Unwanted Excitement

We had a little more unwanted excitement in my family again, only this time I was the one who got a trip to the Emergency Room in an ambulance.  While shopping, or intending to shop, I slipped on the wet parking lot and fell fast and hard.  Since I coudn't move, breathe or talk at first, someone naturally called 911.  I'm very grateful that we have good emergency care here, but it was a bit embarrassing getting an ambulance ride when I knew intuitively that nothing was broken - I just couldn't catch my breath quickly enough to assure everyone that I was okay.

Ninety minutes later, the x-rays confirmed that nothing was broken.  My superficial head wound was already healing and there was no sign of concussion.  But my right side had been bruised and jarred to the point of causing non-stop muscle spasms, so I've been on medication and haven't done much of anything but sleep for the last twelve days.  I stopped taking the meds today and my mental faculties seem pretty clear now.  I'm still reallly sore but expect to be at work again tomorrow. 

So once again, life has put a detour in my plans and I'm further behind schedule.  But it takes more than a few detours to get me completely off-course.  I will see these BOMs and other projects through to the finish!

Bow Tie Bat Block

Saturday is usually my day to play (not work!) in my sewing shed, but the weather was sunny and mild yesterday so I did outdoor chores.  Today, my arthritic foot is complaining loudly that I overdid it yesterday, so I snuck in some playtime this afternoon.  Here's what my test block for the Bow Tie Bat looks like:

He's a classy bat dressed in a tux!  I'm not sure what to do for eyes, yet.  The ones you see now are straight pins with extra large ball point heads.  They're great for testing different positions for the eyes, but they can only be temmporary.

I haven't found my wiggle eyes, but I did find a bucket of Duplo blocks that had gotten wet enough that green, brown and black microbial yuck was starting to grow on the blocks.  I dumped them in a sinkful of sudsy, antibacterial water and have been working at cleaning them off and on all day.  After trying various cleaning tools, I finally decided on a toothbrush.  It works to get around all those "teeth," but it's tedious work.  I wonder if the Lego company has ever thought of designing a cleaning tool for cleaning a bucket of blocks at once?  I am happy to discover that the faces on the little people/animal blocks held up to being scrubbed.

Pink Magnolia Bats

While working on the Pink Magnolia block for this month's Home on the Range BOM, I happened to notice that the quadrant units kind of looked like bats wearing big bow ties (possibly because the dots in the red fabric look like eyes in the lower right quadrant!).  The bows seemed just a bit big, so I played a little with the block in Electric Quilt and came up with this design:

Now I just need to find time to test this with fabric.  But I think I'll make five of the bat units and join them together horizontally to make a valance for my shed's door.  And if I can find the little plastic wiggle eyes left from my days of doing child care, I'll add them.  But then again, the block above in the 14" size would make a cute trick-or-treat bag.  And a big, big block (like a 21" or 28" size) would make a cute table topper with a candy dish positioned in the center.  Decisions, decisions!