Cherry Cheerio

Today will be the last day I'll spend on cherries for the year. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the cherries are all halved, pitted, and ready to go into the pot. For my final act, I'll be making Sweet Cherry Chutney. I've made chutneys from all kinds of fruits: blueberries, apples, peaches, tomatoes, cranberries...I actually think the cherry is my favorite. Or maybe it just seems that way since getting cherries from our tree is such a rare treat.

Yesterday, I made the Sweet Cherry Barbecue Sauce. My yield was 5 half-pints.

So it's been fun, Cherries, but after today, the party's over. I'll be moving on to the next ripe thing to come from the garden. My guess will be zucchini relish from the zucchini, but we're not there yet.

About the time I was finishing up the barbecue sauce, I received a call from the sewing center that my machine was ready for pick up. You might recall, she had to stay a little longer when the knocking noise wasn't fixed. When the guy called yesterday, he assured me he'd plugged her in and listened, and that the noise was gone. I took his word for it, and haven't yet turned her on to see for myself. Let's just hope so. Anyway...she's back in action, and the Shop Hop quilt has been patiently waiting for the past two months for me to get on with the quilting. I'll be so happy to get this large quilt finished. We have a short camping trip planned for the beginning of August. Hand-sewing the binding will be a good take-along project.

I prettied Eliza up some years ago with these little flower stickers. Now, when I call about the machine, I just have to call her "the flowered Tiara," and they know the machine I'm talking about. Funny.

Okay, so it was late in the day by the time we had Eliza home and put back in place. Still, I had time to finish off the final border for "And On that Farm."

There's still much to do to finish the top completely. I need to add sunflowers to the left of the cow. These got a little wrinkled up after being folded into a plastic bag for (literally) years. I straightened them out and left them under one of my large rulers, hoping they'll flatten out again.

The quilt needs to be permanently fused in the goat's mouth.

And these ducks have to be added to the sashings around the goat.

None of that can be done until I've finished the garland, however. If you'll recall the picture of the quilt on the pattern cover...

The garland is done in many applique pieces. Mine are all traced out and ready for cutting.

The applique template was the one pattern correction for this pattern, and the templates were on the website for printing in a single sheet.

As I traced them out, I was trying to fit them onto the sheet of fusible as efficiently as possible. The flower with leaves curve in two directions, and I was to trace and cut 12 of each. I started cutting them yesterday, and realized I'd traced the wrong one among the ones I was cutting. It makes me wonder how many times I did that. 

It probably doesn't matter because as I count up the pieces on the pattern picture, there won't be enough of these to reach all the way around anyway. I'll more than likely need more of each. We'll see. I'll just start in the upper left hand corner, make my way around, and see how far I can get.

The only other thing I have to show you is the raspberry-infused vodka that I funneled back into its bottle this morning. Pretty, huh? It can be substituted for the plain vodka in any mixed cocktail, but it's also pretty darned good just poured over ice.

When I came upstairs to write this post, I left Sadie lying tummy up on her favorite flannel quilt.

Think I'll go back and join her for some slow-stitching.