Peppery

It's a beautiful day today, and so our job is to clean out the greenhouse. We've been waiting for just such a day to do that dreaded task. It was still a little chilly before the sun got high in the sky, however, and so I grabbed that time to finish fusing my Chili Rounder. I left off yesterday with the "A" and "B" peppers fused and pinned into place.

This morning I added the three "C" peppers,

then the three "D" peppers,

and finally, the three "E" peppers.

It's such a clever design. I love the different shapes of the peppers. Recall that I could go around this design two more times if I wanted to make either the 30- or 36-inch topper, but I really only need the 23-inch size. Had I cut my foundation piece larger, I might have gone around one more time, but I was limited in what I could do. It's probably best to stick with my first decision anyway. I'm impressed with this pattern by Pam Wolf, which is very well-written, highly detailed, and easy to follow.

With all the peppers cut and placed, I finished up by first removing the pins, and then fusing them to the foundation.

Then I added the stem caps.

Cute, huh? My next trick will be to zigzag stitch around all the pieces, as the pattern suggests. I usually use a blanket stitch, but somehow zigzag stitching sounds zippier...or maybe it's just that both words start with "Z". Anyway...the instructions haven't steered me wrong yet, and so I'll stick with that. She recommends shortening the zigzag stitch to almost a satin-stitch length around the outside edges to give it a nice finished look.

Then the quilt will be "birthed" (her word, not mine) by sandwiching it with the back facing up and the batting between the backing and the face-down top. I'll stitch around the outside of the zigzag stitches, leaving a 7-inch opening, then turn the whole thing inside out. Once it's smoothed down and stitched shut it'll be ready to quilt.

This has been such a fun and easy project...far easier than I was anticipating. We'll see how I feel once I have it all finished, but this could easily be completed from start to finish in a couple of days, making it a good choice for a gift. And speaking of gifts, I'm thinking this one is probably going to go to Miss Mae for her birthday coming up on May 1st. (I don't think she reads my blog, and so I'm probably safe in saying that.)

It's well past noon as I'm writing this, and so it's time to get outdoors and do outside things. Mike has gone into town to recycle our glass and to pick up some limes. A day like today demands margaritas, and I forgot to get limes yesterday.

Also, I'm going to change out the syrup in the hummingbird feeder and hang a second feeder. We have enough hummingbirds buzzing around now that they are starting to fight over the feeder. I hang two so that no single hummingbird can guard both. It doesn't stop them from trying, however. They are so funny...sometimes one will spend so much time trying to guard both feeders that he doesn't have time to drink the syrup, and the other birds horn in while he flies back and forth, swearing up a blue streak. If you've ever watched hummingbirds, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. For their size, I don't think even a grizzly bear could match them for their ferocity.

With such a nice sunny day, I'm going to set up the birdcam again and see what I get. And with that, I'm off! I hope you have a nice Saturday planned for yourself.