An Unexpected Free Day

As I was walking out the door yesterday, heading for my monthly pedicure, I noticed a text message alert on my phone. As it turns out my nail technician had a medical emergency, and was trying to reschedule. So that was off the calendar. And with my grocery shopping already done, and my calendar cleared for said pedicure and grocery shopping trip, what could I do but spend the day sewing? Practically a tragedy, right? Oh yes, and my nail tech contacted me later in the day to say she was fine, so all is well with her too.

Before all the excitement and calendar clearing, I turned the third corner on It's Raining Cats and Dogs.

When I get going on it this morning, I expect I'll finish it off. That will feel good after so much time...nearly six full years.

Upon learning I was going nowhere fast, I headed into the sewing room and got back to work on the Hearts A-Plenty. For yesterday's effort, I added the third row of hearts.

As I've been working on this, I've been going back and forth about how to finish it off. Border? No border? Skinny border, and then a wide border? No border and a flange? Binding only? As I've toyed with each of these ideas, I've spent time perusing my stash to see what makes the most sense. Finally, I've settled on binding only. I thought about just solid black, but then chose the black and white polka dot you see on the left in the image below.

I love a fun binding.

So that was enough paper-piecing for one day. Since I'm expecting to finish off the hand-stitching on the binding today, it seemed like a good idea to trace out the next block for the Appalachian Memories quilt. This is Block #8 of 12, and it is called "West Virginia Star."

The stitching won't start until the binding is finished, but it's hooped up and ready to go...like having money in the bank.

The kitties were nowhere to be seen yesterday. They thought I was going to be gone most of the day, and so they'd scheduled an all-day nap in the clubhouse. They continued on with their plans despite the change to mine.

So it's going to get a little busier today. I'll spend some time stitching the binding, but then I need to get to work preparing for our holiday feast tomorrow. We're doing two turkeys. One will be brined and smoked and one will be deep fried. Mike and I wrestled one of the turkeys into a big bucket this morning and now it will brine overnight for smoking tomorrow. Yesterday, I made our fresh cranberry sauce and a couple of appetizers. Today I'll make two of the side dishes. On Thanksgiving I'll still need to make stuffing, mashed potatoes, and one other side dish. Oh yes, and don't forget to set the table. Often, I forget about this until late in the day, and it takes a while to get all the good china and silverware out. And I suppose I should clean the place up a little bit too.

With all that going on, I doubt there will be much time for sewing. I'm still hoping to have the hearts all sewn together no later than Friday.

What's on the menu at your house?