Slow Stitching Ahead

Good morning, my friends. It turned into a pretty good day yesterday. We were expecting quite a bit of rain. It was gray and cloudy when we left home, but dry. We had our breakfast, ran our errands, did our grocery shopping, and had it all put away before noon. And then, it turned into a pretty nice afternoon with sunshine for most of the day. Today we're expecting more rain. If the forecast is to be believed, we'll have thunder and lightning by this afternoon. We're keeping our fingers crossed we won't lose power. A word to the wise (that would be me): Get out and fill those bird feeders early. 

Before we left, I had some time to spend on the Birdbath block. This is stitching up pretty quickly. It's possible I could finish it this morning.

It'll need borders added to it, but that won't stop me from moving on to the "Short" project on my list. There are 21 projects on my short list. I asked Mr. Random which one I should do next.

Ahhhh...17. ♪♪It was a very good year.♫  And number 17 on my list happens to be this "Love Sampler" from Kathy Schmitz. 

I've done a couple of her samplers..."Liberty"

and "Bumble."

Her samplers are fun to stitch for the variety of embroidery stitches included. For this one, she would have me use a Valdani perle cotton floss. Since I still have plenty of DMC 321 (Christmas Red), I'll stick with that.

When we were finished with our morning's outing, I was able to spend some time on my quilt binding, turning the third corner. I should have no problem finishing this off today.

There was some decision-making to do in the sewing room. Happily, my cat was there to give his  purrfessional recommendations.

Having realized that "Tulip Time" was finished and ready for quilting, I cut a back and binding strips for that. Now it'll go on the list of small-quilts-to-be-quilted.

Mainly, I just wanted to get it out of the way so that I could sew the binding on "Hawksbill Honu." That'll be next after I finish the binding on "Seasons."

And then I turned my attention to finishing off this little "Bunny Bait" quilt. It started as a single quilt block 12-1/2 inches square. I wanted to give it a bright green border to start. It took me a long time to find fabrics I liked for this. For one thing, I was literally scraping the bottom of my green scrap bin to come up with a strip of this bright green long enough to make it around.

And then I searched and searched and searched for some scraps of the border fabric used in the quilt below.

I could not find a strip, a scrap, a thread, a morsel...nothing. I can only think I used every last square inch of it when I made this baby quilt for one of Matthew's friends. 

Okay...I give up. Moving on, I found this orange in my yardage. It has been in my stash positively forever. There was plenty for a border and for a back, and that's what I used.

And then I used the last little bit of that green stripe to cut binding strips. It ends up at 18-1/2 inches square. Now it too will head to the small-quilts-to-be-quilted pile.

Okay, so there are a lot of little finishes in my future. What's next? Well, when I finish the binding on "Seasons" and "Hawksbill Honu," it'll be time to start on the next quilt to be quilted. Next in line is "Ruth's Legacy." Already, I've spent some time smoothing and ironing the back, and it's draped over Eliza awaiting the arrival of my quilting needle. I'm thinking I'll use a colorful variegated thread for this, but I haven't made any decisions about it yet.

Also, reaching the last Saturday in June, I'm informed that July's color  for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge will be "aqua." I'll want to make July's block next. These are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

When that's finished, I'll be ready to return to my list of WIP's. First up will be to make five more blocks for the Stair Steps quilt, and that will give me a finished quilt top.

So there's plenty to keep me busy on the sewing front. I'm afraid my days of zero to-do's have come to an end. I need to do a little housework today, and I need to fill the bird feeders. Honestly, when it comes to granulated sugar, the hummingbirds are slurping us out of house and home. Lately, I'm buying a bag of sugar every time we go to the grocery store. Also, I haven't checked on things outside for a couple of days. The blueberries are getting very close to ripe, and we need to be paying attention to the cherries too. I'm hopeful we'll get to the cherries before the raccoons do.

Okay, so there's plenty to keep me busy. Slow-stitching on Le Jardin is next. Time to be on my way.

