Update on My surgery

I am home. Supposedly all went well. I am having a lot of problems with pain. More so this time than last time. But I am sure in a few days I will feel better. I haven't had any rest during the night hardly. It is very hard t sleep sitting up . Lots of pain in my hip joints and back. Where I have arthritis at.  Looking forward to a better day. My precious little great niece Chloe is the come visit me briefly today. I am sure that will put a smile on face and joy in my heart.  I hope all of  you have a fabulous weekend.  Thank you for all the warm wishes and prayers sent my way. I treasure every single one of them. I value all of you and your friendship's and look forward to getting to know each other even more so in the coming year.
  Thank you and until I am able to sew and quilt again may you all be blessed with creativity and post it all for me to read and see for inspiration.

  Keep on quilting & sewing
                                  
                                         Tammy

Update no photos today

Just to update everyone. I am going into have reconstruction surgery tomorrow. It was going to be in January as that was first available. But my doctor had a cancelation and offered it to me.  I may be offline for a bit. I am unsure exactly how long or if at all. It just depends on how well I do. I am having surgery on both breasts this time. Tissue expander is being taken out and my permanent implant will be placed into the right breast that I lost to the cancer. And my left breast will be lifted and a small implant placed in it.  Due to having had a couple lumpectomy's on that side already. I need to have a implant over their as well.  I will look symmetrical again...I am excited to move onward.  But not excited to face more surgery.  I haven't posted in a while. But I am alive and well. Just extremely busy.  Always so much to do.  I have been doing mostly hand stitchery projects. But I have also made some table runners and mug rugs as well.   I will respond to posts and emails as soon as I am able to.  Thank you for following my blog. And thank you to all the well wishes and warmth I receive from so many of you.
Hugs until next time,
                    Tammy

A burst of creativity

Yesterday afternoon I decided to create something. I hade lost my creative mojo. And haven't been very creative lately. But I saw this free pattern for a pumpkin penny rug a few days back. It was on the All People Quilt dot com website. I downloaded the pattern and printed it off. It was laying on top of my cutting table. I saw it several times yesterday.And evertime I went in their my eyes would seek it out. So after I got my duaghter home from school. I decided I would check to see if I had any felt and if I had colors appropriate for this project. Well I had just enough black felt. So I said why not give it a try.  The hardest part was cutting those teeny tiny little green circles that are layered on top of the orange ones. I think it turned out fairly well. I would have prefered a different color green for the leaves but I had to use what was in my stash.  I will definitely be tempted to try and make another one of these cute felt projects .

Until next time keep on sewing and quilting

                                       Tammy

A little stiching gift for a friend

I have been busy trying to organize all my embroidery threads. Most of which are old from when I used to smock for my daughter when she was a lot younger. I recently made a gift for my dearest freind. A Journal cover with book mark.

I used a little bit of  awareness fabric in it. As this is the friend that has been helping me since before I was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has been with me since day 1 with this disease. She is a great lady. Driving me to all my doctor appointments and cooking meals to bring to me after my surgery. She also took my daughter back and fourth to school each day for 3 weeks.

 So I decided to make her this covered journal with book mark. She is all ways writing and doing her bible study and getting her Sunday school lessons done. And she is always on the go taking her children to all their sports and music activities. That way she can take her journal with her and allways have it handy.

Inside I made her a hand embroidered label. And their is a pocket as well.  The label was hard to stich for some  reason. The thread kept knotting up and breaking on me. The back is not pretty at all. Thank goodness it is sewn in place and no one can see the back.  I am not happy with the stitchin since it looks as bad at is was to stitch. Front and back is just not pretty.

 

This is the picture of the book mark I made to go with it.

