It's Been A While.......

Cataract surgery, that's my main excuse! It's a struggle to sew/quilt with one eye working and the other fuzzy still! My second surgery will be Tuesday and then things will begin to make a little more sense. I do have a contact lens they gave me to help the left eye cope meanwhile since my old specs really make my brain crazy! It's far from perfect and I still have poor near vision so I walk around with a pair of "cheaters" and that's a pain too! All in all the first surgery was a great success and after one week I had 20/20 distance vision, pretty amazing to see so clearly with that eye and notice even a difference in colors.
In another month I will be able to get new specs, progressive lenses again and should have fantastic vision if the first eye is any indication. This surgery is simply amazing.
However I have struggled to continue to sew and quilt, as challenging as it has been it's too hard to give it up altogether.
This latest baby quilt is done as of today, and I hope to deliver it tomorrow. The baby is only about a month old so I am not too tardy!

I am very happy with this pattern a Missouri Quilt Company design  called the Crown Block Quilt. I used scrappy yellows, a leftover print for the center and constant for both grey and white backgound with a Minkee backing. The blocks are about 25" so I only needed four and they went together fast using my little portable design boards to set up the blocks and transport them to the machine.

 I did not attempt to embroider the label on Minkee because of both the pile and the stretch. I used Superior Sew Fine #50 thread and the Glide magnetic bobbins which I love and no batting, the Minkee is all that is needed.

Yesterday Sailor Grandson brought a stack of his newest uniforms for names and other labels.

Navy uniforms also have the name on the right side of the pants above the pocket. 

This fabric is tough, heavy duty enough for sails I think and almost impossible to get a pin through. In fact here's how most of the pins ended up, and these are the heavy boutonniere pins I use for pinning to the canvas leaders on the longarm!

I also managed to stick myself a couple of times, it's hard to judge where the pins will emerge through a few layers of this fabric. I think sewing these should be termed "hazardous duty" LOL.

I have sewn awards, rank, badges and name tags and done alterations on uniforms for three generations for nearly fifty years. As one man retired from service another swore into the Military, husband, son and now grandson and this is the toughest uniform fabric I have ever encountered, guess the Navy does not intend it to wear out fast! I was a little concerned about how hard it would be to sew through all those layers and the super dense labels but my little Bernina 240 sewed through without a hiccup, it could have been silk. 

 Here they are all done and ready to deliver tomorrow, this young man deploys to the Middle East next month, leaving behind his wife and baby daughter.

This evening I returned to sewing Bonnie Hunter's "Ringo Lake", finishing up the last of the piecing clues and now ready for construction.

 I think this is how it goes together, but I printed the final clues when we were in Boston after Christmas so I have to search them out! I have no idea how many blocks I will get as I halved the number of all required parts and will just have to see how it turns out! It's very pink looking and the blue I used is rather quiet. It might need a bit of of a "pop" for the border I think