Missing for a while

Blocks for Scrappy Trip finished and now it needs a border as not quite wide enough but I don't have enough material
for 6 more blocks, finished block size is 14 inches a 7 x 7 squares.

Yes I've been away and my explanation plus some suitably random photographs follows.
It's been ages since I last blogged and really it is just because work and family seem to have taken up all my time. For those of you who pop in from time to time the main reason has been mum. Following last year's falls, hip replacement, infection and removal of hip mum went back to hospital in the beginning of March  after 20 weeks with no hip. All was well for a week and then unfortunately she fell in hospital, as her care was not what it should have been, and fractured her femur in the same leg as hip replacement. And now... I don't really know apart from fact she will never walk properly without a zimmer and the next few months are crucial if she is ever to get home and be independent again. I am someone who likes to be in control of their life and it just ain't happening. We are currently trying to get our house ready for sale as whatever happens we need to be nearer than a hour's drive away as I am exhausted with work, hospital visits etc and then a long drive and several times have found myself on the motorway several junctions down from where I should be and not really sure how it happened and that is scary.

I have not had much time to sew or journal but have finished my trip along blocks and now creating a border and I have made some cushions. As I do not have enough material (or the money to buy more) I am thinking of a border along these lines...

The cushions are part of the tidying the house up project

 Envelope backs as not tried zips yet and needed to use walking foot to sew this heavy chenille material.

Luckily I have a wonderful sister who lives at the other end of the country and she came up this week to let me get away for a 5 day break. I brought no craft things and have slept and read and am now ready to go back to work and battle with hospitals etc. I have decided I need to find time to craft and blog as it allows me to escape into my own world.

Fingers crossed I will be back blogging and sewing and thank you to those people that emailed and asked if all was well. It could be a whole lot worse and I am sure life will resolve into new patterns.

What else happened?

In March Lens Guy and I went to Oxford for our oldest son's graduation and this is a very rare photo of us and in smart clothes too.

Doing the proud mother thing.

It was our youngest daughter's birthday this month and she has always complained that because I was working when she was growing up she never got homemade cakes unlike her older siblings who had me at home some of the time. Usual family guilt trip so I decided to make her a cake without any of the proper moulds. It tasted lovely but oldest sone said it looked rude. Can't imagine what he meant.

The houses in my Sibling's Together Quilt I am making through Bee in a Bonnet QAL but I am way behind.
Apologies for long and random posting but was trying to catch up on recent events.

Scrappy Trip Along, Slowly moving on

Six blocks done and I think this will be called the yellow diamond quilt.

Lots of strips cut at 19 inches and pinned by a safety pin in sets of 7. The fabric I am using is made up of my giveaway win from Maureen Cracknell's blog and the Intrepid Thread supplemented with additional colours from my stash. There is another giveaway on Maureen Cracknell's blog if you can get in there by Monday. Yellow is not a colour I would normally use but I love how bright and sunny this is as it slowly grows. 

Due to my inability to count as explained in previous post I am now making blocks with 7 strips at 19 inches. I have decided yellow will the long diagonal and there must also be a solid in each block but that is as planned as it gets.

I have added a darker green to the strips and at present in the set of 6 at the top it looks a little wonky but I hope as it is spread out around quilt, or perhaps grouped together it will work. 

I have finished another block but it was too dark and repetitive too photograph but I do love the infinite possibilities of this block.

In other news mum is still at home waiting hipless and waiting for the new hip and becoming more and more immobile and depressed. She was meant to have the op last week but it nows involves grafting bone onto the area that was cut out due to infection and this will be a long op and they are now worried about heart murmurs. More tests next week and fingers crossed she will have by end of February. I can't believe she first fell and broke this hip on 12 September, it's been a long hard slog for us all. Probably because I have been trying to convince myself that I can manage my demanding job, family life, looking after mum and having some time for me I have come grinding to a halt. I have spent last 8 days in bed with a severe infection and still can't manage more than 3 hours out of bed before exhaustion sets in again. Hopefully I am starting to improve and I really must try and get this work, life, carer, mum, wife balance more sorted.

Strip along a wrong...I can't count

Corrected block, spot the error below. I've just edited this page and I didn't spot this error with photos - time to rest I think...

I had planned to go to the EK crop and scrap this weekend but I have injured my back and can't sit so standing and sewing was the option for short periods. The scrappy stripalong has been an instagram and blog craze since start of year and I just had to give it a go using this  tutorial. The tutorial is very easy to follow, personally I blame the super strong painkillers and my inability to count... Once I worked out I had used 7 strips of material (instead of 6) I realised I could add another  set of squares to create a 14 inch block. Now I can't decided whether to revert to the original 6 square block or work out the maths for a 7 square block which I think is 20 or 21 inches not 16 inches. I am an English teacher and Maths especially fractions and inches (being metric here) cause me untold confusion.

Should I keep this for the back and revert to 6 squares or keep going at 7 squares?

I also completed another two rows in the Bee in My Bonnet Row A Long. I had completed first four rows and then fell behind so again with Maths not being my strong point I completed row 9 Twinkly stars and Row 6 Cups of Cocoa and this has nothing to do with the fact that the flying geese row looks too hard.

Again these are easy to follow tutorials with lots of photos and helpful tips. I am planning to donate my Bee A Long quilt to Siblings Together and possibly the scrappy trip along too. Please go and follow the link to find out about this charity as I think it is a great idea and if you don't quilt perhaps you knit. 

Thanks for dropping by.