Road Movers

As I'm writing this post, I can hear big earth moving equipment up on our dirt road. We've waited the whole summer for this week to arrive. The road paving project was supposed to start today. Mike talked with the county workers as he left home this morning. They're laying down several more layers of gravel and then rolling over it to make a nice sturdy road bed for the pavement to come. We're expecting nice weather...even hot weather...all week long, and so our paving project should be completed soon. It can't come soon enough. We and all of our neighbors are going to be so happy for an end to the summer dust and the winter mud. Pictures to follow. You might want to fasten your seat belts for that.

In sewing news, I spent some time yesterday morning getting my floss bobbins cleaned up from the last Sundress I stitched. This one is just barely getting started, but my floss bobbins are all tidy now.

I'll work on this some more when I finish writing to you guys.

We were expecting dinner guests yesterday evening. My only job for the day was to make a salad. For that, I needed to harvest some tomatoes. It was surprising to not find more Romas on our plants. We have a lot of green ones, but not many ripe ones. There were plenty for the salad, but not enough to make canning them worthwhile. I'll check again at week's end and see if I can come up with enough to fill a few more jars. For now, this was it, and a lot of these are from our greenhouse cherry tomato plant. I used those in the salad. I'll save the Romas for canning, if canning there shall be.

With more than a week left in the month of September and all of my monthlies complete, I had some time to start a new little quilt. I'm calling this project "Starry Night." It's a little wall-hanging for the new RV. I'm combining the background of the Little Camper pattern from Patchabilities with the Fifth Wheel Camper Mug Rug pattern from Sher Hastings Designs. I've had the fifth wheel pattern for some time. I don't know when I found the Little Camper pattern...probably in one of those late night forays on my iPad...when resistance is futile.

I had the hardest time picking out background fabrics for this...maybe you'll see why in a minute. Finally, I settled on this grouping...all scraps from my stash.

Then I added the background from the Little Campers pattern. Mine is adapted just a little to accommodate the different shape of the fifth wheel. Also, I added the second tree from the left. It was blank there...or maybe there was some quilting...I can't remember. It looked funny to me, and so I cut one of the trees again and added it in.

The "star" fabric is actually a Christmas fabric. That's supposed to be snow falling, but I thought it could just as easily be a starry night sky.

When I had those pieces in place, I added the fifth wheel and camp fire from Sher Hastings' pattern. The fussy cut kitties were my idea. One should never travel without one's cats.

That was as far as I took it. It still needs top-stitching, and I'll add in some details to the fifth wheel...the windows, the steps, the jack at the front end...and then it will be ready for quilting and binding. I have a day to relax at home today, and so I'm hoping to get well along on this before day's end.

A package from Australia was delivered yesterday. I'd been waiting for this for a couple of weeks. (It takes a long time for things to travel from Australia.) This was more booty from a late-night iPad foray. Like I said, resistance is futile. For whatever reason, I was looking at the Hatched & Patched website from Anni Downs, and I came away with this book.

It has several patterns between its covers. The one I'm interested in is "The Story of My Day Quilt."

The quilt ends up at 62 x 62 inches. Here's what the finished quilt looks like. The quilt blocks are embroidered patches of things one might do during one's day. Her drawings are primitive and so cute. Like I said...resistance was futile.

You can find the book right here. I already have her "Some Kind of Wonderful" book, the quilt not yet started. Also, I made her Gardener's Journal quilt some time ago. You might remember it.

There are so many embroidery patterns in my library now that I can't possibly live long enough to finish all of them. Nevertheless, it makes me happy to have them, and so I'll just keep stitching as fast as I can.

This morning I noticed the maple tree at the far end of our field is in its full fall regalia now.

While I was out, I noticed this snapdragon growing from one of the annual pots. The snapdragons come back each year, but I don't recall planting this one. The other one in the pot is yellow. This might be a volunteer from seeds dropped by a squirrel or a bird. However it got there, it's a pretty addition to the pot.

As I said earlier, it's going to be a relaxing day at home. The relaxation starts now.