More Quilting Mileage

Another row down and six to go. Yesterday, I moved to the next row up. Today, I'll move to the next row down, as I work from the middle and outward. I've read this doesn't matter with free motion quilting as it does with hand quilting. It makes sense to me, and so I do it anyway. I'm writing fast this morning since we're heading out on another grocery store slog. Matthew is cooking tonight, and so the grocery shopping is my only non-quilting distraction for the day.

Okay, so let's see where we went on yesterday's tour. The choice of fabric for this Tucson quilt shop probably requires no explanation. But in case you don't know it, Tucson is the home of Saguaro National Park.

The next one is from just one of the quilt shops I visited on a many-years-ago trip through Las Cruces. I visited at least three quilt shops that day. At this one, they let me choose a free fat quarter when I told them I was visiting from Oregon.

Most of the fabrics in this quilt were selected for the representation of the region, but some were representative of something we'd done, or our reason for visiting, or something that happened along the way. This next fabric was selected for the road construction we found every time we rounded a new corner in Minnesota. It was very frustrating. If memory serves, we drove many miles of unpaved *state highway*. It showed as a red road on the map...usually a good road. Not on this day. The quilt shop was a nice diversion.

This next fabric was chosen for the shop's proximity to the Columbia River and its home to the salmon swimming upstream to spawn. Besides...it was a really pretty batik. I loved this shop. Sadly, it is no longer in business. It almost looks as though I quilted a pleat into the block. I didn't. It's just a wrinkle in the fabric.

This next one was selected at a surprising quilt shop find in the tiny town of Garden Valley, Idaho. My cousin Sam and his family lived in Garden Valley at one time. The road paralleled a favorite fishing spot for anglers, and so this fabric seemed just right. We got into quite a pickle with a transmission problem on our old truck while we were there. You can read the story of our nail-biter of an adventure right here. You can also read about this quilt shop by clicking "newer post" at the end.

We happened to be visiting New Orleans right before Mardi Gras in 2018, and so this next fabric was an easy choice. Jefferson, Louisiana, is one of the neighboring towns, and this was a nice little shop. Several people recommended it, and they weren't wrong.

This next one was selected as we made our way home from seeing the California poppy bloom. We'd missed the poppies, but saw them the following year. Nevertheless, I was on the hunt for poppy fabric at every quilt shop I visited that trip. This one was as close as I could come.

Finally, we'd spent several days visiting with our friends Karin and Dick in Florida. At the top of our Florida bucket list was to see the manatees. Karin knew just where to find them, and it was thrilling to see them. The first shop we visited as we moved along our way was this shop in Trenton, where I found the perfect fabric representative of our time in the area.

So that was my one row for the day. From there, I made good on my promise to sandwich one of the smaller quilts. I can quilt this one on my domestic machine. This is the "Tiny Trees" quilt. I'll take these quilts in the order they were finished, and so this one is the oldest. After I had it sandwiched, I considered my options for quilting, but my brain was kind of fried by then. I decided to quit for the day and spend some time on Pinterest later in the evening. I think I know what I want to do now.

I finished up during a sun break, and so I went outside quickly to see what was new in the garden. This next image is the one bud on the fifth peony plant. When I first spotted it, it was hiding under some foliage. Now it is large enough that I can spot it right away.

It seems as if we'll be seeing some flowers on these fairly soon. The buds are getting large and developing more color.

I expect this next peony will be the first to open. I'm checking it daily now...obsessively...waiting to see the flower.

It has several large buds.

Walking around to the front of the house, I noticed the azalea at the front door is blooming and doing well. We thought we'd killed it when it struggled some last year. You can see some dead branches in the lower right-hand corner of the image below. It needs a good trim and a haircut when it finishes blooming.

Turning to the right, I noticed the golden chain tree is finally blooming. As I've mentioned, it's kind of a scrawny thing right now. It's only been in the ground for two years.

Close-up the flowers are prettier.

Across the driveway from the golden chain tree is the fourth rhododendron to bloom. It's looking very pretty right now, with more flowers opening every day.

Across the sidewalk is my favorite...the dark purple.

The rhodie at the front of the house is heavy with flowers now. You can see the dogwood tree in the background of the image below.

Even though the dark purple is my favorite, I think this one has the prettiest flowers.

So I went back inside after that. I set my camera on the counter. When Matthew came up for dinner, he couldn't resist picking up the camera and messing with it. These next several images were a surprise I found this morning. Once a button-pressing kid, always a button-pressing kid, I guess.

Smitty proceeded to show him why cats are best shot with flash.

Especially Smitty, who almost never stops moving...unless he's asleep.

When I left the kitties to come upstairs and write this post, they were resting up for today's job of helping me quilt.

Okay, so I said I was going to write fast, and I've taken far too long getting this written. Time to hit the showers and head out to the grocery store. Oh boy. No, really. Oh boy (she says with a noted lack of enthusiasm).