Fanciful Flamingos

Before I could do anything else yesterday, I had to add the button to the May block for Tuxedo's Tales. There we go.

Phew! I feel better now, don't you?

There wasn't much time for sewing yesterday, which always makes me feel as if I haven't accomplished much. On the other hand, I did the grocery shopping and cleaned the main floor of the house, so how bad can it be? It was nearly 2:00 by the time any sewing could get done, and by then I wanted a nap. It was a short nap, but I realized I was dragging my feet about getting into the sewing room. Back and forth in my head...maybe I should take a day off from sewing. Yes, but then there's that project I could work on...and there's always the flamingos.

It occurred to me that the flamingos had become rather forbidding in the time since I last worked on them. It's because there are so many frickin' pieces to work with.

In the end, I decided that the best course of action was to start sewing them together. My instructor, Ann, will audition every piece and have the entire quilt pinned to her board before she sews a single seam. She also claims she has been known to switch out 85% of the pieces before she starts. And I'm afraid I just can't take my sewing that seriously.

It turned out to be a good decision to start sewing it together because some of the freezer paper templates were coming loose from the fabrics. The iron we were using in class wasn't very hot throughout the class, and I was having to iron my pieces several times to get a good "stick." Midway through class on the last day, all of us smelled the distinct odor of something burning. It was tempting to think it was the remainder of my brain giving up the ghost, but it turned out to be that iron in its last dying gasp. Now I see that my pieces are coming loose, which is something of a disaster.

So anyway...I'm starting at the top right corner and sewing the sections together. Enough with the endless fabric auditioning. I want to sew. This is the background fabric I've selected. Actually, Ann picked this one out. Although it wasn't her first choice, I liked it right away.

You might also recall the border fabric she snatched out of my stash, and I did like her choice for this. It's one I picked up when we were in Pacific Grove, California.

I'm using a different color background in the upper right corner of the quilt, and I started there. I was able to get the top of the head and the upper part of the beak sewn together yesterday. You might recall I'd switched out one of the orange pieces for black, but y'all convinced me to go back to the orange.

When I finished yesterday, I had this much sewn together.

Meanwhile, Mike was out planting the little dappled willow tree we picked up on Mother's Day. It looks pretty in its new home.

You might remember that we had to take out a large spruce tree in this spot. Although the stump was ground out, its big roots remained in the ground. Mike had to use a backhoe to dig the hole and then an ax to break up the roots. All done now. You can see the twigs of what was once a beautiful blue hydrangea to its right. The hydrangea was doing really well until I got the bright idea to cut some branches off its former neighbor, the spruce tree. After that, it got too much bright sunlight, and it has never really recovered. Maybe it will be happier with its new friend providing some needed shade.

Last night, I started the three-day process of baking two loaves of Artisan Multi-grain Sourdough bread. It's sitting on the counter downstairs awaiting my next move. This morning I'll add the remaining ingredients, knead it for five minutes, and then it will go into the refrigerator for 24 hours. This will allow the flavors to develop while retarding the activity of the yeast. We don't want them to poop out before they're ready for baking. Tomorrow, I'll form them into boules and then give them one more rise before baking them off.

Also, I'm making a lasagna in preparation for our family weekend get-together. There's plenty to do between now and when we leave for Oregon City, but I'm still hoping to get some more work done on the flamingos.