Look what arrived in the mail today from Elizabeth at http://the-latebloomer.blogspot.com/! It’s a teeny tiny thimble with a pink bunny on it! I just couldn’t believe it when I opened the little package. She’s sending me a present and THANKING me for sending her some of my fabric to design with. I’m the one who should be THANKING her!!!!!! She made something with my fabric and I can’t wait to see it. I’m just so honored. She does such wonderful designs and if I had any time left for just regular sewing I’d be making her Flight of Fancy block of the month for myself! Thank you Elizabeth. I love the little thimble. It’s on the shelf by my desk so I can look at it while I work. And yes, this is the time for lots of work. Every designer I know is going a bit crazy right now trying to get everything done in time for Quilt Market. It’s coming up in May and we are all going to Portland! So far I’ve only been to the Portland airport so I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of that wonderful city. Every single designer makes the promise and swears up and down that we are NEVER going to be doing things last minute EVER again and we all end up doing LOTS of things last minute. I’ve decided we are all a bit nuts! Tee Hee!

As for Chelsea, she is looking so pitiful right now. At first she was doing good walking around, but I found out it was because of the pain patch she had on. Now she is walking like she is 110 years old! I feel so sorry for her, and the vet tells me that I have to make her walk. It hurts just to watch her, but I know it’s part of the healing process. Every day we go outside and I try to get her to walk a bit. She goes about the length of two houses and then just stops. She’s no dummy but she has secrectly told me she thinks the vet is…just kidding (:

And my favorite blog in the whole UK has given me the “You Make My Day” award! This is so sweet I can’t believe it, because they make my day too! So I have to give them the “You Make My Day” award too! Are you getting the picture? This could go on forever! LOL! Spend some time on their blog and visit their online shop. You will love it! And right now they are visiting our very own USA! http://www.buttonberry.typepad.com/ Thank you my Button Berry friends! Have fun in New York!

It’s back to work…

Hi everyone! Chelsea is feeling really good. She’s walking all over the house and I can see my next problem is going to be how to keep her quiet. It’s a good problem to have so I’ll take it!

Now that she’s feeling better, I can get back to work! This morning I spent time in my studio, working on my new block of the month. Last year, when I was working on “All Things Christmas” I showed you a piece of fabric and asked you to guess what it would be in the quilt. Well none of you guessed although you had some great ideas! Don’t know if you remember, but it turned out to be the body of this stocking.

Well, look at this tiny sketch I drew this morning. I’m going to use it in my new Christmas quilt. I hope you’ll be surprised when you see where it goes. If you can guess, come May, you could win a free pattern. You’ll have to wait until May to see if anyone wins because I can’t let the sketch out of the bag just yet! Here’s a hint; it’s very whimsical. Oh there’s that magic word again. The word I LOVE so much!

It’s from these little tiny sketches that I design my appliqué quilts. I come up with a theme and then draw lots of sketches. I keep my sketches loose, and don’t worry about how they look at this point. I just need the ideas on paper so I can remember them! Then I layout the quilt on graph paper, and pull together the sketches I think will work. Finally I take my “idea sketches”, turn them into simplified drawings for appliqué, add pieced blocks and spacing blocks and ta da…a new quilt is on it’s way! By the time you see the little sketch above, it will be all cleaned up, and appliquéd! Yes, there’s a bit of embroidery in it too!

I’ll show you a bit more of what goes into designing a quilt as I go along this time. (:

Chelsea is back at home! That in itself is a miracle! She looks pathetic. 1/3 of her body is shaved, except for the tail, and she has a 2″ incision on each leg. We had a rough night, and she cried off and on. This morning I think the morphine patch kicked in and she actually walked about 4 steps. After a breakfast of baby food, she’s watching Texas Ranger with me on TV and doing well, all things considered. That’s right Texas Ranger is one of her favorite shows. The UPS man even prompted a bark probably because she had just finished watching a karate scene! This is one smart dog.

Her mother is the one you should all worry about. Yes, that would be me, good old mom. I wish you could have seen my face at the vet when they brought her out yesterday. I took anatomy in college, but it obviously didn’t include dog anatomy. I thought her knees were the part of the leg you see below, by the tip of the tail. Well, guess what? Dog knees are up by the thigh area! I honestly had no idea! All this time I’ve been wondering how on earth they could operate on such a tiny little area and then they bring her out with two huge old incisions on her “thighs”. Much to my husband’s dismay, I actually said “those are her knees?” I wonder if that’s the first time the vet ever got that question. I’m sure she mentioned me at the dinner table last night.

So if there are some dummies like me out there I’ve included a short course in dog anatomy. The ankle bone’s connected to the knee bone, the knee bone’s connected to the thigh bone…right?

It will be awhile before I can take any glamor shots of Chelsea. That poor little behind needs some fur to grow back.

To all of you who have emailed us, Chelsea and I Thank You from the bottom of our hearts. Yes, I think I know where her little heart is so don’t worry. I’ll take good care of her.

Small but tough I hope! Tonight I am the one feeling like a “dog”. I’ve been working all day in my studio and Chelsea’s been with me. As we went about our normal activity I kept looking at her today, and feeling like such a heel. Tomorrow she has to be at the vet by 7:15 AM so she can have surgery. She looks and acts very normal right now so it’s really hard to take her. I even called the vet just to make sure we were doing the right thing. Yes, she said, those little knees have to be fixed.

It’s just not fair. A dog should automatically have good knees. Knees that last for life, knees that let her catch balls, run and play. Just plain old good knees! Maybe after tomorrow.

Here she is with Max, one of our cats.

When I looked I found her tucked in a small drawer full of fabric today.

Small but tough, I hope.

Tomorrow will be a long day for both of us. I’ll let you know how she does.