To the Nines

There was a lot on yesterday's agenda. Mike came home early, and so he accompanied me on my grocery shopping trip. What a gas, right? A date with my main squeeze. At the grocery store. I'm telling you, it doesn't get much better than that. Actually, he did suggest dinner out last night, and so all was not lost. We got our shopping done in record time, and we only mowed down one person with our shopping cart. After pausing to call 911, we were on our way again. We instructed emergency personnel in which aisle they could find the body, of course.

Before heading out, I finished up the 9th embroidered block for I Believe in Snowmen.

Here are the nine blocks I have so far:

And then I made the eighth block for the Tiny Tree sew-along:

And the ninth:

And here are the nine I have for this project:

The tenth block was released this morning...a tiny hourglass...and one assumes the assembly instructions will be released tomorrow. I'm kind of excited to see how this will work out when combined with the embroidered blocks for Twelve Trees for Christmas. I have some pretty fabric I want to use to incorporate all of it into one quilt.

Smitty helped me get the Tiny Tree blocks finished by reading the instructions to me. After that, he went to one of his apps to play video games.

Sadie and I moved along to the Garden Sunshine blocks for November. She first helped me organize the blocks already made.

When she had them purrfectly arranged, she purrovided this demonstration of the famous cat maxim: If I fits, I sits.

November's blocks are applique surrounded by flying geese. I still need to make the flying geese, but the applique is cut out and fused now. I'll finish the top-stitching today, and then get on with the flying geese. The leaves for the cherries will have veins machine embroidered into them.

The pumpkin just needs top-stitching, although I might embroider some veins in the leaves here too.

Yesterday's mail delivery had some fun surprises. My friend Wendy sent me this yardage of kitties. There's enough here for a quilt back, and the scale is large. It will be purrfect to use with one of the kitty panels I'm taking along on our trip south. So, thank you, Wendy. It was so nice of you to think of me.

Also, I went ahead with a purchase of some beads for the Snowflake blocks from Mary Corbet. When the pattern was released last week (I think), I went to my favorite beading site, Fire Mountain Gems and loaded up my cart with the beads specified in the pattern. Then, I abandoned the whole process. And this took quite some time, so after giving it more thought, I went back and finished up. Also, I discovered I'd included way more of one than I needed. Correcting the amount cut the cost considerably. So, all of that to say that they arrived yesterday. Aren't they pretty?

A few of you have generously offered up beads for these different projects, and your offers are very much appreciated. Nevertheless, I want to use the ones recommended in the pattern for their colors and size, and so I'm branching out and building my own supply. I probably won't start on this project until late next year. It will be a fun winter activity. The blocks can be made in different sizes, and so I might decide to make it a larger quilt than the 12 Trees project.

So that sums up the day's activities yesterday. This morning Sue and I are having breakfast together. Just before sitting down here, I dressed up some of my canned cranberry chutney and cranberry pepper jam as a gift for her. With our trip, it's unlikely we'll see one another before next spring. And with that, I'm off to get ready.

It's Friday the 13th. Be careful out there.