Good Quilting Karma

It was a full day of quilting, and I had a lot of help from my kitty friends. There was a break after every go-round of the quilt, and so I would estimate that quilting and breaks were about equal in time. Kitties are excellent timers in this regard. When they demand treats, it's a good time for a break.

Breaking for treats has the added benefit of gratifying them enough to get them off my work space for a while. Kitties and free motion quilting are not a good mix.

Smitty was purrterbed when I made him get off the table once and for all. He put on his most furrlorn face and took up residence on my quilting practice piece.

Oh yes...quilting rags...that's all I get...scraps. Don't worry about me. I'm used to this mistreatment. Just give me the old heave-ho whenever you've used me up. I'll get over it.

Okay, so let's just take a look, shall we? I was starting in the two narrow borders below the blue one. I had a couple of ideas in mind for it, but then decided on this swoop-de-doo ski jump with an arch overhead. (Technical quilting terms, so try to keep up.) Here's where the good quilting karma showed itself. I worried about those arches coming out evenly from one end to the other. I was using the stripes as a guide to get them evenly stitched, but the corners could have become an issue. I worried I'd need to make one that was either too long or too short. As it turns out, they worked out exactly right in all four corners. I must be living right...or maybe it's the cats who are living right. Either way, I was happy with the result.

And then a wavy cross-hatch sort of thing in the striped border. And this was easy too because I could use the arches as a guide for locating the points.

Then I did a reverse swoop-de-doo ski jump with an arch below (or possibly it's some sort of bungee jump move) in the next two skinny borders. I wasn't sure I liked this. It seemed like overkill.

Nevertheless, I am loathe to take out quilting stitches, and so I continued on, hoping for the best. I did another stylized star in the next blue star border, and then took it off the machine to have a better look. I don't know about anybody else, but I'm not a confident quilter. As I'm quilting along, I see every little bobble or uneven stitch. But then I get some distance from it and take a look at the whole, and it doesn't look half bad.

Smitty would not be denied for this picture. He refused to move until he heard the click of the shutter.

Then, and only then, did he move enough for me to straighten out the quilt and have a look.

And that looked just fine to me. Next, I had in mind to do this little wavy pinwheel action with a loop between each star. The plan was to do more in the blue sections, but I kind of liked how this looked just as it is. When the Resident Engineer arrived home, I asked him for a consult. He convinced me to leave it as is. I think the quilting a little earlier is too dense, and so it seems leaving it more open here might help give it some balance.

I didn't want to take it off the machine again because it's heavy and awkward to maneuver, and so I took this picture on the table. It's looking pretty good so far.

When I start again today, I'll do a paperclip motif in the red border, and then start working on the wider flag border.

During one of the breaks yesterday, I took time to get this German Winter Stew going in my Dutch oven. I've made this a few times before, and I'd forgotten how delicious it is. It's a good rib-sticking stew for a cold day. My goal was to use up another of the CSA veggies...this time a head of green cabbage.

You can find the recipe right here. It calls for the use of both green and red cabbage, but I used only green yesterday. It's pretty easy to put together, and if you like a good stew, this one will not disappoint.

It'll be another day of quilting today. I'm hoping to get at least out to the next friendship star border, and maybe beyond. It's progressing well enough that finishing the quilting by this weekend is a realistic goal. Also, I want to get started on the Tiny Tree blocks from Temecula Quilt Company. I'd planned to keep up day by day, and it will make a good little project to work on while I'm taking a break from quilting. Already, I'm a day behind, and it only started just yesterday. Hopefully, I'll get the first two finished today. They shouldn't take long.

Okay...so another full day of sewing ahead. Time to get started.