felt like a super woman!

I had some help from K and her friends capturing that feeling!

  I don't think they minded the heat!

That's what quilts do! Make you feel happy and forget about everything.

Don't your think these smiles make those quilts shine even more?

Well, I am ending this summer with a really great note!

It has been the most memorable summer in a long time and I am sad to end it with another long blogging break.

I have had rotator cuff injury for last two years.

Next Tuesday, I am going in for a surgery.

It has been bothering me for quite sometime and it is time to fix it!

I don't know how long this break will be but quite relieved that the pile has shrunk just a bit before the surgery and recovery..

Four down and 36 more to go!

I will be back with better shoulder and even more motivated to finish them all.

Look what two months of being away from the sewing room did!

All I had to do was, believe.

"Yes, I can!"

Hopefully, I will be back before you even have chance to miss me!

By the way,

 I can not tell you how appreciative I am of each of you visiting me and taking the time to leave a comment. If you are a no-reply blogger, please send me your email address so I can stay in touch with you. Thank you for being my blogging friends and sharing this journey.

Going back to the sewing room..

One more finish? 

Who knows!

You will have to wait and see :)

Quilt in a day!

Is it possible? 

As you all know, I have been deprived of sewing for quite some time! 

It was time to get back into sewing. 

This was a perfect quilt to make for the Calico Cutter Guild challenge. 

My very first AAQI quilt.

 

I quilted it with perle cotton and bound the curved edges with bias binding. It is finished with the triangle corners. I enjoyed making this one so much, I might just make another one this week.

But before that, I have a lot of catching up to do.. Three of my 15 minutes bee  friends have not received their blocks from me!

I better get to them before taking another blogging break soon! ( More about that later)

Have a wonderful day!

Sujata

I am back!

After little over two months!

This has to be the longest blogging break ever! 

I spent last month and a half with my two sisters from Canada and brother and his family who visited from India. All four of us with our families went on a cruise to Alaska! 

11 out of 17 family members managed to take the time off from their work schedule so everyone can be together and enjoy the summer vacation. Ever since we started planning this trip, I knew that it was going to be 'once in a life time' vacation.. And it proved to be nothing short of that!

We enjoyed the most breathtaking views!

 As the sun rose at 4:00 AM and kissed the glacier peaks....

  we watched it turn the Glacier Bay into liquid gold!

We splashed a little of that on ourselves! 

It was so peaceful! 

Although this cruise lasted only for a week, it is something I will remember forever!


My kids added layers of new memories to their relationships.

The Butchart Garden in Victoria B.C. was amazing!

I  got to visit my friends in Seattle. 

Wish there was time to see all my friends.

I could go on and on about this summer but I am not going to.

All I can say that it has been a whirl wind of vacation! 

Trips to Washington D.C., Seattle, Alaska, Toronto, Ottawa and back to Philadelphia.. 

This memorable time with my siblings ended about a week ago! 

I got back into my quilting life by inviting my friends for lunch today. 

It was another fun day.

No sewing, just good food and great company!

I better start a quilt to mark this summer before it ends.

Hope you are having a great summer!

 

What's in the name?

The story. Of course!

This quilt began little over two years ago when I had temporarily moved back to Seattle for a year. 

I called it 'Goodwill Shirts Quilt'.

Because, that's what it was!

I had bought some shirts from the Goodwill store to make a quilt. As I started cutting up the shirts in larger chunks of fabrics, I decided to use up all the skinny and long strips into this quilt. It went fast. 

At the moment my life was sort of like a driftwood, lacking a sense of belonging.

If you ever have moved after being in one place for a long time, you know what I am talking about.

This past week, I had the chance to go on a retreat with my new friends Kelly, Cheryl, Terry and Jane to Christine's house in Maryland. Together we cooked, laughed and sewed. Went on walks and of course worked on our projects. 

Christine's husband took us on the boat ride in the evening. On the way back I saw a little piece of driftwood on the beach..

Remember this?

 

Time I spent with my mom back in 2007 is one of the most memorable time of my life. We were visiting Deception Pass State Park on Whidbey Island and were surrounded by driftwood. 

At the retreat, I worked on my quilt and hand quilted away while sharing the stories of my early experiences in this country. 

I think for the first time in past three and a half years I was as comfortable as I look in the picture with my mom.

I honestly feel as if my emotions have finally stopped drifting and my mind has found a 'home' on the beach (here) full of new possibilities. 

My new friends have made me feel at home.

I will forever be grateful for that. 

Now this quilt hangs over my fireplace in the family room. 

It stands for lot more than curved piecing and hand quilting with Perle cotton thread.. 

It is the constant reminder of the good times I had with my friends but even more the fact that no matter how stormy life gets, there is always a peaceful outcome in the end. 

New beginnings are tough but sometimes all one has to do is to keep afloat.

'Driftwood' is what I call this quilt. 

For it's life which began somewhere else, had a wonderful younger years like a lush tree full of life and went through rough storms and survived, became sharper and smoother with every wave that hit.

  Do you name your quilts? 

Do you wonder what's in the name?

I say there is always a story.

I like to call it  'The Root Connection'

A wedding gift!

My old neighbor's daughter is getting married this weekend. She was in fifth grade when we moved into our home back in Seattle. It seems like yesterday when all the kids were in the woods making forts and digging wells. Rolling each other on computer chairs on the street and playing flashlight tags.
Chandra Barton was the oldest one of the five kids between the two families that played all summer long. 
I made her a quilt for her wedding. Hope it keeps the newly weds cozy in the Northwest as they begin their life's' journey as a couple. 

 

I am glad that the hand quilting is done for my cranberry sauce quilt. I am ready to do some machine work... it is way too hot out here in the northeast. Binding and sleeve this weekend and it will be really done!
 

Organic Quilting

I like the freedom in traditions. In quilting, that means cutting with scissors and no marking the patterns while hand quilting which translates into fluidity in quilts. 

Of course, I have to be open to imperfections and raw look that it brings.. 

I like to call it "Organic Quilting" 

Quilting with minimum tools which may require hard work but the fruits are as sweet as the ones that grow in the backyard gardens.

I have been hand quilting one of my favorite quilts for past month or more. 

I wrote about it in the previous post. 

As structured as the blocks are, the quilt portrays freedom. I had a vision for the borders heavily quilted with Perle cotton threads like my Confetti quilt but it was not possible this time around. So, I settled with the next best thing I could possibly do for this quilt. 

I just took my thread and needle and started hand quilting by eye balling the pattern. 

After my first attempt, I knew what I did not want.

 

And this is what I settled for.

  It grew.....

and grew into wild ivy sprawling around an old broken barn or a log cabin.

 

I wish there was better way of taking good pictures of these borders.

I am pretty happy with my Organic Quilt Garden!

Have a happy day!