Rapturous Quilting

Things are going so well with my arch nemesis Quiltmaker's Garden quilt that it has me wondering whether there's some kind of skullduggery involved. I'll be quilting along with no other obstacles to my thread path than an occasional running out of bobbin thread, but in the back of my mind, I'm expecting the quilt to shout out, "Ha! Just kidding!" and then start acting up. Honestly...it's the easiest quilting I've ever done.

Yesterday's work was to continue quilting the many flowers.

I'm not quilting every section as I come to it, but sometimes it makes sense to go in and fill in areas that I've passed over in favor of the more familiar motifs. The gazebo has been one of those areas. I've been thinking about how I want to quilt it. Again I'm referring to the picture. The first decision was how to quilt the uprights and the railing.

For those areas, I settled on a "Greek Key" motif. While I considered a wood grain or leaves, I decided I had enough curvy lines in my quilting already, and so the Greek Key seemed like the best choice.

Here's how that looks from the back.

Then, looking at the bottom of the gazebo is the "floor." For that I decided to quilt in some ferny feathers (my name for feathers with pointy ends).

Here's how that looks from the back.

The one at the bottom and in the middle goes in both directions, and so I did a mirror image of the first one on the second side. I'll continue with them going in the same direction as I move to the left and right of center.

Here's how that looks from the back.

Then I was ready to quilt the roses. I modified a motif known as Clair's Rose...

...from this book. (Good book, by the way.)

I modified it so the motif would reach into the corners of my block. And here's how that looks from the back.

After I'd done two of the five roses, I decided to take a break. When I turned around this is what I saw. It was well past their dinner time.

Smitty...I'm fading fast. I'll be dead soon if I don't get something to eat. I can't even stand up to walk to the dinner dish.

Look at you there...sewing. Hmph. And us here, starving to death. How do you sleep at night?

Smitty was so upset, he was wearing his security friend for extra moral support.

So I fed the cats...not to worry...and then I went outside to see what was blooming. I think the dogwood has reached its peak now. It's so pretty.

So many flowers.

And, oh my...the wisteria is blooming and I only just now noticed.

We usually get two blooms out of this one per year.

Also the first flowers on the rhododendrons are beginning to open.

The two around the back get the most sun, and so they're always the first to bloom. The ones out front are still in tight buds.

And here's a tree Mike bought me for my birthday, which was Saturday. It's called a "dappled willow," or if you like to use those snotty botanical names, salix integra Hakuro-Nishiki. You can read more about it right here. Our neighbor had one in her yard, but then she took it out for reasons I don't fully understand. But anyway...I loved hers. When we had to take out a large blue spruce at the corner of our house last year, it left a gaping hole in the landscaping. Enter, this tree:

They are fast-growing, but they don't grow very large, and so it's a good choice for the space we had. (The tree we took out really had outgrown the space it was in.) The new tree produces peach-colored foliage and flowers in the spring, and this happens to be its moment to shine.

Pretty, huh?

Okay, and now, by popular demand, I'm going to show some pictures of the new RV. There's nothing else after this, so it's way okay if you're not an RV person and want to duck out now. Still here? Okay, here's the grand tour.

So when you come in the door and look to the left toward the rear of the fifth wheel, there is a queen sized hide-a-bed. It's actually pretty comfortable.

Sit down on that couch and look back the other way, and this is the living room/kitchen/dining room. This RV is no larger than the previous one, but the slides are longer, and so it gives us more space in the main rooms.

To the right of the image above are two "theater-seating style" recliners. In the image below, Mike and Matthew were sampling the massage function. Matthew was clearly enjoying it way too much.

From where they're sitting, they can see the TV and the electric fireplace. I'll admit to thinking fireplaces in RVs are pretty silly. Nevertheless, it does produce a nice quiet space heater-type heat, and Mike says it's a nice feature.

The window you see below is at one end of the couch. This is the one we'll replace to accommodate the catio. As it is, the window only opens by tipping out a couple of inches at the bottom. We need to put in a window that slides to the side or up so the kitties can pass in and out. We had to replace a window in our truck camper for the same reason.

But this is my favorite part of the RV. And, really, the kitchen area is just pretty darned nice. There's this floor-to-ceiling pantry on the left side of the image below.

Inside, a light turns on when you open the door, and look at all those shelves for food or small appliances. Really, I haven't given a lot of thought to what I'm going to put where, but I suspect this will end up being an area for small appliances.

It has lots of counter space, a nice sized stainless steel double sink, and below the sink is a pull out cabinet that houses bins for trash and recycling. (Trash included at no extra charge.) This is nice because we've always had the trash can out on the floor and it was always in the way.

There's a good-sized table for two with comfortable chairs. The table can be extended with a leaf that is stored inside.

And ohmygosh look at this refrigerator! As long as we've been RVing (approximately 25 years), I've been fighting with a tiny little refrigerator. This one is nearly as big as a domestic refrigerator...not quite as deep, but it has acres more space than the ones I've had in the past.

And check out this freezer! Mike says these can be outfitted with ice makers, but how much power they take is a question. He was going to look into it. As for the size of this unit, heck, I might outfit a little apartment in here and move in if I get tired of Mike.

Oh, but priorities, people. This is the best part. My refrigerator magnets stick to the surface. Yahoo!!!

It has a nice little stove top. They've reconfigured the position and shapes of the burners. The middle one is elongated, rather than round, and that will be nice for when I make pancakes on my little Coleman griddle pan. The oven below has an electric sparker. Previously, we had to get down on hands and knees with a lighter to light the pilot light. It'll be so nice to have one that lights itself.

The shower in the bathroom is almost as large as the one in our house. And I love that it has a molded seat. The previous shower was situated in a corner, and so it was triangular in shape. It was hard to have room to turn around, let alone bend over to take care of "lady stuff." I'm going to love this shower.

It's a nice bathroom, a little smaller than the one we had before, to accommodate the larger shower. But, honestly, how much room do you need? Mike was hanging towel rods in here while I was taking these pictures.

This is the bedroom, with a king-sized bed. The bedspread isn't too hateful, but I still think I'd like to make a quilt for this bed.

On the far side of the room are the closets and a cabinet where the washer and dryer will go. Our previous washer unit was a combination. It washed, and then turned itself into a dryer. It worked well, but took about two hours to do a single small load. It will be nice to have the space for a stackable set so that I can wash and dry at the same time.

Inside, the closets and this cabinet are cedar lined. Oh yes, and the rig is plumbed for central vac. We're going to love that.

The closets are good sized, and there is a lip on that shelf that will keep things from falling off while we go down the road. It was a problem in our old rig, and it meant we couldn't use the shelf for much. On the floor are some folding chairs that match the dining room chairs.

Lying on the bed and looking back, there is another television. We had space for a television in the old rig, but we never put one in, saving it for storage space instead.

Then there's this little dresser..."little" being the operative word. Fortunately, extra closet space and a usable shelf in the closet will probably make up the difference in space.

So there you go. As I've mentioned, there are a few repairs that need to be made after its shake-down cruise from South Carolina to Oregon, but nothing major. We're happy with the rig all-in-all. Mike will be spending the summer making a few modifications, and then we still need to sell our old one. Lots to do RV wise, and we're not even traveling right now.

As for hand stitching, I've stitched up to the final two names for the second row of the Shop Hop quilt. I'll probably get this finished this morning.

Right now I have a lot of irons in the fire with four projects on my work space. I'll probably continue on with my quilting since things are going so well. When it's finished, however, I'm going to have to clear some space in the sewing room downstairs before I'll be able to square it up for binding. I'll just keep working away at the quilting for now. It's been too enjoyable to stop.