Some Progress

It was mostly slow stitching yesterday, but I did manage to get some time in the sewing room. I first spent a little time hand sewing the binding for It's Raining Cats and Dogs. It was important to turn the first corner, don't you know, and that made me feel as if I were getting somewhere fast. Or possibly it's just one more leg of my journey around the bend.

From there, I did some more work on the last tree for Twelve Trees for Christmas. This morning, I finished the last of the embroidery. This one is worked all in chain stitch and fishbone stitch.

I learned early on to press these before stitching on the beads. The beads are made of glass, I believe, and so they should stand up to the heat of the iron. Still, I'm taking no chances. When it was ironed and trimmed, I sewed on the beads.

And that was the last of them. Here they are all together.

So now, I'll set these aside and wait to see if they can be combined with the new tiny tree sew-along starting up from Temecula Quilt Company. It looks as if we'll be making quilt blocks to make up one tiny tree. I could see using the embroidered blocks as a border around the larger center tree, but we'll see. Either I'll end up with one quilt or two.

It was afternoon by the time I got into the sewing room yesterday, and so I didn't get as far along as I'd hoped. Still, you can't go wrong when you're paper-piecing with this much assistance.

Smitty was rather appalled at how close her ears were coming to the blade of the rotary cutter.

Be careful, Sadie. If you lose your ears, you won't hear the crinkle of the treat bag!

So I managed to get around the first block with sashings and tiny hearts.

After taking a picture and posting it to Instagram, I was a little worried the heart fabric was too busy and competing with the embroidered block. So, then I got the idea to add a very narrow border around the embroidered block to showcase it a little better. If there's time for sewing today, I'll take this apart, trim the embroidered block down a bit, and sew a narrow border around it. Then I'll put it back together. Better to start early, right?

Before leaving for the day, I had one more tiny heart made, and one in the works. Matthew showed up to pick up his mail about that time, and so I was finished sewing for the day.

It's about to get very busy here, but I'm still hoping to work in some sewing time this week. Erik and Mae have the two turkeys for our Thanksgiving dinner. We're smoking one and frying one. The smoked one needs to be brined, and so I'll head over to their place today to pick up the turkeys. I'd hoped to postpone my grocery shopping until tomorrow, but we have snow in the forecast. It's probably wise to get it done today, and so I will...grudgingly...because I imagine the shelves have been picked clean after the weekend mob. Hopefully, they'll be restocked by the time I get there.

It looks like we'll have seven for dinner this week. I'm doing the cooking, but most everything can be done ahead of time. Mae will be providing dessert...she always makes something amazingly scrumptious. Mike and Erik will be responsible for the turkeys, and so my part won't be too bad.

Who's cooking your dinner this week?