Vernon's Quilt

My last quilt, was created totally out of love for my brother Vernon Harris who is battling lung cancer. This quilt was designed, and stitches sewn and ripped open and redesigned during the many stages to the finished quilt. It has 200 plus fabrics, Western, animal, hunting, cowboy and embroidered horses which were done mostly by my buddy Vye on a Babylock Ellisimo. The fabrics came from the internet mostly, since western fabrics are hard to come by in VA. I now have three (24 qt) totes filled with western, horse, bandanna,and animal fabrics. Perhaps someday I will come to someone's western need or will sell on E BAY. Have to say, E BAY is a wonderful place to find themed fabrics. Some of the fabrics came from Texas, Oklahoma, and Colorado too.
Everyone knows that traditional quilts are not my favorite type of quilting since I favor Art Quilts but this was a pure pleasure. I quilted it with a barbed wire looking stitch. Lots of friends (Jackie, Melissa, Vye, Eva) were involved in this quilt's creation, most important was the encouragement I received as I struggled with getting it just right. The final quilt structure was built on blocks and sets of 4 blocks with three sets in each row. Each block had at least 5 fabrics some 8. The back was created using a panel with Geranomo and 2 Navajo prints. Knowing I needed 10 yards for the backing I found 2 Navajo prints, one brown, and the other turquoise on E bay five yards each...great until I realized the turquoise print was the best fabric to use for the sashing for the top...quite a problem until Vye came in with three yards of the identical turquoise Navajo print....That was a YEAH day! The best reason for having stash is so you can help out your buddies. The next issue was that the quilt had enough white in the quilt to associate the quilt to lung cancer. White being the color for lung cancer, I wanted to balance the design with it. After a lot of crazy what ifs, I  decided to make white stars as the corner stones which I think was genius. The next problem was how to create the stars, Vye to the rescue again, she played around with it and wallah...STARS! Afterward we did find out that the way we did them was not the traditional way but everything happens for a reason, our stars have longer irregular points and look great! Many thanks go out to my buddies for all their assistance and babysitting me as I struggled with this quilt. I wanted it to be perfect for my brother. And even if it is not perfect, my brother believes it is, which makes it all wonderful!

Thumb CMC Arthroplasty & Carpel Tunnel - Oh yeah finally!

Crazy me, on the 8th, I finally had a long over-do surgery on my right thumb and hand...before the surgery I went online and found a u-tube video on my type of surgery which I was only able to watch part of it before I felt faint and nauseous. Never pre-view an upcoming surgery. I canceled the surgery twice before it was done. I am not a lightweight to orthopedic procedures or surgeries. Starting in 1984, after a near fatal car accident and leading up to date, I am now at 19 surgeries, some simple,some more complex. This surgery caused more anxiety than any. My only reasoning is that perhaps to me, my hands and their output defines me? Now to a rational person, this may sound a bit ridiculous, but to me it is fact.

The stitches come out next week, 4 sets of stitches, each about 2 inches long. I makes me dizzy to even think about it. Three days after surgery I had to go to the emergency room because I was experiencing the most excruciating nerve pain on the opposite area of my hand. The swelling was so much that it was crushing a nerve, once the bandage came off, "oh what a relief it was". A visit to the ER is a mission only ventured by the fool or desperate. I was desperate. Can't wait to fill out that survey.

The overall post-op pain has been manageable, my biggest issue is not being able to use my right hand. How do you fasten up your jeans? You don't! Lots of you don'ts.

Prior to the surgery my rt. thumb was swollen and hurt with any use. If and when I did use it, there was always a throbbing goose egg swelling where the thumb attaches to the hand. Watch the surgery u-tube, this is the area that is scooped out the joint and replaced with balled up tendon. Totally gross. Why I waited is totally nuts. Along with the thumb job, I had carpel tunnel surgery done too. A friend who was in graduate school with me over 20 years ago, mentioned I had carpel tunnel even then....Did I say I was Stupid?

This post is for others out there, do not prolong your suffering as I did. As a result, I have done very little art in the past few years. What idiot does this? I had to wait until it got so bad that I could not hold a brush or needle for 3 seconds without stabbing pain. Stupid.

I have dropped so many things because my grip was not dependable. In the last 4 years I have broken 6 butter dishes, other things on a daily basis and unfortunately dropped wine, tea and other beverages all over places. I now have to use a Sippy cup at my cousins because she doesn't trust me. She almost croaked when I dropped red wine on her white carpet. I'm not too fond of white carpet anyway.

Blessings for all in the New Year...
Time seems to be flying by and who can really believe it is 2014...Can you believe all the computer craziness on the eve of 2000 was so long ago? So what's new for 2014 for the Droogs...hopefully nothing painful.
The end of 2013 saw the passing of our little Beagle, more formally known as Margaret Nadiney the dog with no winney or Maggie May, if you knew her as the greeter and keeper of the studio. She came to us from the pound supposed to be age 6 or so and she delighted us everyday for 8 years. She is greatly missed but most importantly no longer in pain. We do have a feral cat named Rascal who did let me pet him on the head for a very short moment and a grey fox who is watches us mostly from a distance. Between the two, the mice are living in someone elses' hay fields, not ours thankfully. Of course the squirrels are constantly on alert, birds only perch up high and we never see the chipmunks anymore.
I am finally going to have my right thumb reconstructed and right hand fixed. No more procrastination, no more whining, no more injections, no more pain! Wednesday is the day. Wonders never cease, doc tells me he is going to place a tiny button like devise to thread the thumb to another finger bone so re-coup time will be less. I am no stranger to buttons so it has to work....Looking forward to being able to create whenever I want without gripping....Yeah! Please continue to pray for my little brother and his battle with the Big C and others who struggle with disease, pain and peril.
God Bless!