Moving Slowly

Trying to get anything done lately has been a challenge. I have chronic pain issues, that I try very hard not to dwell on, but sometimes I get such a string of bad days together that it really affects my life. I have pretty much stopped taking any pain medications at all. I've developed allergies to most of them, and the couple I can take make me sick. My main ways of dealing with chronic pain are heat packs, ice packs, and distraction. I don't watch television because it does not engage my mind enough to distract me from the pain, so if someone wants me to watch TV with them, I normally have to do something else at the same time. I know there are a lot of people out there with chronic pain issues, so occasionally, I mention mine, but not very often. Unfortunately, this has been a bad couple of weeks, so it's really on my mind.

So what do I do when it's bad, but I need the distraction? I have multiple projects to work on right now, that are all in different stages, so I can keep switching as one task becomes too much. I am currently quilting a quilt (no pics, it's a gift). My main pain issue is a nine year long headache, and sometimes I cannot stand the sound of the sewing machine, so I always try to have something else to work on.

 

 

 I'm machine quilting the quilt, so if that's too much, but I think I could piece (I've been piecing on my Singer 201 and it's pretty quiet) I work on assembling this^

 



 

If I can't deal with sewing machines at all, I've been cutting for a couple projects that use 30's repro prints. I need 2.5" squares for one project, and 2" squares for the other. I don't have 30's repros in my stash, but I wanted a good variety. I bought some fat eighths packs by color, and some misc. fat quarters that were on a really great sale. I've finished with the fat eighths now.

 

 

Here are the fat quarters I need to press before I cut them, not too much more cutting of squares to do.

 

My other cutting project, for times when I need to sit, rather than stand, is to cut these mini Dresden plates from my 30's prints. Yes, I know the striped print is not 30's, but I needed some coral to go into one of the quilts, so I'm cheating a bit on that one. The finished Dresden Plates will be 5.5" I am using these mini Dresden Plates in both projects I'm cutting, so I need a LOT of petals, and they are pretty time consuming to cut. I've been cutting the sides with a small rotary cutter, but I just can't get a nice rounded edge with a  rotary cutter, so I'm tracing the tops and bottom and cutting that with scissors. If I'm careful, I've been able to do two layers with no shifting, so it's a little faster than doing one at a time. I could have done the pointed petals and easily cut them all by rotary cutter, but I wanted the rounded petals for these. I'm going for the soft, flower look. I think I'm going to end up with WAY more Dresden Plates than I need, but we'll see. These need 16 petals per plate, so my pile may go down a lot faster than I think.  I'm not worried about extras, I'll use them in something. Someday I'll have to do a project with big Dresden Plates.

 

That's what I'm up to these days, watching the twins, quilting as I can, and taking LOTS of breaks. Some days I'm the tortoise, sometimes I'm the hare, but as long as I'm getting something done, it's all good.