Beautiful Morning

My worries about walking in the rain yesterday morning were premature. It just goes to show you should never trust a weather forecast. The rain held off until late in the afternoon, and the weather most of the day was lovely. Sue and I were meeting at the bottom of our hill. As I drove down, the valley was so pretty with a light fog settled into the lowlands. There were a lot of power lines in my field of vision, and so I took two photos. This one looks off to the left. That's Mt. St. Helens there in the middle.

Off to the right, I saw this. You can see the top of Mt. Adams there on the left.

Also, I noticed this on my way down the hill. It's a structure at a Christmas tree farm near our house. I've never noticed this before, but there is a barn quilt block there.

The sky was beautiful as we set off. Here are two oak trees. Sue and I agree they are almost prettier without their leaves. Their branches look like the most intricate lace.

Here's my favorite barn off in the distance. Looks peaceful, doesn't it?

Oh yes, and this little red shed always catches my gaze as we walk by. I might like to quilt it one day.

When I got home, I did my usual icing and eating and then I got straight to work on the binding for Wind in the Whiskers. I've turned three corners now, and I'm hoping to finish the hand-stitching today.

Smitty sat on my lap the whole time...except for the moments when he thought we needed more purrsonal contact.

After turning three corners, I was kind of tired of hand-stitching. There are currently nine quilts on my pile of quilt tops to be sandwiched. Three of them require backs, and so I got to work on that.

You might remember I purchased this Dream Big panel with a gift card I won from the OMG Challenge. It's really just to practice free motion quilting, but I've seen pictures of these after they've been quilted, and they are lovely. The panel is 45 x 45 inches. Some people have added borders and made them into larger quilts. I'm going to leave mine as is and have it as a nice lap quilt...or maybe a wall-hanging...or maybe a table topper....or maybe...

Whatever it is to become, it needs a back. I went shopping in my stash for something, and came out with this nice pastel batik. I wanted something with at least some of the color from the panel, but it needed to be something that would show the quilting on the back. I think this is just the right choice, and it allows me to use a fabric that has been in my stash for a long time.

Also, Hocuspocusville. I finished this quilt top nearly a year ago, while we were still on our trip. If I'm remembering right, I was stitching the rickrack while we were stopped off near Tybee Island...off the road for the Christmas holiday

All along, I've had this fabric to use for the back. Yesterday I cut the lengths I needed and sewed them together, so this one is ready to go now too.

Finally, the Solstice Challenge. I call this quilt Solstice to Solstice. It's another I finished while we were traveling.

Last spring, I purchased this fabric for the back. When I looked at it yesterday, I started thinking it was going to behave like a plaid, and that I should try to match up the pattern when I sewed it into a backing...and that sounded downright torturous.

So then I got the idea to sew a contrasting panel down the center to separate the two pieces from one another. Then it won't matter if the pattern doesn't match. I picked something else from my stash, and then had another idea about it. So the piecing for this back is still jelling in my feeble mind. I'm hoping to get it finished today.

There is just one more quilt on my quilts-to-be-quilted pile...this little table topper for St. Patrick's Day...

That's on tap to be quilted in January, but then I'll be fresh out of quilts to be quilted. And that means I'm going to be setting up my plywood and sawhorse tables in the garage for a good ol' day of making quilt sandwiches. Having a stack of quilts for quilting is like having money in the bank...or maybe not when one considers the amount of money expended in the making of said quilts.

Okay, so that's what's going on here today...hand-stitching and backing. But first...I'll be moving my hoop today to stitch the base on the Snow Globe block.

This one is mostly finished now, and I'll be moving on to something else soon.