Slow Sunday

Today was a lazy day from start to finish.  We got up late.  I worked on my latest stitchery for twice as long as usual.  Then I spent some time reading blogs and email.  Our plan for the day was to go to the hardware store to pick up a dowel rod for Matthew's Perfect Harmony quilt.  Also, we needed to pick up wine shipments from two local wineries where we are members.  (It's really just an excuse to visit the wineries and drink some wine.)  So, around 1:30, we took off to go do those things.  The weather wasn't great, and so the only camera I had with me was the camera on my phone.  And, let's face it.  The best camera is the one you have with you.

The daffodils are in full bloom in the valley, although ours here on the moon are still tight little buds.  I love the daffodils.  They are like little bursts of sunshine everywhere we look.  And since they are among the first flowers we see in the spring, they are always a welcome sight.

We ate lunch out.  I was missing one color of floss for my stitchery, and so we stopped at JoAnn.  Then we headed home via the scenic route through Gaston, Carlton, and Yamhill.  I really like that drive.

Matthew was due this evening to do some more work on his senior project (video to follow), and so we put off our dinner of leftovers until fairly late into the evening.  In the meantime, I worked some more on my laundry room quilt, which now has a name.  All of you who submitted names were very clever with your play on words.  In the end, I settled on my two favorites of the group and let Mike choose his favorite of those two.  He chose "Line Dance".  Thanks to Charlene S. for suggesting that name.  And thanks to all of you who suggested great names.  It made it hard to choose.

Today, I stitched down all the pieces you see, except for the sun. I'll do that later.  Then I added the clotheslines.

I went back and forth about whether to use twine or whether to embroider them.  After consulting with Mike, I finally settled on the twine.  I tied a knot in each end of each piece and then stitched it under the topstitching on the houses.  Then I used a long zigzag stitch and monofilament thread to couch the twine to the sky fabric.  I was very happy with how it turned out, and also with how well my new sewing machine performed this task without any specialized feet.  

Once I had that done, I finished topstitching the fence posts and the jagged middle grass strip.  Then I added the crossbars to the fence and stitched those down too.

So now the most difficult and time-consuming part of this quilt is finished.  All I need to do now is make the appliqued clothing to hang on the line.  Then I'll make the words "laundry room".  I'm going to use fabric glue to glue the little clothespins in place when I get to that part.  For now, I'm going to be spending a lot of time making and topstitching the applique into place.  Look at all these pieces.

I have to say that I love the thong and the bra.  Pretty funny.  I'm going to try to do some embellishing on this piece...maybe add some embroidered lace to the bras and possibly some little buttons...that sort of thing.

So to end, here is some video of the state of Matthew's senior project.  I actually shot this video last Sunday when we were together for our St. Patrick's Day dinner.  It's taken me this long to edit it for blog posting.  In this video, you see his poi ball in its casing (one of my knee high stockings), and he is swinging it as he would if he were actually dancing with it.  Pretty fun.  There are actually two poi balls.  For this video, he was just using one.

So that's it from this end.  Hope you had a good weekend too.  Next week looks free and clear, so I'm looking forward to doing lots of sewing.