Low Key Day

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It was nice today to be back into a routine with no real obligations to fulfill, no cooking to do (because we have leftovers coming out of our ears), no housework to do, and generally, plenty of time just to chill out. The weekend ahead looks like smooth sailing for all the same reasons. Even Smitty was ready for a day to just hang out in the sewing room.

Before I started sewing this afternoon, however, I walked with my friend Sue. I'm estimating we walked about four miles, which is the farthest we've been able to walk since my knee started hurting back in August. I'm still being very careful with it recognizing that any inflammation or pain I'm might experience is masked by the cortisone injection I received a couple of weeks ago. I can always feel it complaining some when I walk, and so I'm just starting slow to see how it fairs later in the day. So far, so good today. I haven't noticed any ill effects. We'll walk again next week, and if it seems okay, we may go our whole distance

When I got home I just lazed around for a while, reading email, looking at Facebook, and taking it easy. I ventured into the sewing room a little after noon and made the first block for the 2014 Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I'm doing this pattern by Barbara Weiland Talbert. If you like this, you can find the free pattern right here.

I'm only doing twelve blocks, one per month for the challenge. It will end up probably about a wall-hanging size, or maybe a small lap quilt. Here is the block I made today.

Today I cut the background pieces for the entire quilt. I'll cut the pieces for the sewing machine and the spools of thread as I go. The buttons are just lying there for show. I won't sew them on until the quilt is quilted, but I wanted you to see how it will look. I'll probably invest in some buttons so that I can have consistency from machine to machine. Also, I note that the pattern has the buttons matching the color of thread. I'll probably do that to since my goal is to do the machine and the thread in complimentary colors. Also, I think it would be fun to embroider a needle in silver metallic thread, and so I will probably do that with my sewing machine when I'm ready to quilt it...a long time from now. Tomorrow I'll link up to Scraphappy Saturday.

With that finished, I turned my attention to the Corn Flowers table runner that I started back in October.

When I left off with this I had the strip sets made for the candy corn flower petals. Today, I traced the applique templates, fused them to the fabric and started cutting them out. The pattern suggested using a straight edge and rotary cutter to cut the straight sides and scissors to round off the corners. That worked pretty well. I have five ready for fusing to the background.

There are quite a few of these...thirty to go.

I'll still need to make the stems and leaves, but when I'm ready, I'll form them into five-petal flowers like this:

I decided to quit then and do a few things around the house, but before I left the sewing room, I pulled fabrics for my January NewFO project...this "We're On A Roll" wall hanging.

I have all the fabrics I need in my stash. Some are scraps, and some are previously uncut pieces.

I'm not sure when I'll start on this, but I'm ready to go now.

So that was my day. This could be a productive weekend unless I get distracted doing something else. Our weather was cold but sunny today, and I was thinking about you folks living back east in Snowmageddon (as our local weather person put it). I hope you all have power and that you're staying warm and dry. We haven't had any big snow events so far this winter, but there's still plenty of time.