Rainbow Jubilation

It was another day of rain here at the Three Cats Ranch. Honestly, the weeds are digging it. (Did you see what I did there?) I'd love to get out and pull them, but there ain't no way I'm getting out in the rain and mud to do gardening. Not an enthusiastic gardener to begin with, I can tell you that sunshine is the only draw...well, and flowers, of course. Today is supposed to be cloudy, but dry. I need to get out and fill the bird feeders, but the weeding is still waiting.

The morning was spent on slow-stitching. Since I didn't get a good dose of slow-stitching on Sunday, I gave myself some extra time yesterday. When I filled the first hoop,

I moved the hoop to the right, and then filled all of that. Now the top portion is stitched.

In the image above, you can see that I've just started the running stitch in the upper right-hand corner. The design extends very close to the edge of the block. The fabric was cut to the size listed on the pattern, but I realized too late how close it comes to the edge. That means, I won't be able to use an embroidery hoop to finish off that running stitch around the outside. I had just a little bit of brown floss left on my needle, and so I experimented there to see how easily it could be stitched without a hoop. Easy, as it turns out, and so I can stop worrying about that. I know some people embroider without a hoop all the time, but that isn't me. I like it stretched tight in the hoop, but who knows? Maybe I'll decide to go hoopless in the future. And maybe I'll get really wild and stop wearing a bra and shaving my legs. The possibilities are endless.

Okay, so I abandoned my slow stitching for the morning. I'd already decided to give myself an NBS day, and so my next task was to make up a practice piece from some muslin in my stash. Quite some time ago, I spent a small fortune on templates and rulers to use with my Baby Lock mid-arm machine. So far, I've only used one of the templates and a couple of the rulers. I had in mind to do interlocking circles on the Rainbow Jubilee quilt, and so I needed to select the right size template and then practice with it. So I made up a practice piece and drew lines to represent the 7-inch blocks from the quilt. And then I went to work stitching the first arc.

And, wow...that turned out to be easier than I thought. I hit the points on both sides of the template, and so I added a piece of painter's tape to mark where I wanted to line up the template with the seam on the quilt.

And then, I stitched a whole row of them. Not bad, huh?

The hardest part of this for me is not taking my eyes off the needle, which causes me to sew away from the template. On the other hand, I wanted to keep an eye on my hand position too so as not to sew over a finger or thumb.

Smitty gave it his sniff of appurroval.

So then I switched to the threads I'd be using in the quilt and practiced a little more. There were a few little bobbles, but not too shabby.

So then, I gulped hard and committed it to the quilt. For good measure (there I go again), I put some arrows on the painter's tape to make it perfectly clear where I wanted to line up the template on the seam.

After all that preparation and practicing, I abandoned the template after about half a row of blocks. It's much harder to do on a large and heavy quilt than it is on a compact practice piece. It was going so painfully slowly that I didn't think I could finish the quilt before I died. Also, I could die from quilting it. Also, even if I survived, I would probably be bald from tearing my hair out. I decided I could do just as well free-hand. As it turns out, it's perfect, in all its imperfection. Here's a close-up of the design.

It took the whole afternoon, but I managed to get all the quilting finished in a single day. Here's how it looks.

There's enough color and movement in the fabric, the quilting doesn't need to be perfectly symmetrical. Here's how it looks from the back.

When it was finished, I folded it up and laid it on the table so I could show it to Mike. When the sun started shining in the sliding glass doors at the end of the day, Smitty decided it looked cozy enough for him to curl up on. This quilt was supposed to be for Matthew, but now I'm not sure I can steal it out from under Smitty. It has two layers of batting (as Matthew requested), and so it's very poofy and cozy.

At the end of the day, I checked the front door because I was expecting a package from my friend Wendy. A month or so ago, I talked a little about thimbles on the blog, and Wendy had one similar to mine she wasn't using. She sent it to me, and it fits! Cool! This one is like the one I have. I've looked for them in stores, and not been able to find any quite like it.

And Wendy, being a Minnesotan, also has access to wild rice and black rice, which is sometimes hard to come by in our part of the world. Recently I went to three different stores looking for wild rice. Wendy sent me a supply along with the thimble. Yum. I haven't tried black rice before, and so I'm curious about it. As for wild rice, I love the stuff.

And, aren't quilty friends the best? She also sent me some fat quarters. Kitties! And polka dots! And bird cages and flowers! Oh, Wendy, you know me so well. All my favorite stuff.

So, thank you, Wendy. It's very much appreciated...all of it.

Today I need to do a little housework, and I should make up a grocery list too. Before the day is over, I'll get the binding sewn on the quilt, and then I'll be closing in on a finish. Next up in the sewing room is to finish off the little Bunny Garden quilt.