Cat Over Tea Kettle

Ever heard that expression "ass over tea kettle"?  That's what happens when Smitty runs. His back legs go faster than his front legs and he ends up with his rear end getting ahead of his front end.  Then he goes sprawling, ass over tea kettle.

That's how our morning went.  We went outside to water the tomatoes.  After all the moaning I did last week about green tomatoes, you might think I would be delighted to see these.

Actually, I am.  But now my anxiety has turned in a different direction.  I'm no longer worried that they won't ripen before we leave.  Now I'm worried that they will ALL ripen before we leave.  

I started pulling them from the vine, and the more I pulled, the more ripening ones I saw. This is a good thing because I'm hoping to make some sauce before we take off during the month of September.  Still, I may spend days and days and days at it.  Days I don't necessarily have to spend.  As I write this, however, I can't help being a little excited about the prospect of all that tomato sauce.  It makes my mouth water just to think about it.

My sweety is in the process of setting up a drip irrigation system in the greenhouse, which will cut my work out there significantly.  The watering has to be done at least every other day, and it's better on hot days if it's done every day.  This takes up a significant portion of my morning, and so I'm happy he'll be getting it set up to water automatically.  Then I can just sit back and wait for the tomatoes.

After the watering was done, I finished the top-stitching on the 2nd door for the Doors of Ireland quilt.  As a reminder, this is the original door.

This is my version.

The nails, door knob, and plant hanger are all hot fix nail heads.  I love those things.  They are great and I have a huge assortment of them, all different sizes, colors, and shapes.  I'm thinking as I look at this image that I want to add some heart-shaped ones to the window like in the original door.  I meant to do that and then forgot.

I stitched the chains for the plant hanger from metallic thread, which was kind enough to behave itself.  I want to try doing some shading under the bench, but I need to explore what kind of markers would work best.  Suggestions are definitely appreciated.  I have some oil crayons (the name escapes me now), but they are too shimmery for this purpose.  I need some kind of flat color for this.  I think I should also do a little shading at the door stoop and around the menu.  There is top-stitching for the door stoop, but it isn't terribly visible.  It doesn't show at all in this image.

After all that running around this morning, Smitty spent the rest of the day as you see him here.  It's a good thing because he gets into things in my sewing room.

I've had to kitten-proof the room, but it's worth it.  He is a lot of fun to have around.

I'm hoping to have some time to do a little sewing tomorrow, but the next two days will be spent getting ready for our camping trip this weekend.  I have a lot of food to make, and I need to "update" things in the trailer.  It's been a full year since we took it anywhere, and so things get a little disorganized.  Sometimes I rob things from the trailer if I run out in the house.  Then, when I return them, I generally open the door and toss said thing inside without bothering to put it away.  I figure there's time enough for that when we actually go somewhere.  Like now.  That means it's time to pay for my sinful ways.

How did your Wednesday go?