Productive Day

My Bohemian weekend will draw to a close this evening. Mike's plane is scheduled to arrive in Portland around midnight. Mae is picking the guys up at the airport, and I'll pick up Mike from Erik and Mae's house. Mike returns to work tomorrow after missing three weeks because of his illness, so it's going to be a late night and an early morning to him. The good news is that they had a great time and beautiful weather for the Formula 1 race, and Mike doesn't seem any worse for wear. He says he's feeling better and stronger day by day, and he's back to eating everything he was eating before he got sick. I'd say that's a very positive sign. He still faces a surgery, but his doctor says it will be a laparoscopic procedure, so much less involved than we feared originally.

As for me, I sewed almost the entire weekend, while briefly keeping the house habitable for humans and cats. Today I completed the September and October blocks for the Hello Moon QAL. Here is September:

You might think I designed that one, but I did not. Here's October's block:

After that I took a break and cleaned things up. Then I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It's my favorite Bohemian sandwich. When I returned to the sewing room, there was an impediment to my progress.

"Oh, were you thinking of using this chair to sew?" He was enticed away with some dried catnip.

Then I got to work on the 6th door for the Doors of Ireland quilt. As I've said many times, I am a terrible artist. I have no eye for anything that I can't draw with a ruler, and I certainly have no eye for perspective. It occurred to me the other day that I don't have to get the perspective right. I can just draw them straight on if I want to. It has also occurred to me that many folks are making big bucks drawing things no better than I can. Consider this cat:

Cute, but not accurate in the way that, say, daVinci might have drawn a cat. In fact, I would go so far as to say that even I could draw a cat like that.

So then I started feeling a little better about my doors. They aren't supposed to be accurate representations of the actual doors. They are supposed to be quilt blocks, and I figure it's okay if I take bad artistic license with them. It's just one of the ways I have to give myself a talking to when I start feeling anxious about something about to be attempted.

Here is the actual door for Door #6:

And here's what I came up with.

I ended up embroidering the name of the restaurant because I wanted to copy that font. Up until now, each door has given me pause for at least a few weeks, which has meant a few weeks of teeth-gnashing and wishing I could draw better. Today, I'm declaring myself done with that and moving on with less trepidation.

With that in mind, this is the door that is destined to become Door #7. I wish I had paid better attention to where I was in Ireland when these pictures were taken. On the other hand, many of them were taken as I sped by on a tour bus with little idea of where I was. Given my orientation above the door, I'm thinking this might have been one of those.

So that's it from me today. I have another day at home tomorrow, and so I'm thinking I might get started on the project that was supposed to be last month's NewFO.

It's a little late for Halloween, but I still want to get started on it so that I can have it for next year. I have another NewFO I want to start for November, but I'm still waiting for some fabric for that one.

Tomorrow I'm linking up to:

Also tomorrow I need to make up my grocery list so that I can go shopping on Tuesday. I've sworn off Monday shopping since they need a chance to restock after the weekend. It seems the shelves are bare when I go on Mondays. Soon it will be time to start planning for Thanksgiving. Hard to believe, isn't it?

I hope you had a good weekend and that you have a great week ahead.