I fell off the grid for a while there, but now I'm back. My absence was caused by getting another (!) cold, getting hospitalised for oxygen and IV antibiotics , then a trip to Adelaide and more tests and consultations at the Thoracic Unit down there. I feel much better after all that, and here's hoping no more colds and viruses find me for a while. There are more tests and scans in the future, but I have a treatment plan now, which includes home oxygen; then I'll really feel like an invalid, but maybe I'll be able to be more active too. Silver linings, and all that.

My sewing room feels like alien territory, I can barely remember what I was working on so enthusiastically before I got sick. I've been tackling the remnants of my scrap cutting mania, packing things away into boxes and drawers, and makings labels straight away, so at least my workspace is ready for me to start work. But on what?

I was thinking back on my decision to work on projects and Make A Difference, which led to many MAD cutting and sewing sessions. That was great, but many of those sessions were with new projects, and my existing ones languished. Some of them are many years old, and they are starting to weigh on me. I really hope I can continue to live on my own, but I need to start sorting out all my stuff, while I'm still able to. So I'm going to buckle down and tackle some of the older UFOs.

The red and cream Jacob's Ladder was top of the list. There were still boxes and trays of red and  cream scraps and strips everywhere, and I wanted the whole thing kitted and the leftovers dealt with. First of all I drew it up in EQ8 so that I knew how many blocks I needed; the answer was 56, and I already had 27 blocks completed.

I had a huge cutting session, and kitted up 14 blocks. 

I sewed the  four HSTs and the five 4-patches needed for each block, and packed each block in a ziplock bag.

 That took quite a while; 56 HSTs and 70 4-patches. I was a bit disheartened to realise that it was only half of the blocks I needed, and I still had 15 to cut, kit and sew. Oh well, the only thing to do was keep on with it. I cut all the strips I needed for the remaining blocks, but I couldn't face sewing the units in one big batch. I'll do them a few at a time in between other sewing.

That was rather tiring, but it certainly made a difference to that project. Red fabric is back in it's drawers; the cream fabric was mostly scraps, so it's all gone or cut into 2"strips for the strip drawers. I'm quite pleased with that effort. 35 blocks finished, and the rest are just waiting their turn.

My leader-enders were the Flying Geese units; I'm going to play around with the idea of a pieced border for this, maybe little squares on point, maybe Flying Geese. Those red fabrics might have to come out again.