Bordering on a Finish

Good morning, my friends. It's a grocery shopping day, and so I'm writing fast. Ordinarily I don't like grocery shopping on a Friday. It always seems busier as the weekend approaches. We shopped last Friday, however, and it wasn't too bad. We try to get in and out early, which is just a good way to do it no matter what day of the week it is. We'll reward ourselves with our favorite Egg McMuffin breakfast. Mike likes the Sausage McMuffin.

The annuals needed watering, and the bird feeders needed attention, and so I was out early to take care of things outside yesterday morning. While I was out, I discovered the first ripe cherry tomato.

Back inside, my first stop was to bake up some muffins. I have several frozen 2-cup portions of shredded zucchini in our freezer from last year's garden, and so I'm on a quest to use it up. These are Kathie's Zucchini Muffins. They were easy and they are tasty.

From there I headed into the sewing room. Smitty was there to help, but he has to stay near the phone. You never know when his agent might call with a modeling job for kitty swimsuits. He has a dream of being the cover cat for Spurrts Illustrated's Kitty Swimsuit issue.

My goal was to finish sewing together the Joyful Journey blocks. Row one was already finished. I added the second row.

And then I just kept going. A couple of hours later, I had them all done.

It seemed too late to do any more, and so I folded it up and set it aside for the night. Later, I opened it up to show Mike. Now, look at that image above. Do you see it?

How about now?

Doh! All I can say is I'm glad I saw it before I added the borders. It'll be an easy fix as it is. And today's goal will be to finish sewing on the borders. I'll need to make a back for it too, and then it'll get in just under the wire because I'm going to start sandwiching quilts tomorrow.

When I came back upstairs yesterday afternoon, I saw the current resident fawn. The doe must have been nearby, but I didn't see her. This little fawn was very rambunctious and kicked up his heels as he ran toward the woods on the left side of the image. So cute.

Sorry it's not a better image. I was shooting through my [clean] window, but from quite a distance away.

Okay, so I need to get on my way if we're going to get that early shopping trip done. There's nothing else on today's agenda except to finish adding borders to my quilt. 

I hope y'all are staying safe from wildfires right now. The pictures coming out of Jasper, Alberta, in Canada are heartbreaking. We visited Jasper some years back, and I was saddened to see about half the town burned to the ground. We have plenty of fires burning in Oregon right now as well. So far we've escaped the smoky haze. We're told by our weatherman that we can expect to see some of that today with a change of the wind. Be careful out there, my friends. 

Lots of Sewing

Good morning, my friends. I can see clearly now because I have clean windows. With window washer man here yesterday, I spent most of my day in the windowless sewing room staying out of his way. It's an excellent strategy, if I do say so myself. And I do. 

Kitties are not fond of Mans in their house, and so I had plenty of help in the sewing room. I had to run a couple of errands in town early, and window washer man was hard at work by the time I got home. I wasted no time heading into the sewing room. When I arrived, I found Smitty excited to get started.

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, Smitty is an excellent helper cat. If there were any justice in the world, he would have been awarded the Purrlitzer Prize for Quilting Cats by now.

He was helping me finish snowballing those sashing strips, but eventually tired of sewing so many little 1-1/2 inch squares to corners, trimming, flipping, and pressing. He realized his talents could be put to better use keeping the quilt blocks warm.

All the while I was stitching, trimming, flipping, and pressing...124 times. Finally I had both the horizontal and vertical sashings ready.

Sadie decided to take over at that point.

With his quilting cat expurrtise, he's been showing her the ropes of being a quilting cat. Obviously, she's taking his instruction to heart. She knows exactly where to stand in order to provide the most effective assistance.

And we weren't finished with all those little squares. We still needed 18 flying geese. No one was any happier than I was when these were finished.

Finally, I could start sewing the blocks together. So I sewed the first row, including the stop border on each end of the row.

I decided to add the top row of sashing to see how those starts would look.

It was getting late in the day, and I was ready to quit, but I was curious to finish off the tops of the stars. I added the stop border at the top, which included the flying geese serving as the tops of the stars.