Picking Up the Pace

Good morning, my friends. Its been nice to indulge in the peace of some slow days over the past week. With Mike’s cataract surgeries, and my asthma attack of the previous week, it was good to have a breather. (Pun totally intended.) Yesterday morning, I started on a new embroidery piece. This is Block 8 of 9 for the Le Jardin project. Not much color so far, but it’s coming.

From there, I took a short break and filled the bird feeders. Then I returned to the same chair as before and went to work on my quilt binding. There was more progress than expected on this. I’ve managed to turn the first two corners. This won’t be finished today, but tomorrow isn’t out of the question.

The grocery list was made up while I ate some lunch, and I got in quick nap. When I woke up there was still plenty of time in the afternoon for  the Hawksbill Honu quilt. I’ve been looking forward to this. It was my second attempt at Sashiko. The first was this little quilt I made for one of the art quilt challenges.

This one, Hawksbill Honu, was made from a kit. All I needed to do was to sandwich it, and then get to work on the quilting. At 21 x 24 inches, it’s a small piece, and so the quilting didn’t take long.

While I was setting up my domestic machine for quilting, Smitty gave it a quick inspection.  Satisfied, he gave me his purrmission to begin.

So I didn’t want the quilting to be obvious on this. I love the contrast of the white Sashiko against the dark background, and I didn’t want the quilting to distract from the turtle design. On either side of the turtle, I quilted a strip of kelp.

My internal debate in thinking about how to quilt this was knowing that things on the ocean floor float upward. What would I do in the narrower spaces running vertically across the top and bottom? The other challenge is simply doing something that I am capable of quiting. Since I can’t draw worth beans, my designs have to be pretty simple. I’ve had good luck searching for quilting designs by Googling “straight line drawing of [fill in the blank].” If someone else will draw it for me, then I’m pretty good at copying. The starfish was pretty easy. Probably, I could have done that on my own. And then I filled in below with some bubbles. I used different sizes of buttons to make round circles for the bubbles.

Here, I searched for a straight-line drawing of a seahorse, and I found one I could do pretty easily. I first drew it on the fabric in a white chalk pencil (invaluable), and then I stitched over it. The white chalk brushes away pretty easily.

I stitched another strip of kelp up the right side of the turtle, and then some more bubbles over the top.

The borders gave me the same trouble as before. Everything needs to be vertical if I’m sticking with ocean scenes as my inspiration. There was plenty I could do in the vertical borders, but what about the narrow space at the top and bottom? In the end, I decided to let the fabric tell me what to do. I thought I might try to do a straight line drawing of a turtle. Since the fabric already has turtles on it, it made sense to just outline those for texture. I outlined some of the other elements too, and connected them with a loop.

Here’s a peek at the back. I love that fabric.

So…all finished. I squared it up.

Today I’ll give it a purple binding. (And since I’m already hand-sewing a quilt binding, there’s no rush to get to this one.)

Probably I could have sewn the binding on, but I was getting tired of sewing by then. Instead, I looked ahead at my whiteboard. Next in line was to finish this little quilt made while we were traveling in SoCal this past winter. I call this quilt “Tulip Time.” It’s going to make a cute little spring table topper. When I looked at it, I realized it’s ready for quilting too.

For this, I’ll just cut a back for it…maybe select something for a binding…and then set it aside for when the next small quilt comes up on my whiteboard for quilting. I found the pink below in my stash. It seems as good a choice as any. There’s probably something suitable for a binding too, but I haven’t really looked.

Okay, so instead, I’ll finish this little project off somehow. It’s another little quilt I made on our winter trip. I call this “Bunny Bait.” It’s just a quilt block, but I have in mind to fancy it up somehow and make it into a little wall hanging. I’m pretty sure I have a fabric that will make a good border…that is, if I didn’t use it all up at some point in time. If I can’t find anything I like, I might have to go shopping. Wouldn’t that be just awful?

Okay, so like I said…we’re picking up the pace today. We got off easy with our grocery shopping last week. There were only a couple of things we needed. This week, the list is monstrously long. We have one other errand to run as well, but we’ll get our beloved Egg McMuffins first. The rest of the day will go so much better after a sumptuous fast-food breakfast. 

