Sight-Sewing

Hey did you see what I did with that title there? We've been doing a lot of sight-seeing, but I'm so terribly clever, I said "sight-sewing." It's like "sight-seeing"...only instead of seeing the sights, I spent the day sewing. Ha! I know...the punchlines just keep rolling in here at Cat Patches. Try to keep up, will ya? (Don't think I can't see you rolling your eyes.)

So, yeah...we stayed an extra two days, and that meant we had a day to go nowhere. And that meant I could break out the sewing machine and do the first sewing of the trip. Don't expect this to become a habit, but it still felt good to be back in the sewing saddle. The day was interrupted because Mike was doing some RV maintenance. He needed to go to the auto parts store, and it made sense for me to go along and do some grocery shopping. If it seems as if we're going to the grocery store every frickin' day, it's because we usually are. The refrigerator in the RV is a pretty good sized one for an RV refrigerator, but it's still quite small. It's not really possible to stock up with lots of groceries because there isn't a lot of space to keep cold things cold. Also, there isn't a lot of cupboard space for food, and so, we keep our food stored at the grocery store...stopping in whenever we need something...which is pretty much every day.

Okay, so before we get to the sewing, it's time to announce the winner for the Bag Ladies of the Fat Quarter Club Stitch-Along. Mr. Linky has spun the dial and come up with:

#1--Gail!

Congratulations, Gail! I've sent you an email, so check your inbox.

So, back to the sewing. It's not the most efficient sewing space, but it works well enough.

We have to be hooked up to electricity for machine sewing because I need to be able to plug in the iron too. I can run one thing or the other on our trailer battery, but not both. The iron has to be set up at the other end of the trailer next to the bedroom window. The window has nothing to do with it, but the light is nice.

Of course, every quilter knows that one cannot sew properly without a full contingent of snoopervisors.

Also, using Pfelicity's travel bag as an example, Smitty would like to demonstrate the age old axiom, "If I fits, I sits."

So what do you suppose I worked on yesterday? Well, just before leaving on this trip, I finished all the embroidered blocks for the Hocuspocusville quilt. I have all the fabrics I'll need to finish the top along with me, and so it seemed like a good day to get back to basics, and sew some nine-patches. Here's a picture of the finished quilt from the pattern cover.

I'll need 16 nine-patches for the center panel. Since they're all different, there could be no strip piecing. Each one is cut individually. Yesterday, I knocked off 11 of the 16 I'll need.

I might need to pick up a few light fat quarters in our travels to have enough fabric for the setting triangles. I have a black polka dot for the alternating blocks. That will need to wait for a while, however. Who knows when I'll get another sight-sewing day? Certainly not me.

We're moving on today, heading for Shenandoah National Park. I visited there when I was a little girl. My family lived in Groveton, Virginia, and Cherry Point, North Carolina, when I was young. So much of this area from Washington, D.C., south seems familiar to me because I've ridden the streets in the family car, gone to school here, vacationed here, and yes, camped here. We lived here from the time I was 4 until I was about 8. Then, my dad was transferred to Hawaii, and we never again returned to the East Coast as a family. I was old enough, and yet, too young to have strong memories of the place, but it seems very familiar. I know we visited Shenandoah many times, and so I'm curious what will seem familiar once we get there.

We'll stay in Shenandoah for a few days, and we'll stay long enough for the weather to be good so we can see the sights. From there, we'll drive south on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is billed as one of the most scenic byways in the country. It will take us to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which straddles western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. When we leave there, we'll head back east to North Carolina's Outer Banks and then south along the coast into South Carolina. From there, we'll visit South Carolina's Congaree National Park, a place neither of us has seen before. There are sights to be seen in those travels that I haven't listed here, but it's all very exciting when it's in the planning stages.

So all of that to say, we are going to be without electricity quite a bit over the next couple of weeks. My blogging may get spottier, depending on internet access. Don't worry though...I'll have lots of pictures and lots to tell you whenever I have a chance.