And, whoa! Lookie there. I'm liking how this is going so far. That's where I left it for the night, and now I'm excited to get back to it and finish it off. I'm fairly certain I can get all the blocks and the stop border finished today. There will still be one border to add around the outside. Possibly, if I'm very energetic, I can having that finished today too.

The only other sewing I did yesterday was to stitch some more on Grandpa's Bridges. I stitched far enough to decide to move my hoop.

With all those long vertical lines, I want to be able to stitch the entire length. This piece is done mostly in stem stitch, and I like it better if there's no interruption to a line of stitching. So I moved my hoop to encompass the opening to the covered bridge where I can stitch those lines from start to finish.

I stitched a little more while we watched the news last night, but there's still a lot to do on this. 

Today I want to do battle with some more of the frozen zucchini. We like having a little sweet snack bread or muffin or cookie to have with our morning coffee. Today I'm going to bake some muffins. We're going to do our grocery shopping tomorrow, and so I need to make up a list. There's one small housekeeping chore on the day's to-do list. Also, I'll take a walk on the treadmill, and so the morning will be filled with all of that. Nevertheless, I'll have plenty of sewing time this afternoon. I'm excited to see how it's going to look when it's all finished.

So...onward. There's plenty to keep me busy today. Breakfast is next. Have a nice day, everybody!

Starting to Finish

Good morning, my friends. It's a pretty day here at the Three Cats Ranch. Window washer man is coming today after rescheduling from last week. It'll be nice to have the windows clean so we can better see these pretty summer days. Of course, you can always view a pretty day without glass between yourself and the outdoors. My companion cats and I tried it out yesterday.

When I said there wasn't much going on in the garden in yesterday's post, I believe I might have offended the hydrangeas.

This one has both pink and purple on the same plant.

But this blue is really the star right now. So pretty.

We have some fat and happy squirrels hanging out on our patio.

This guy was stretching out for a good sunbath.

Back inside, Sadie and I went to work sewing together the Joyful Journey blocks into a finished quilt top.

We started by adding borders to all of the blocks.

And we started "snowballing" the sashings. The horizontal sashings are ready now.

I'll work on the vertical sashings today. When they're finished, I'll be able to start sewing things together. I'll admit to being a little hesitant to start this setting with all the stars pictured on the pattern. 

As it turns out, it'll be easier than I thought it would be. When the snowballing is all finished, it'll just be a matter of sewing them together with cornerstones. Since I'll be staying out of the way of window washer guy, I expect to have lots of time for sewing. It's one of the few times I'm glad there are no windows in my sewing room.

It doesn't seem as if much to accomplish in a whole day, but I did some housework, and I got in a Bowflex workout. Mike has finished with his project of getting the Jeep set up for towing. He's taken it down the road, and everything is working as it should be. He has one other garage project to finish, and then I should be able to get busy sandwiching the quilt tops awaiting my attention. Probably I have a couple more days before I have to start on that. In the meantime, I'll just keep working away at the Joyful Journey quilt. It might squeeze in under the wire to be sandwiched with the rest.

That's all I have for you today. I hope y'all are safe from the wildfires burning right now. This morning I read that the interstate is closed in both directions in eastern Oregon. I'm sorry enough about the fire, but now worried we'll have to reroute ourselves to get to Moab. Our trip is still about six weeks off, and so we'll hope for the best. And I'm sorry for those living in the area and under evacuation orders. Having lived through an evacuation ourselves, we have a greater appreciation for what a nail-biting experience it is.

But enough of that doom and gloom. Let's all get out there and have a good day. There's lots of sewing to be done and a whole day ahead. When the day ends, I'll be seeing clearly through clean windows. 

Cutting Loose

Good morning, my friends. It felt like a lazy day yesterday, although I accomplished plenty...including housework. So how bad can it be? I hadn't slept well the night before, and so I went back to bed after writing yesterday's post. When I woke up, I went outside with the kitties to fill the bird feeders. There isn't a lot going on in the garden right now, but the echinacea are picking up the slack.

The bees love them.

I was surprised to find a flower on the Star Magnolia. This is usually one of the first things to bloom in spring. We missed it this year because we were traveling, and so I was happy it was giving us an encore flower.

There are a few more blossoms coming on.

To my right, Smitty was enjoying his favorite shady spot on the deck.

