Baby Steps....What's new?

For those of you who realize I’ve been getting better day by day, I thought I’d mention what I have been doing.

First of all - not too much. Don’t worry. I’ve not been really ready in most ways to join the rest of the world. But once my fever was gone (earlier this past week—at first it would go away when I would fight it with Motrin - but then come back again once the medicine wore off), I’ve been attempting to do one or two things a day.

These little goals have included getting all my suitcases unpacked and the things put away (mostly fabric!). That took about three days. Then I decided to tackle doing about a half hour to an hour of cleaning my downstairs bathroom and removing some things from it - made it easier for me to get to my washing machine/dryer.

Then, I decided to venture into my sewing room. I had been wanting to…but just kept walking by - not quite there yet.

Finally three days or so I decided to fire up the embroidery machine and make more charity labels.

I also decided to get three tops ready with backings for when I do feel ready to tackle such things - so I actually turned on my Janome 8900 and sewed a few seams to create a backing for one of my more recent tops.

I’ve clipped 10 of the labels together for easier counting and finally put that piece of paper in there to — I can start counting at 100 at the paper.

These Sulky rayon brand threads were donated to us a few years ago now. Each spool is only 250 yards so not a lot. I decided to just go ahead and make labels from the whole set. Each of the little spools makes 4 labels in an ideal situation - especially if they weren’t used before I got it.

This panel can be yours here for only $12! It’s gorgeous and I can’t wait to make it up!

I also decided on how to make up one of the panels I brought with me to Poland - a Call of the Wild panel that I admired every time I featured it on Facebook! I let it jump into my suitcase and join me here in Poland. I was able to decide what to do with it (it’s one of those wider than it is tall panels) when my husband told me it reminded him of Brooks Falls in AK. I decided that after all the bear cams I had watched, that yes, it reminded me of that as well. You’ll see.

Then, late last night I went to my fabrics and chose out fabrics that I want to use for it. Now THAT’s progress! And yes, about 4 of them were ones I had just put in my stash from my suitcase. My warm colors had been hit so hard in the last year that I worked on beefing up those with what I brought back.

Oh, and the most recent thing is - I brought back some pony beads for “us” as we make fidget mats—what I mean by “us” is mostly Ewa, my friend, who has been very busy making fidget mats. We looked for some of these plastic beads here in Poland, and unbelievably, they were simply not available at all that I could find. Anywhere!

Here’s an overview of the pony beads (and others) that I got for Ewa.

I got double this- am giving her half of what I brought back since she’s been so busy making these fidget mats. Big plastic beads and big plastic buttons are harder to find here than it seems like it should be. We may not want to use the metallic beads- as they may just crack and the outer covering come off. I think I was hallucinating when I was buying them at the Dollar Tree! Not sure. I may open one of my packs and try to scratch one and see what happens.

These are marine animals.

Here are the safari animals - I found them at Joann’s. and then 2 or 3 places on Amazon. I divvied them up - as the packages were different and had different animals in them.

Rather than mess around buying a bunch of small packages, I just bought 2 BIG boxes of these things at Walmart. That way we’ll have plenty for any of these projects! The small bag is “other colors” - neon, pure reds and other ones I saw. Then I decided I had enough! I hope Ewa likes them!

So I bought “us” some beads - some regular small ones and some animal shaped ones. I decided to tackle splitting those up today.

Oh my. These things are laughable, aren’t they?

All of these things written here may or may not sound like a lot. It’s not - especially when you consider it’s been over about 5-6 days. But each thing represents a step closer to normalcy. At first I didn’t care about that - but as I have been feeling better and better - I’ve been searching for a bit of that. I still do have a residual cough - hopefully diminishing a bit, and struggle with a bit (not a lot) of dizziness when I get up to walk.

So, hopefully I will get back to actually sewing things this week - as I’ve wanted to - but to date it’s just felt like “too much” - so no point in pushing it.

And that’s about it from my part of the world today!

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

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