 

My crafty finds and Apple Picking

This past weekend my husband and I loaded up our 2 kids and one of my daughters friends. We headed to Sky Top Orchards in Flat Rock North Carolina. about 4 hours ride for us. W e left really early and arrived about 10:30..The orchard was full of folks . This is the busiest we have ever seen it. We have been going their annually since 2004. The kids had a great time..I was worn out and we couldn't stay as long and walk as much as we used to...But it was a great trip...Loved breathing in that fresh mountain air...So fresh and clean...The weather was fabulous. Clear sky's and a nice temp of 69 degrees.   We picked apples, peaches and grapes.We brought back our fruit plus a huge jar mountain wild flower honey. Which is my absolute favorite . Their is so much to do at this orchard. It is mammoth in size. They have picnic areas. Concessions, hay rides, pumpkin patch, animal petting farm with sheep, chickens, peacocks, turkeys, and goats. And of course all the hiking you want to do...

 Yes that is me under the apple tree picking some lovely little apples. 

 Of course we had to treat ourselves to lots of orchard goodies too. We bought fresh caramel apples &  cider.

The girls had a great time feeding the animals. The sheep were their favorites of all.

 

My husband snapped this picture of me and the girls grape picking..lol....that is my daughters friend on the left then my daughter and me.

I took this of my son and husband.  We had just got to the orchard in this shot.

 My daughter took this shot of the mountains and a lake in the distance looking down the mountain side.

And another shot of the girls feeding the goats.....This young lady is a vegetarian and loves her animals. She has a ton of farm animals at her home and they are all her pets...She says...

Just a random shot of the orchard.  I thought was kinda pretty with the mountain in the background.

This is one of my favorite shots of the girls  They thought this old phone booth was just the coolest thing.   What a fabulous day we had.....

A few days prior to this hubby took me to Walmart to get a few things. I discovered they had marked a bunch of school supplies down and moved to their clearance shelves . While looking through the clearance I discovered some Fiskers titanium scissors for teachers with non stick blades. They were $2.00 a pair. And came with a sheath to cover the blades. I can all ways use more scissors so I had to grab 2 pair of them.

I also found the Frixion erasable gel pens on the clearance rack also. They were marked to $2.50 a pack. These are the ones that the iron makes the ink disappear off of fabric. That work great for marking hand embroidery designs. Had to  nab me  a few of those as well. I have seen these same packs for as high as $7.99 before.

 

I would love for you to follow my blog. Their are several ways to follow along over on the right side of the blog. 

 

Until next time Keep on Quilting and sewing

Tammy

 

 

Update Post On My Health

I have received numerous emails from folks asking about my health and wondering how I am doing. Thank you to all my friends near and very very far in Blogdom. I love you all and look forward to hearing from you and reading your blogs as well.  My mastectomy was on August 14th. I was in the hospital from that day which was a Wednesday until that Friday evening I was released to come home. My husband stayed with me the entire time. My older sister met us at the hospital and stayed with my husband until I came out of surgery . Then late that evening she went to my home to stay with my children.  Between my 2 sisters they looked out for my kids until we returned from hospital. 
       My husband was off work several days with me. I had a good friend helping to cook meals and bring over and one of my sisters as well. In
addition to  my husbands cooking and getting take out.  I have been quiet sore and in lots of pain. The first muscle relaxers weren't effective. And a week later I finally got ones that actually worked. The pain meds work as long as I take them around the clock. Literally setting my alarm for every few hours to get up and take them. This week I am feeling quiet a bit better. But their are still lots of things I can not or should not do. 
    A couple days after my surgery by that did the mastectomy called me to let me know the lymph nodes he removed were all free of cancer. And that all my margins on the breast tissue were cancer free this time. That he had gotten it all this go round.  So awesome news....Yipppeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
      I have had my 3rd check up with my plastic surgeon as of yesterday. I had drain lines left in from the reconstruction process of the surgery. He removed one the first week after surgery and finally removed the last drain at yesterdays appointment.
      The plastic surgeon placed a tissue expander in the chest to start reconstruction as soon as my other surgeon had removed the breast on the day of the mastectomy.  At last weeks visit they were able to get 50 cc's of saline into the tissue expander. At yesterdays appointment more saline was placed in it. Their was 70 cc's added on yesterday.
   Because I am very small chested and very petite  I have the smaller version of tissue expander in me. Which means It should hopefully require less fills to get my skin stretched out enough to create a breast. Once the correct amount of skin is their and the tissue expander has been in long enough. Then more surgery will be scheduled to remove the expander and place my implant in their and as I put it create a boob...Hey I gotta stay light hearted and attempt to find humor where I can. The seriousness of this diagnosis can really get you down if you aren't careful. 
   I am not looking forward to more procedures. As each time they place the saline in is very painful to me...and it makes me start to hurt all over again.  Sleeping is difficult as I can no longer sleep in my normal position. I feel like I am in a sea of pillows all around me.  But overall I am doing very well. The plastic surgeon says I am healing very well and am ahead of schedule. So things are looking up.... No sewing & no  crafting is happening around here these days and I am several days behind on reading blogs. And I am going into withdrawal over both of them.