I’m hoping to get some sewing done this afternoon. For sure, I want to round another corner on my quilt binding. Getting the Hawksbill Honu to hand-stitching stage would be nice too. 

All righty then. Off I go. I have miles to go before I sleep.

Slow Ahead

Good morning, my friends. The past several days have been luxuriously slow. Somehow I ended up without a single to-do on my calendar unless I put it there voluntarily. I've added a few things, but mainly, things I've wanted to do anyway. Today will be such a day. Tomorrow will be a little busier. Still, with several days of leisure, I feel ready to pick up the pace again.

We had another pretty sunrise this morning. 

It's been hot the past couple of days, and we've been running our A/C during the day. It's cooler today, and we're expecting rain by this evening. We should get a good amount of rain over the weekend. With wildfire season approaching, and a state of emergency already in place in Oregon, the rain is welcome.

My most important to-do yesterday was to water the annuals. While I was out, two of these Red Admiral butterflies joined me. 

That's three different butterflies in a span of two days. It's quite a treat to see them. While I was out, I noticed another flower on the Stargazer lily. This one seems to escaped its protective fencing. Also, a few of the buds have been nibbled by deer.

Back inside, I finished up November's block for "A Year in the Garden."

These are the 11 blocks I have for this quilt so far. Just one more to go.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I wanted to bake another Moravian Sugar Cake. My goal was to use the last of an old box of instant mashed potato buds. There was a little left over, but it went out with the trash. That extra inch of space on my shelf is going to come in handy.

You might recall I had some ideas about this bread from the first time I made it. For one thing, I wondered if I'd get better distribution of the cinnamon-sugar if I made the indentations in the top before adding the sugar, as suggested in the recipe. As it turns out...no. It works better to put the sugar on first, and then make the indentations. Also, there's no reason to remove it from the baking dish. For this go-round, I allowed it to cool for 20 minutes in the dish, and then cut myself a piece to enjoy with my afternoon cup of espresso. I'd still like to try making this again using a fresh potato, but I'll admit the potato buds make it very easy. 

We were almost completely out of sandwich bread, and we aren't going to the grocery store until tomorrow. Mike decided to run a few errands in town and pick up some bread while he was at it. When he came home, he surprised me with this nice bouquet of flowers.

Mike was a flower-delivery guy before we were married. Eventually, he learned to do floral arranging. We used to refer to him as a "petal pusher." He still enjoys making a nice arrangement now and then.

In the sewing room, I finished the top-stitching on The Yoder Sisters. I left the tiny bits at the neck unstitched. I can pick that up when I quilt it. With the top-stitching done, I cut a back from the same yellow I used in the pieced quilt blocks. Probably I'll give it a gray binding. For now, I'm setting it aside while I work on some other projects.

Next up, I wanted to square up the "Seasons" quilt and machine sew the binding. You might recall that Smitty claimed this quilt the day before.

Enter Miss Sadie, and she had her own ideas about this.

These colors look meowarvelous with my furs.

Yes, I think this is pawsitively purrfect for me.

Hm...let me see if it's comfy enough for catnapping.

(Five minutes later.)

Snzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Well, that made it hard to square it up, but we negotiated a memorandum of understanding. It has a black binding that I'll stitch in black thread. Sometimes it's hard to see when hand-stitching black on black, but it was the right choice for this quilt.

Now it's clipped and draped over the chair downstairs, awaiting the arrival of my hand-stitching needle.

And that brought me to the end of my sewing day.

This morning, I'll take the first stitches on the 8th block for Le Jardin...the Birdbath.

Of course, I'll get a start on hand-sewing the binding for the "Seasons" quilt. With just five days left in the month, I'm hoping to get well along in order to complete June's One Monthly Goal.

In the sewing room, I want to sandwich and quilt Hawksbill Honu. I'm pretty sure I know what to do with this one. It shouldn't take very long.

The day ahead seems relaxing, and I'm looking forward to it. The bird feeders need filling (as usual), and I need to make up a grocery shopping list. Aside from that, it'll be all sewing, and mostly slow-sewing. And with that, I'll just get to it.