To Bind on the Road

The quilting is finished! It was hard to power through such dense quilting in just a few days, but I was determined to do my binding on the road. The binding strips are cut. I just need to sew them together, square up the quilt, and sew it on. Hand work can wait for this weekend. Here's the finished quilt. And don't you know it was a magnet for cats when I spread it on the floor for its picture.

It was a little too big for me to get a very good picture without risking life and limb.

And, of course, there were no catless pictures.

The back fabric is busy and the quilting barely shows there.

It wasn't long before Sadie joined us.

Smitty, did you know I was the model for the scary Halloween cat?

Only you could do that, Sadie. Gray spotted cats are no good for Halloween. We're pawsitively too dignified in our pin-striped furs for scary stuff. 

Mom was trying to talk me into riding a broomstick with her, but I put my paw down. No broomsticks! And no flying!

Smitty, did you see the flying mice on this quilt?

Do you think there are more underneath? Maybe we could catch us one. Or maybe you could leap off a flying broomstick and catch one!

Nothing doing, Sadie. I'll leave the flying to you. You're the Halloween cat.

Besides, I'm purrsiding over a meeting of the Bureau of Cat-tastrophes this weekend. I have to purrserve my health.

So here are the details of the last three blocks. For "Spooky Lou's," I added a spider web and a spider, and then attempted to have a cat batting at the spider.

My imagination was running thin for these last blocks. Here's how it looks finished.

Then for "Hagatha's Dirty Laundry," I quilted another ghost flying from the window.

There were spiders and spider webs added to most blocks. And here's how Hagatha's looks finished.

Finally, the last block was the "Toil & Trouble Employment Agency." There wasn't a lot of space for quilting on this one, but I added a Halloween cat.

Also, more shingles for the roof and some siding on the walls. When it was finished, it looked like this.

All that remained then was to quilt the outer border. Long ago, I found this section of a pantograph on the internet, and so I drew some lines on a practice piece and then practiced quilting it within the confines of the border.

It was easier than I thought, and so I committed it to the quilt and then quilted my way around.

If I hadn't been trying to get it finished to take along, I would have spread the quilting over more days. It was a slog to get through the last of it, and so I'm happy to have it finished. I started Hocuspocusville in July of 2015. Nearly four years on, it's approaching the finish line.

When I left you yesterday, I had bread rising in the kitchen. As I mentioned, I used 7-1/2 cups of flour in this dough, and that made it so much easier to work with. For one thing, I could give it some shape.

When it was ready for baking, it hadn't risen any taller, but it did expand in volume and spread out.

Also, I could score it halfway decently, and when it baked up, it looked like this.

We had it with some ravioli  and a salad last night, and it tasted so good. This might just be the bread dough of my dreams.

If you want to give this bread recipe a try, you can find it right here. I strongly suggest reading the "tips" at the end of the recipe. I'd like to try this with some whole wheat flour, and I'd also like to try baking it in my Dutch oven to see how it turns out then. I'm still experimenting, but I'm happy with what I've made so far. With just four ingredients (water, flour, salt, yeast), it's a pretty simple dough. I have enough dough for two more loaves, and so I'll probably make one up today to take along this weekend. Oh yes, and did I mention it makes great toast?

Here's this morning's inchy. So cute.

I'll be taking this along this weekend too.

My first priority today will be to get the binding sewn on my quilt, and then I'll need to start packing the RV. It'll be easy packing since we're only gone a day or two. Smitty has a conflict on his calendar, and so the kitties are staying home this trip. I'll be back to blog again in the morning, but then I'll take the rest of the weekend off.