A Low-Key Day

It was a mish-mash of activities yesterday. When it was all finished, there was progress on some fronts, but most everything was just halfway to the end. As usual, I started the day with some slow stitching and filled what was left in my hoop.

Now I've stitched all the way across the bottom of this latest Heart & Home block. The areas with the most stitch density are finished, and the rest should go pretty quickly. I believe I'll have this finished before the week is out.

Now I've moved the hoop northeast, and I'll get the work on that this morning.

There was just a little time left before we needed to leave to drop our truck camper off at Erik and Mae's house. It gave me time to make the binding for Summer Holiday.

After that, we took off for Erik and Mae's house. It was a fun visit with them. They'll have our truck camper for the next couple of weeks while their bathroom is being remodeled. They showed us all the new fixtures (both plumbing and lighting) for their bathroom as well as some pretty tiles for the walls and floor. It's their first home, and their first remodeling project, and so it's fun seeing them excited about their new bathroom-to-come. Also, Mike wanted to tour their garden. They've grown some amazing tomatoes this year, and there are melons on their vines. (I don't know why I didn't think to take some pictures.)

When we got home, I sewed the binding to Summer Holiday, and now it just needs hand-sewing.

The quilt is just 34-1/2 inches by 34-1/2 inches, and so it shouldn't take too long.

After that, I started cutting more black and white strips for the next Rainbow Jubilee blocks. I first cut strips from the new fabrics I bought recently...

Then I mixed them in with the rest of the already-cut strips.

I'll need more, and so I went to work finding appropriate scraps from the scrap bins and then pressing them for cutting into strips.

There are more to come. I'm only using white on black or black on white.

The only other thing I did yesterday was to chop and brine the vegetables to make more zucchini relish. It brines for an hour, and then I rinse and squeeze, and squeeze, and squeeze it to get rid of as much moisture as possible. Today I'll add some vinegar and spices and then cook it down for about 20 minutes before loading it into jars for processing. It shouldn't take very long.

After that, I'm heading over to Canby for the Annual Festival at Swan Island Dahlias. Each year they open their fields for touring, and it's the best photo shoot of the year. Here are some photos from years past:

Honestly, the flowers are so amazing, it's hard to choose just a few. Want to see more?

Like prairie dogs, I can snap off hundreds of pictures in a matter of minutes. But now, I really must insist you wait for tomorrow's batch. You might want to bring your sunglasses for these eye poppers.

So I'm hoping to get some sewing done, but relish and flowers are my first priority on this Monday morning. It's going to be another hot week here.