My eyes still felt heavy, and so I took a second nap after lunch. When I woke up from that, I went to work on my embroidery. Ordinarily, I do this first thing in the morning, but sleep took a higher spot on my to-do list. When I'd stitched all I wanted to for the day, I decided I'd stitched enough to move my hoop.

There's still plenty to do on this one, and so I expect to be working on it throughout the week.

For now, I've moved my hoop up and to the right a little. I'll start here this morning.

Meanwhile, Mike was finishing the work he's been doing turning our Jeep Wrangler into a "toad." (That's RV speak for a towed vehicle.) See the stuff under the bumper in the image below? There are spots on the extreme left and right where the tow bar attaches (I think), and then there is a little cap on the left where the electrical connection is. That's so the brake lights will light up when the brake is applied in the truck. Also, the silver ring on the right is the "break-away switch." If by some chance the Jeep becomes disconnected, the break-away switch applies the brakes to keep it from going walkabout.

Later, he hitched the thing up...

And then took it for a spin around the neighborhood.

Everything came back in one piece, including Mike. So far, so good. There are still a few things to do with this, but he's very close to having it ready to go for our "shake-down" trip to Moab in a few weeks.

Inside, I did the cutting so that I can start sewing together the quilt top for A Joyful Journey. All the pieces are cut except the strips for the border. I'll do those last. It seemed too late in the day to start sewing on this, but I'll have time to get started on it today.

This seems as good a time as any to say that the patterns for these embroidered blocks are up for grabs. The patterns were gifted to me by one of you, and so I'll just pay them forward to the next person. (I'm sorry I can't remember who passed these along to me originally. If it was you, then thank you.) If anyone wants them, email me. Whoever speaks up first can have them free of charge. (Edited to say they are spoken for…sorry.)

After doing the cutting, I went back upstairs to see Sadie working on her tan in the afternoon sunshine.

While I was making dinner, Smitty joined her for some tandem tanning.

To quote Zac Brown, life is good today.

Okay, so I have one housekeeping chore on the day's agenda. After that, I'll get busy sewing together the quilt top for A Joyful Journey. The weather has been comfortably cool for the last couple of days. I'm hoping it will last. We sleep a lot better with cooler nights. 

A Finish in Black and White

Good morning, my friends. It was a sit and stitch day yesterday. I was able to get all the way around my quilt binding, and I have a finished quilt to show you today. It was created from Moda's Catnip panel. The panel was a gift from my friend, Sharon, quite some time ago. I'm making a concerted effort to turn several different panels I've acquired into finished quilts, and this was among them. This is the Catnip quilt. It ends up at 67 x 67 inches. 

If I'm remembering correctly, I found a similar layout on Pinterest. I liked it done in all these blacks and whites, and so that's what I did. Also, I had some really fun cat fabrics in my stash, and I was able to put those to work. Here's a look at the back.

Here's a little closer look at the back. I really love those cat fabrics.

When I sat down to work on this, I was probably a skosh less than halfway around it. It meant I spent most of my afternoon sitting and stitching. It was a good way to spend an afternoon. When I got sleepy, I tipped back in our recliner and took a nap. When I woke up, I continued on.

Smitty was on standby on the couch across from me. Cats are always in the mood for napping, but he was willing to help out if I needed him.

You might remember when I sewed this into a quilt top. I didn't use all the cats from the original panel. The leftover cats went into this quilt donated to Quilts for Kids. I called this quilt Paws & Purrs.

So I'm happy I was able to put the whole panel to use. Last week I was motivated to number all the quilts in my Finished Quilts Gallery. I've probably missed including a few along the way, but we'll assume I'm close when I say that the Catnip quilt is my 343rd finished quilt.

The only other thing I did yesterday was to bake some zucchini bread. I had a yen. It tasted good with our afternoon cup of espresso.

Today I'll get started sewing "A Joyful Journey" into a finished quilt top.

Mike is close to being finished with his work in the garage, and so I'll be able to set up my sawhorse and plywood tables soon and get busy sandwiching more quilts for quilting. As it stands, there are 11 finished quilt tops and backs on the pile. If Joyful Journey goes together quickly, I might end up with an even dozen.