A Big Bowl of Cherries

It's going to be cherry day here at the Three Cats Ranch today...and tomorrow too...and maybe the next day. Mike and I made good on our promise to get out yesterday and pick some more cherries. We picked only from the Black Tartarian tree. The Bings are pretty well gone, partly because we went out the night before and were stuffing them into our mouths straight from the tree. They were sweet as candy! Really! The Black Tartarians are very sweet as well. After zeroing out my scale to account for the weight of the bowl, I had more than nine pounds.

This is only a small percentage of the cherries still on the tree. Many are just too high to reach, but we left plenty behind. I'm still amazed the raccoons didn't eat them this year. Also, cherries were on sale at the grocery store for $1.99 per pound when I went on Thursday. Since I wasn't sure whether or when we were going to pick our own, I decided to hedge my bets and picked up four pounds there too. That means I have more than 13 pounds to work with. I have lots of things I want to make over the next several days, starting this morning with some more cherry jam and some cherry syrup too.

Before we picked the cherries, I had some time to work on my embroidery piece. I've used the last of that dark blue floss now, but I have a lead on another skein, which should arrive any day now. We'll see if its the right color. My friend Sherry thought she might have it, but her skein wasn't marked, so I need to compare them when it arrives. If not, I'll just go back to Plan A, which is to switch to a DMC floss that's a very close match.

Now I've moved my hoop to encompass the last of it. As for the blue floss, I need it to finish the "frame" around the piece, and the lettering in the middle. Not a whole lot there, but a matching floss would be nice. I'll just do the rest of it and hope the floss arrives soon.

After that, I spent about an hour perusing cherry recipes, but then I got back to work on the bird. When I left it the day before, the bird was finished, his perch, and some of the background to his left.

I wanted to do a little more stitching in the small flowers,

And then, I just continued on filling in the background,

until it was all finished.

After that, I started on the cross-hatching below the perch and on the left side. I hadn't really thought this through, but just started quilting lines back and forth. I was trying to keep them parallel (and perpendicular), but aside from that, I had no plan. When I had a few randomly stitched in both directions, I kind of liked the asymmetry there, and decided to stop.

Then I did something similar along the left side.

It makes me think of a garden trellis.

Lastly, I did some McTavishing up the skinny left border of the poppy fabric, and then I was finished with all but the outer border on the left and bottom. I pulled it off the machine and laid it on the floor. Smitty looks to be considering how he could make a meal of the bird.

And that's where I left it for the day.

As I mentioned, I'd like to experiment with making a really fancy feathered border on this with different colors of thread. After I straightened up a little, I went into the sewing room and made myself a nice long practice piece from that feather fabric and selected some threads I thought might work for the quilting.

While I was there, I realized that the two quilts I want to enter in the NW Quilting Expo in September were hanging on the walls, one with some pinch-clamp curtain rings. It seemed a good idea to take both down and give them a chance to relax before they go to the show. (And, to be clear, I don't even know if my quilts will be accepted into the show. I'm only just now ready to mail my entry form.)

So I picked something different for hanging. This is one of my older quilts, called A Gardener's Journal, from Anni Downs. I finished this quilt off several years ago. It was the first quilt I quilted on Eliza, and it was a good one to start with. I did a quilting cornucopia on it with just little samples of different motifs all over. It's being crowded a little by my quilts-to-be-quilted pile, down there on the lower right.

Also, I hung this quilt called, "A Day in the Life of Mr. Bear," by Tricia Cribbs. This was, I think, the second hand embroidered quilt I finished. The beautiful quilting was done by Marcia Wachuta of Marcia's Crafty Sewing & Quilting. She did a wonderful job, exactly the way I hoped she would.

While I was there, Sadie came in and asked to be let in the Clubhouse. She asked most politely.

This little girl is off to the dentist today. She's getting her teeth cleaned. She wants to look good for Buddy, in case we decide to start boarding ponies here at the Three Cats Ranch.

So I'm off to meet the cherry wizard...that would be me, I hope. Since I need to pick Sadie up this afternoon, I want to get on with things early this morning.