A "Try Again" Day

We ended up running all over town yesterday, beginning with a trip to the vet for the kitties. We were sorry to disturb Sadie from her morning slumber, but we had appointments to keep.

She's always the hardest to catch, and so I scooped her up and put her into her carrier. While I was tracking Smitty down (who was onto us by now), Sadie figured out that I hadn't latched the carrier door and escaped. Try again. Eventually, we had them both corralled and off we went.

They both got their immunizations and a clean bill of health. Sadie still needs to return in a month to have her teeth cleaned. Poor Smitty, though. He has tender sensibilities about being caged and driven somewhere. On the way home, he heard the Call of Doody, and he had to answer. Fortunately, we put a puppy pad in the carrier for Mr. Sensitive Bowels. Nevertheless, it was seriously pew-miliating for him. He forgave us quickly when we gave him some treats in his bowl. Not Sadie, though. She didn't show herself for the remainder of the day. Finally, toward the end of our TV-watching and before we went to bed, she sat on my lap, and we got good snuggles and cuddles. This morning, all is well.

Okay, so while we were eating lunch, TAP Plastics called to say the catio window insert was ready. Fortunately, TAP Plastics is near where I needed to pick up Eliza from her spa treatment, and so we did that too. Sadly, the noise was still present in Eliza, and so she'll need to stay a little longer. Try again, we said. 

It was kind of worth the trip though because they had the most interesting quilts hanging on the wall. I took pictures to give you a kind of impromptu quilt show. But wait...who is that masked man?

And such a stylish mask, don't you think? Yeah...I made that one. Mike is pretty conservative. He won't let me make him anything with fun colors. Just your basic black and brown kind of guy. 

So anyway...the quilts. It was good to see them because I've been toying with an idea in my mind, about a quilt I'd like to try. Seeing these inspired me even more. So let's take a look, shall we? These are pieced quilts of buildings, villages, and streets. I have lots of pictures from our travels like the ones you see here, and I've thought many times about picking one and making a quilt from it.

I could do it in the style of the classes I've taken from Ann Shaw. She teaches the style of Ruth McDowell. She has always said the technique doesn't work well for landscape quilts, but I think it could work with images that have lots of straight lines, as these do.

It occurred to me after we left the store, there may be a class associated with these quilts. I'll have to ask when we go back to pick up Eliza again.

Sorry for the blur in these next images. I was taking pictures with my phone, and these are cropped from larger images.

I especially like the colors in this next one.

Okay, so here's my idea. I keep thinking about this next image of the Tin Cup Store I took when we road our ATV's to the ghost town last September. For one thing, I love the red color.

Ann Shaw always uses crazy fabrics in the quilts we make in her class. I don't see any reason why one couldn't use the same technique to make quilts with more realistic fabrics and colors. I love this image for the details you can see. The elevation of more than 10k feet, the name of the store cut from old license plates, and the Colorado license plate with the visible number on the right.

Also, the log bench out front with the store name carved into it. Look closely at the support on the right, and you can see the name of "Bill" there too. The details would be easy to add with thread.

We're getting ready for a camping trip next week. We're taking the small truck camper, and so I won't be taking my sewing machine. I told myself on previous trips, however, that this is a good opportunity to draw a pattern from a photograph, and so I've printed this image off in the largest format I have (13 x 19 inches). The items I need don't take up much space, and it'll give me something to work on while we're gone. Of course, I'll be taking along some embroidery too. 

And to finish off our running-all-over-town story from yesterday, we picked up the insert for the catio window at TAP Plastics, and then went to the hardware store to pick up the tiny screws to attach the door flap. After coming out of the hardware store, Mike checked the plastic insert again, and realized it wasn't cut properly. That meant driving the distance back to TAP Plastics. Try again, we said. They fixed it while we waited, but honestly. It was feeling like a day of disappointment, and sewing time was waning. Oh well.

On the embroidery front, I finished the 14th of 16 blocks for "I Believe in Snowmen" yesterday.

 

I just barely got started on the next block, but it shouldn't take long.

So there was almost no time for sewing yesterday. On a happier note, some fabric I ordered arrived. I didn't have an appropriate back for Paintbox Pizzazz. When I went online shopping for something, I found fabric in short supply. Most everything I liked was sold out, and so I grabbed up this gray "paint" fabric while I could.

It seems a little boring, but the quilt has lots of color on the front, and so I'll probably use it anyway. Smitty helpfully put his paws there for scale.

Also, I realized recently I was nearly out of solid black fabric. I use it a lot, and so I keep a good supply on hand. The Kona black was sold out, but I was able to get some Bella black. I've never been happy with the Kona fabrics. They fray badly, in my humble opinion. I'm hoping I'll like this Bella solid better. There are five yards, and so it should last a while.

There was only about half an hour left in the day for sewing, and so I was able to get the last three masks to adding-the-elastic stage. They should be quick to finish this morning.

Probably, I'll make a trip into town today to mail off all this stuff I've been sewing. So far during the month of July, I haven't sewn a single stitch of my own sewing. All my time up to now has been spent sewing for others. I'm happy to do it, and I'll be glad to get back to my own stuff. Sadly, quilting won't be on the list for at least another couple of weeks. They said they'd give Eliza top priority, but we'll be gone next week. Even if I get her back this week, there won't be time for any quilting.

Okay, so what will I do instead of quilting? That is the question. I'm not really ready to go back to Jenny's Flower Garden yet, so maybe I'll get a head start on finishing up August's assigned quilt top. I've been working on "And On That Farm," since September of 2016. This is the picture of the quilt from the pattern cover:

All of the blocks are finished, and so I'll need to make the ducks in the lower right-hand corner, and then do the applique to create the border. With that finished, I'll be ready to sew it all together. I've been putting this off for a while, but I'd like to get it sewn into a finished flimsy. Now seems like a good time.

Within the next couple of days, I'm going to have to get laser focused on our upcoming camping trip. I need to figure out food, mainly, and that usually means doing some cooking. More on that later.