Closing in on a Finish

The cardinal is nearly ready for binding. When I started working on it yesterday, I was ready to switch to the black thread. From there, I quilted some feathers into the black portion of the face.

Then some zig-zaggy lines on the legs. This didn't turn out exactly as I'd envisioned it, but it's fine.

Then I was ready to switch to the blue thread to quilt the background. So far, I've been using different colors of the same YLI quilting thread, and so the tension adjustment has been the same. The background motif was inspired by an image I'd pinned in my "fillers" folder on Pinterest at some point in time.

From there, I switched off to an Aurifil thread, which was a different weight. Even so, the tension was good, and I quilted some stylized veins into the holly leaves.

After that, I switched to brown thread and was just getting started on the small sections of brown branch. I'll finish that up today. After that I'll just need to go around the outer border, and my quilt will be ready for binding. I haven't decided yet on a binding fabric. I'll have to go shopping in Ye Olde Fabric Stashe to see what's available.

My slow-stitched barn has progressed far enough that I decided to move my hoop to the left yesterday.

Now I have all of the left side within the boundary of the hoop, and I'll pick it up there this morning.

It's a nice day out. Sunny and warmer temperatures. I'm considering going down to a local produce stand where I think they might have local strawberries. Recently, I found a recipe for strawberry mousse for two that looked so tasty. All the seeds and pulp are strained out so that only the strawberry juice is used. It's a good way to use the strawberries so that we both can eat them. The recipe found me a couple of weeks ago, and it's been on my mind ever since. If I decide to head out for those, I'll probably go for a walk on our Main Street and see what else I can find along the way.