  Until next time keep on sewing & quilting

                                    Tammy 

Todays post

Contained  a nice  package all the way from Austrailia.

 

I won a couple weeks back a lovely package of products that Jenny of  Elefantz blog uses to do her beautiful embroidery with here is the link to her blog to the giveaway I won. I have included the picture of the giveaway from Jennys site. This is her picture below here not mine. http://www.elefantz.com/2013/08/a-free-design-and-starter-kit-giveaway.html

Inside was a  the needles she uses for her hand embroidery. They type of pen she uses  to trace her designs with. And a beautiful piece of aqua toned fabric. White hanky linen. And  a product I was most anxious to get my hands on . Something called Weaveline to fuse behind your traced design  before you embroider it. I have never seen this product and have been wanting to see some to know what it is she uses. So boy was I lucky I won this.  Also was two gorgeous thread packs it is a brand called Cosmo Seasons threads. I have never heard of this brand before. But I do believe they seem to have lots more and better stitchery products in Australia than here in USA where I live.  Then again maybe I live under a rock and have lots to learn yet. She also included a gorgeous paper pattern for her stitchery design called  Colour Your Heart. It is gorgeous. And she had it all wrapped up so pretty. And sent the most gorgeous little miniature card I have ever laid eyes on. Just a beautiful gift to receive today. Thank you Jenny. I love every single item and will use it all I promise you. So I took some pictures of my beautiful  wins in the kit. My pictures are never as pretty as anyone else's seem to be but here goes.

Do u see my beautiful little card that had a lovely message from Jenny un it to me. The butterfly has a 3 D effect raised up off the card a bit. So cute.

 

wrapped u so prettily...look at that lovely blue ribbon. It makes you want to see what is waiting insude doesn't it.

 

 And she had put in in wonderful protective plastic liner to keep it nice and safe while in enroute. Thank you  so much. for this extra step. Oh so now I get to open it up and and unstack those goodies....

 

Such pretty and useful stitchin goodies. I notice the needels she uses are much finer than mine. No wonder her stitchin allways looks so pretty and feminine and mine is so clunky looking. . The floss is so shiny and pretty and it feels like a lot finer in quality than the DMC stuff I buy to use.

 

Now I have heard only a couple times fo these pens before. It is called Zig.  I need to look for this. The tip is like super fine. I can definitely see why she uses this to trace her designs with now.

And last is a picture of the fabrics  and the weaveline she irons on to the backs of her embroideries. It looks just like a large open weave fabric. Very light and airy...I am definitely gonna look for some of this stuff.

 

 That hanky linen is gorgeous. And look at that beautiful aqua blue print fabric. Is that just not the prettiest shade you have ever seen.. All of it is gorgeous and wonderful and very useful things to me. Jenny thank you so much again. If you haven't been over to Jennys blog please go visit her. She is so filled with talent. And has the most beautiful stitchery patterns. She sells them on Craftsy also and has some gorgeous free ones their as well.