A Journey of Many Inches

Good morning, my friends. It's a blustery day at the Three Cats Ranch. We were expecting rain. No matter the forecast, the wind always surprises me. Our winter was relatively mild, and so we got lucky with this unusual stay-at-home year. As of today, it will be 7 weeks until we head out for Alaska. We have dinner scheduled next week with two of our neighbors who will be keeping an eye on the place while we're gone. We'll be giving them keys and teaching them to use the alarm system. It's probably safe to say that we've reached the point where the trip will be gaining on us fast. I only offer this up as a suggestion that you start making your packing lists if you're going with us.

My morning started with me taking the first stitches on the third of three blocks for "S" is for Sew.

When I had it that far, I stopped and did my Bowflex workout, and then my one housekeeping chore. There was more going on yesterday, but I finished this up while we watched the news last night.

Here are the six blocks I have for this quilt so far. There are three more, and then I'll be ready to sew it into a finished quilt top.

Also, I went to work hand-sewing the binding for Jericho Walls. This will be a journey of 324 inches. I'm going to estimate I've done about 50 inches so far. There's still a long way to go.

From there, I headed into the sewing room. I needed to add two more windmills to the open section on this border. The book only gives me a picture of one side of the quilt borders, and so I'm on my own with placement now. I have an idea that section on the left should only have had one windmill. It looks a little crowded, but it doesn't matter. 

When they were stop-stitched, I could sew all the sections together. This is about half finished now.

I was getting ready to make the next section(s). The one on the right will need two more windmills. There's a little piecing that will go at the bottom of that strip, but then it will be ready to be sewn to the right side of the quilt.

Checking the clock, it was time to stop for the day. I had a new soup recipe going in my slow cooker. It started with 2 lbs. of boneless skinless chicken breasts and cooked all day in some broth and tomatoes. I needed to shred the chicken and add some more ingredients, and Voila! Dinner is served. 

This is Slow-Cooker Chicken Tortellini Tomato Soup. It was very easy to make, and a good choice for a rainy day. It's easy enough to make in the RV, and so I'll be adding that to my list of camping recipes.

And that brings me up to this morning. My next stop is to start on April's block for the "Sewing Room" quilt. This is a free BOM from Jenny of Elefantz. There will be three pieced blocks that go along with this when it's finished. They usually take me a day or two to stitch.

These are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

The rest of my day will include a walk on the treadmill and my usual one housekeeping chore. (All work and no play, you know....) Also on today's agenda is to bake some more of the Original Ted Lasso Biscuits. We can use some good Ted Lasso energy around here. Did you know there's a new season of Ted Lasso in production? And if you have no idea about Ted Lasso, no worries. We were late to the party too. Still, it's a great feel-good show. If you get a chance, it's worth watching. The biscuits have very few ingredients, but lots of butter. The butter is warming to room temperature as I'm writing.

Also, I'll make some progress on the binding for Jericho Walls. I expect to be working on that for the next several days. And then, I'll get back to the borders for The Story of My Day. I should finish the right side border today, and then I'll get a start on the top border. Slowly, but surely, I'll get it finished.

With all that going on, it's time to get moving. Have a good day, Everybody!

Sewnday

Good morning, my friends. We had some beautiful weather over the weekend, but it looks like we're in for a wet week. We're promised a lot of rain over the next several days. Oh well. It's nice while it lasts. At least it's warmer than it was a month ago. 

Since I missed my NBS day on Sewturday, I designated Sewnday as an alternative NBS day, and that's what I did yesterday. All sewing, all the time. The morning started with me taking the first stitches on the second block for "S" is for Sew.

While we watched the news last night, I finished the last of it.

Smitty was outside while I was finishing my morning slow-stitching. When I had things put away, I took a walk around the house to check on him. While I was out, I noticed this "Flower Record" daffodil has bloomed. It's another of the new ones we planted in the fall of 2023. This is our first time seeing it bloom.

Also, I was happy to see so many shoots on our stargazer lily. We'll probably miss its blooms this year. On the other hand, the squirrels usually eat them before they have a chance to open.

We should be seeing some tulips soon too. Generally, the deer eat them before they bloom, but these planted in the whiskey barrel usually get a chance to shine. Do you think the deer are put off by the "whiskey" barrel? Maybe they're adhering to a sober lifestyle.

