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. 

A New Day

Good morning, my friends. Mike and I were up and at 'em this morning. It was warm yesterday. We ran our A/C for the first time this year. We turned it off last night, and it was cool enough, but neither of us slept very well. I don't know about you, but I like cocooning under the weight of the covers. If I can't have the covers over me, I don't sleep as well. In any case, we enjoyed this morning's pretty sunrise.

Hoeing the garden was my first stop of the day. Knowing it would be hot, I was out early, and had it all finished before 10:30 a.m. Things are still small, but growing. The size of the garden is good for me this year. I can do the whole thing in one hoeing session. It's challenging enough to make me feel as if I got some exercise, but it doesn't wipe me out for the rest of the day.

Checking the bee garden, I noticed something new and pink. Also, I barely captured this bumblebee taking advantage of the lupine.

The pinky thing I was seeing was this. Sorry the focus isn't better. It was breezy. My phone tells me this is "Checker Mallow." It also has a snotty botanical name, but I can never remember those.

Walking around other areas...Lookie there!!!!! Blue blueberries! I can't wait for these. 

Fresh local berries are appearing in our grocery stores now. We're at about 1,400 feet of elevation here, and so ours are always a little behind. I expect we'll have some blueberries no later than the end of next week. I have recipes for you, my darlings!

To the left of the blueberries, I spied an Oregon Swallowtail butterfly on the lavender. Butterflies are so hard to capture in pictures, and so I was thrilled when this one opened its wings for me.

A few moments later, I noticed the Painted Lady below. I took about a dozen pictures, hoping to catch the wings opened. They would open momentarily, but I was never able to capture them fully open. The Painted Ladies are shy bugs.

I was able to capture the one below when we visited the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve in Southern California. We were there during their migration, and it was a large migration that particular year.

The Fuzzy Wuzzy dahlia is opening. I expect it will open all the way by day's end.

And I'm happy to see the poppies are re-establishing themselves. I'm thinking we'll be able to remove the fencing soon. (The fencing was to keep the squirrels from digging in the pot when they were newly planted.)

And in another "Lookie there!" moment, it's a cherry tomato! Just yesterday, I was whining about how the plant was huge, had produced hundreds of flowers, and not a single cherry tomato. Well...as usual...whining pays off.

By then, it was getting warm. Smitty had been out with me. When we came inside, he stretched to his full length to adequately cool his tummy furs.

Later in the day, he helped me finish quilting the "Seasons" quilt. His best helping efforts come from his bed across the room from me.

And Ta-Da! Sorry. This is a terrible picture, but the quilting is finished. It's almost impossible to see the quilting, and so I left the flash off, hoping I could at least show some texture. 

It's taken its place in my basement sewing room now, and I expect I'll have plenty of time to get the binding sewn on by machine today. In the meantime, Smitty has claimed this quilt for his own. He claims all the quilts.

There was just enough time left in the day to finish top-stitching the dresses and hair bows on The Yoder Sisters. All that remains to be top-stitched now are the sisters' braids, and their hands and necks. So little of the neck portions are showing, I'll probably just do some straight stitching there, rather than my preferred buttonhole stitch.

And that was the end of my day. On today's list, I want to water the annuals. We're expecting rain this weekend, but it's been warm, and I expect they're thirsty. 

Also, I'm going to bake another Moravian Sugar Cake. When I baked this last week, 

I was able to use some instant mashed potato buds that have been on my shelf, probably for decades. I'm guessing I used them in the RV at some point, and they've just been sitting there. (Isn't it interesting how this "food" can still be good after so long?) It worked fine in the recipe, and there's just about the right amount left in the box for another batch. It'll be good to get that box off my shelf, and the morning snack is nice too.

Aside from that, there isn't a lot going on. I'll spend most of my day sewing. I'll finish the top-stitching on The Yoder Sisters and cut a back for it. Then, I'll set it aside for quilting down the road. My number one goal is to get the binding sewn onto the Seasons quilt and ready it for hand-sewing. I'm hoping to have a finish by week's end.

If there's time left in the day, I'd like to get to work finishing off the Hawksbill Honu. 

This will be quilted on my domestic machine. I have some ideas about it, but I'm not sure what I'll do in the border. I'll have to think on it for a bit. Pinterest is usually my friend when I'm looking for inspiration.

Okay. I'm off to do my slow-stitching. After a poor night of sleep, slow-stitching can usually lull me into a morning nap in the same way reading can make me sleepy. I'm nearing a finish on my piece too, but it won't be this morning.