Choir again, surgery scheduled, and a new embroidery machine!

How’s that for an odd title? Fairly descriptive though. Wednesday was choir practice, the first one I attended since Christmas. It was wonderful. Life is always better after choir practice! My director is amazing. She plays the piece we will be singing on her piano while recording it. She then adds a synthesizer voice (instrument) to the piano track for each part (soprano, alto, etc.). Each person gets an email specific to the part we sing as a MP3 file along with a scan of the score. It lets me practice ahead of time and get comfortable with what the others have been doing in my absence. We are doing two gospel songs, one baroque piece, two “regular” choral pieces plus the Hallelujah Chorus. Pretty fun!

Thursday I went to the ophthalmologist for a consultation about cataract surgery. Yes, I need it, and yes, he can do it. My left eye is scheduled for 16 April and the right eye is scheduled for 14 May due to the doctor’s vacation in the middle. I am soooo ready for it. It will be back to no glasses for distance and readers for close work, but I am fine with that. The surgery center is in Cedar Rapids, 60+ miles away, so we are just going to stay in the motorhome for a few days at a campground not far away. They want you there at obscene times of the morning! More medical stuff too – dermatologist appointment to look at spots on my hand, and trying to schedule an allergist which is proving more complicated than it should be. The referral nurse at the clinic scheduled me with an ENT, not an allergist, so I am going to have to work it myself.

I have started the sewing for my new granddaughter. One crib sheet is finished, and I should have the second one done tomorrow. The delay is because today I bought a new embroidery machine, a Bernina 500. I was just wasting my big professional 12 needle machine, so I decided to buy a domestic single needle machine. It takes up hardly any space, and it is portable to take to workshops and such, something I was never able to do with my multi-needle. I am really excited about it. I am unpacking it tonight, and hopefully I can get a burp cloth embroidered.

Home tasks

After relaxing a couple of days, I am almost finally recovered from the sinus infection from hell. Now I only cough my lungs out when I go to sleep, a big improvement over doing it pretty much constantly a week ago. We are just doing house stuff. Kevin is working on a new side table for the trailer and trying to figure out how to get 400 watts of solar set up. He also is doing some general maintenance to the trailer. Trailers get bounced and jiggled all over, and things are always coming loose. It is just one of the things that you have to do. It is a bit challenging because his knee is giving him fits. He had a MRI yesterday, and we hope to have a diagnosis soon. The he can figure out what he needs to do.

I have been sewing. I made two fitted sheets for the Pack n Play I have. I ended up taking a 34xWOF fabric with 4″ inch boxes in the corner. My Bernina serger (made by Juki) has a foot designed to apply elastic very efficiently, and it made the job much easier. I also made a fitted crib sheet for one of my daughter’s friends. It uses two yards with 9″ boxes. It is out of the cutest Harry Potter fabric. (Ignore the stray threads.) The fabric came from etsy, and I am pretty sure it is a Spoonflower fabric based on the way it was printed. I am a bit worried about all that black on a crib sheet, but it isn’t my sheet!

I have also been doing some quilting. I bought the most wonderful fabric panel when I was at the Home and Machine Quilting Show in Sandy, UT last year. I just fell in love with it. I decided to use a fusible batting so it would be stiffer and not shrink. It didn’t work perfectly, but it isn’t bad. I just outline quilted the rock art figures with MonoPoly thread from Superior Threads. It is a very fine invisible thread, and I used it because I wanted to emphasize the figures but not distract from them. I used brown SuperBob on the bottom to coordinate with the backing. The binding is just a nice black cotton. I am going to put it where it can be seen as people come in my front door.

We also spent some time today pruning the service berry and one of the roses. We filled up the trash can so we will have to finish up after trash day.