When I had Smitty back inside, it was time to get to work in the sewing room. I spent the first hour sorting, folding, and putting away the fabric windfall from the day before. I was able to find places for all of it. The largest pieces turned out to be of the 108" wide variety. Those will all go into this special bin for potential quilt backs. Of course, I can use them for piecing too, but I'll look here first when I'm searching out a backing fabric.

I dragged my feet getting the binding sewn onto Jericho Walls. At 73 x 89 inches, it's a monster. It's sewn on now, and just the hand-sewing is left. I don't mind the hand-sewing, but I'm glad to be finished wrestling with this big boy for machine sewing.

Okay, and then it was time to get back to work on the right side border for The Story of My Day. It was Sadie's day to help, but she was put off by the mess of scraps littering my work space.

She decided she could best help out by flopping over with a bad case of the adorables.

Since I still had the quarter-inch foot on the machine, I did some of the piecing first. 

And then, I started adding the appliqued "windmills." When I had the small one finished on the right, I realized it was time to stop. My first task today will be to make another large and small one to be fused to the left side. When that's done, I switch back to my other machine foot and do the top-stitching. And then, I'll continue on my way making the rest of the border. It's about one-third of the way there now. I expect it'll take the whole day to finish. 

Right now, it's time for some slow-stitching. This will be the third of the three blocks I'm doing for this go-round of "S" is for Sew. 

There are some other things on today's agenda...a housekeeping chore, for one, and I want to get back to the Bow-flex today. I've been avoiding it while I was quilting Jericho Walls, but I've run out of excuses now. Time to get back to it. I expect we'll be doing a lot of hiking while we're in Alaska. We both want to be in reasonably good physical condition for that. 

So it's time to get going, but I need to say one more thing before I stop. 

Regarding our attendance at the protest in Portland on Saturday, I've received a couple of trolling comments from "Anonymous" and "Unknown." Here's the thing: If you're going to write provocative questions or comments, you'll need to come out from behind your curtain of anonymity. I'm happy to respond to anyone who cares to comment using their own identity and with a "reply-to" email. Disagreement is welcome, and I'm willing to respond to alternative points of view. However, if you don't have the gonads to identify yourself and allow a response, then you can expect your comment to be deleted without acknowledgment. This will be my one and only response from here on. 

Good Trouble

Good morning, my friends. Well. What a day we had yesterday. By day's end, Smitty was channeling our combined energy.

A lot has happened since we last chatted. Let's start with the sewing, shall we? I have some things to tell you about our day on Saturday, but I'll save that for the end. If you're not interested in hearing about the protest, please feel free to opt out when you see me climb up on my soapbox. For now...the sewing, and nothing but the sewing. And cats. Of course, there will be cats.

I finished up the first of three blocks for the "S" is for Sew Project.

I'll start on the second one this morning.

From there, I went to work baking some Carrot-Walnut Bread. When I mentioned this a few days ago, I said it was called a "loaf cake." And, I don't know what that means, do you? Is it a cake baked in a loaf pan? Is it a loaf that is sweet like cake? Well...Mike and I agree that it is a "bread," and so I've changed the name of it to avoid confusion. It's tasty, and the carrots and nuts give it a nice texture. It's sprinkled with brown sugar before it goes into the oven, and that bakes into a nice crunchy topping.

From there, I was ready to get back to the left side border for The Story of My Day. When I stopped the day before, I was ready to make this small "windmill."

As I mentioned, I'm having to switch back and forth between my quarter inch foot and a foot that is wide enough to accommodate the side-to-side motion of the needle for the blanket stitch you see above. The next section was to be pieced.Since I knew there was a small applique section for the April's "Sewing Room" block, I decided to make that up before switching back to the quarter-inch foot. Clear as mud, right? So...anyway...there it is. When I've finished the three embroidered blocks I'm working on, this one will be next in line.

Okay, and then with my quarter-inch foot, I pieced together the remainder of this section...

and sewed it to the section I already had, completing the left side border.

Then,  I could sew it to the rest of the quilt. I expect I'll be spending at least another week on these pieced borders. They're easier than I thought they would be, but they're still time-consuming.

I was in the process of squaring up Jericho Walls when Mike came into the room with a huge box of fabrics. I like the way it was addressed.

Opening it up...wow...jackpot! A friend from high school has been helping to distribute the fabric stash of a quilter who passed away during the past year. He sent me some beautiful stuff in large pieces. There are a lot of quilt backs here.

So I paused there in my unpacking for a minute because I wanted to finish squaring up Jericho Walls. Smitty was in the process of giving it the snuggleability test.

