Ladies' Night Out

I've been taking care of my husband 24/7 since arriving here in Baltimore, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to learn that there would be a meeting of my old quilt group on Wednesday night.  I knew it would do me some good to get out for an hour or two.  Barbara picked me up, and we were off!  The meeting was at Nehama's house.  She is a great quilter.  Here she is with her beautiful basket quilt.  All batiks.  She made TWO of them for gifts for her brother who is getting married.  

 Nehama is also working on the Civil War Bride Quilt.  Her applique is fantastic, and I love her choice of fabrics.  Click on the photo to see the wonderful spotty batik she chose for the eggs in the nest!

 She's already done some work on the borders.

 Cute strawberries, with tiny beads sewn on for seeds.

 She sewed on a real piece of crocheted lace as the edging for the tablecloth.  If you look carefully at the picture, you can see the bandage on her finger.  Nehama had one of those rotary cutter accidents we are always terrified of.  Luckily, the ER doctor said that her finger-tip will grow back.  She says she is never going to use the rotary cutter again when she's over-tired. And she's buying one of those special gloves that prevent accidents of this sort.

 Yoheved is a wonderfully creative quilter.  All of her quilts have Biblical themes.  Here is her quilted depiction of Noah's ark. She found fantastic fabrics that looked just like rain. And a great water fabric that looks just like waves. She's been stitching the wave fabric in such a way that it will look 3-dimensional.  Then she's going to sew something white on the tops of the waves to resemble sea foam.

 On the far right of the quilt you can see a tiny rainbow, and Mount Ararat, where the ark came to rest.

I SEW much enjoyed my night out, and came home mentally refreshed.  If you have ever cared for a family member around the clock, you know how draining it can be, and how important it is to take a break from time to time. I'm so lucky I was able to spend some quality time last night with old friends. Also that I brought along my hand-quilting project with me from Israel. I spend some time working on it every day. I bought a Kindle from Amazon, and it's become a good companion. I can sit in doctors' offices and read to my heart's content while we wait for our turn. And I have downloaded some good audiobooks onto my trusty MP3, so I'm never bored.
My husband seems to be doing a bit better every day. His breathing is better, his pain seems to be diminishing a bit, and his thinking is generally clearer. Tomorrow we have an appointment with the thoracic surgeon, who will reevaluate the broken ribs and the amount of blood in my husband's lungs. We're hoping for good news!