Barely Scrapping By

You'll be happy to know that my fellow shoppers were all alive and well when I left the grocery store yesterday. Our store recently instituted a "half capacity" limit on the number of people allowed inside at any given time. I worried it would mean a line to get in, but I found the coast clear yesterday, and a nicely uncrowded store. Also, I found everything I wanted, except yeast. The paper products were fairly well stocked, and so I bought my limit of toilet paper and paper towels. I'm probably set now for a while. Hopefully, by the time I need toilet paper again, the madness will have subsided. As for the yeast, a Facebook friend told me I could get a one-pound bag on Amazon, and so I did. I'll refill my nearly-empty jar, and then freeze the rest. That will probably be enough to last me the rest of my life. It's good to cross these things off your life's shopping list, isn't it?

When I got home and had things put away, I headed into the sewing room to start sewing the HST's together. I used a small cutting mat to lay them out in a 16-patch, and then moved them to the sewing machine. Smitty stood guard to make sure nothing was rearranged in my absence.

Although I doubt anyone would do such a thing. Certainly no one with a tail would do that. As for the tail-less critters who inhabit the house...hmmmmmm.

Smitty felt confident things were under control, and left to monitor the squirrel activity outdoors. After sewing the second 16-patch together, I returned to find things just slightly rearranged. Even with their protective shield, nothing is sacred.

You cannot escape my organizational skills of doom.

When I had the first grouping sewed together, it looked like this.

I'm simply sliding the cutting mat downward to uncover the next four rows. By lunch time, I'd sewn together three groups of 16-patches.

It seemed okay to leave it since "Miss Sorry, Not Sorry" was napping by that time.

When I stopped for the day, I had just three more rows of HST's to sew together to finish it off.

For grins, I laid out the fabric I'd selected as an outer border. It seemed a little too busy, even with the stop border.

After dinner, I requested a consult with the Retired Resident Engineer, and he agreed with me. His tastes are much more conservative than mine, and busy-ness is not his thing. Instead, I pulled out a multi-colored polka dot and two colors for a stop border. I liked the polka dot much better, but I'm still a little unsure about the stop border. I'm leaning toward the aqua since none of the aqua HST's touch the outer edges of the piece. I have enough to use as a binding too.

Probably I'll use the floral print for the quilt back. It's a long-time resident of my stash, and I'd like to give it a reason for living.

Through the night, I was organizing scraps in my dreams. I awakened just after 5:00 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep thinking about this next set of scraps from my original zip-lock bagful. Before I'd even had any coffee, I went down to the sewing room and laid them out.

I'd like to put some of the blacks and whites across the top and bottom too, but I came up a few short. No worries. I have more of those fabrics to cut a couple more. Then, Bonnie Hunter provided a nice little chart for figuring out those setting triangles for an on-point setting.

Now this grouping is laid out with a cutting mat to protect it from those who have alternative layouts in mind. When I've finished with the other quilt, I'll start sewing this one together. As you see it here, it's a doll quilt size, but I could add more around the outer edges to make a larger quilt. We'll see what ideas keep me awake after I go to bed tonight.

On today's agenda aside from sewing, I'll be spending some time in the kitchen. I need to hard boil some Easter eggs, pick the meat off the turkey carcass and make some stock from it, feed my sourdough starters, and get some bread dough going. My next bread-baking adventure will be this Sourdough Cinnamon Raisin Bread. I've made it before, and it will take a day or two before it's ready for baking. Also, I need to pick some more weeds. There's plenty to keep me busy today. What are you up to?