I like it when these tests are purrformed ahead of time so that I won't waste my time on quilts that don't cut the mustard.

When I'd squared up all four sides, I could finish unpacking the fabric. Sheesh. Beautiful stuff. I especially fond of the ones on the top of the left-most and right-most stacks. And where the heck am I going to put all of it? 

For now, it's still sitting as you see it here. My thinking is that I'll pull all the yardage large enough to make a quilt back and leave it in the box it came in. I can probably find room for the smaller pieces among the rest of my stash.

And that was a good day of sewing. Smitty spent the rest of his day relaxing on the catio.

There was no time for any sewing on Saturday. I'll tell you about that in a minute. But first, I wanted to show you what a little warm weather and sunshine has meant to the star magnolia. Yesterday, it burst in to gazillions of flowers.

They're so pretty and delicate.

This is one of my favorite parts of spring.

And since I didn't get to do any sewing on Sewturday, I'm making today Sewnday. Sewnday is off to a good start. Mike already made us a breakfast of waffles. I had a yen, and so I made a special request last night. When I'm finished here, I'll get back to my slow-stitching. After that, at the tippy-top of my list is to sew the binding onto Jericho Walls. It's coming down the home stretch. When that's finished, I'll get started on the right side border for The Story of My Day. Things are moving along.

Okay, and if you have a strong political countenance, read on. If not...we can meet up here again tomorrow. No hard feelings. And I recognize that even if we agree about what's happening in government, some of you have opted to avoid the news. It's important to take care of yourself. Do what you need to do. Again, no hard feelings. We're all friends here, no matter what.

One of the best things that came out of that fabric gift box was the packing materials. Mike and I were planning to attend Portland's Hand's Off! protest gathering. We'd kind of given up on the idea of signs. But then that great box arrived. Right on top, under the lid, and on top of the fabric were two big sturdy pieces of cardboard. It was almost as if they were heaven-sent. So Mike got busy with our large format printer and created these two signs. He also sanded some 1 x 1 boards into nice smooth handles, and our signs were ready to go.

Saturday morning, we got an early start. We boarded our MAX light rail train at the western terminus and rode into downtown Portland. Along the way, and at every stop, we saw more people carrying signs.

The train took us nearly to the waterfront where we needed to disembark. This was our first look at the crowd. There were a lot of people, but it was still fairly spread out.

I wandered around taking pictures of some of the signs. 

Some folks were very clever and artistic.

At first glance, I thought these might be counter-protestors, but no. I just needed to read it more carefully.

These next two were taken by my friend Deb at a rally in southern California.

And there are a lot more that can be seen at this link. Mike and I laughed out loud at some of them.

As we walked closer to the "official" gathering spot, the crowd was more densely packed.

Portland Police had a small presence on bicycles. This image is from a different event. I thanked them for being there, and I heard many others doing the same. Happily, yesterday's protest was peaceful insofar as I know.

Someone was speaking with a bullhorn, but we couldn't make out what was being said. We were too far away, and there was already too much noise. Eventually, the march began. I've read estimates of 13,000 people in Portland alone.

To give you some idea of the route, I've borrowed this aerial view of the city from the images available on Openverse. (I love our city.)

(Credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e3/Aerial_view_of_Willamette_River_crossings_in_Portland%2C_February_2018.JPG)

It started where I've drawn the red circle in the upper right. Folks moved south on Naito Parkway, left of the circle, and then across the Morrison Bridge (the lower one) to the east side of the river, north on Grand Avenue (partially outside the frame), and then back across the Burnside Bridge to where it started. 

We boarded the train and headed back to where we started for a late lunch/early dinner at one of our current favorite casual restaurants. It was late in the day by then, and we were pooped pups. It wasn't as if we'd done so much, but the excitement and the novelty of it wore us out. 

We were a little weirded out by the crowd. We still have our signs, and we'll do this again. Probably, though, we'll look for a smaller venue next time. I'm told the next one will be on April 19th, and so I'll keep an eye out for the details. There were at least five venues within an hour's drive of us yesterday. I wanted to go to a large one. Next time we'll settle for something smaller.

Okay, so that's all I have for you today, and that's enough excitement anyway. Sewing will be my drug of recovery today. It was uplifting and very inspiring to be a part of such a large event yesterday. Today it will be boringly inspirational to take a day and sew and sew and sew. I suggest you do the same.