Quilting Progress

It's a sad morning in Cat Land today. Sadie is getting her teeth cleaned, and so both kitties are fasting in solidarity. 

I'm fasting too because I'm getting a blood draw...just routine...and so no morning coffee for me. Sadie and I aren't happy campers, and Smitty is completely put out. He doesn't see why he can't have his treats.

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Pause here while time passes

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And from there, I left to go to the doctor for my blood draw (two vials, thank you). Then I got some breakfast, and then I went grocery shopping. What a way to start the day...actually, I'd suggest not starting your day that way, but here we are. I'm drinking my second cup of coffee as I write this.

It was a productive day on the quilting front yesterday. I was hoping to get just some of the blocks quilted, and it ended up moving along quickly enough that I might be ready for a binding today. (Only I wrote that before I went for my blood draw, so maybe not.) I'm not a thread expert, and generally, I make my thread decisions based on color. For the Tuxedos, I'm using a black Bottom Line thread in the bobbin. Mainly, I'm reporting this for my own future reference, so bear with me.

This is a 60 weight thread.

And something tells me it's a bad idea to use different weights top and bottom, but I'm doing it anyway. On top, I'm starting with a black YLI machine quilting thread.

I'll use black in the blocks.

And then switch to a dark green for the rest.

In the blocks, I thought about doing some kind of filler in the background, but then I worried all those buttons were going to give me grief. So, I decided just to stitch around the outsides of the applique. Where there is a machine-stitched stem, I'm quilting up one side and down the other.

Where there are lots of buttons, I'm just avoiding those areas. I've stitched in the ditch around the outside of each block, and so there should be plenty of quilting to be functionally sound.

Switching to the green thread and moving on to the sashings, I did a convex curve inside most of the shapes, and then filled in some areas with a swoopity-whoopity-doo design. These are technical quilting terms, as usual, so try to keep up. You can remember the name of this one if you're old enough to remember that hair glue we used to use called "Dippity Doo." So anyway...here's what I'm talking about.

And I just kept going and going until I had the two vertical sashings finished. 

I'll start on the horizontal sashings today. I'll have to jump across that red diamond square. There are only three rows of sashings, and then I'll do something different around the outside edge.

From there, I quit for the day. We were out of our Skinny Cow ice cream bars, and so it seemed like an excellent excuse to bake a Skillet Cherry Cobbler for Two. I posted the recipe for this last month, I think.

It's so good. I posted on social media that this might have been my favorite dessert growing up. My mom usually made it with peaches, which were cheaper than cherries. My brother loved it with peaches, but I loved the cherries. It's just one of the ways my mom loved him best. Actually not. I never got the feeling she preferred one of us over the other. Nevertheless, I was always wishing she'd make it with cherries. Now I can make it whenever I want it, and I'm using the cherries in simple syrup I canned from our own cherries. And I'll add that this whole remembrance of desserts in my family made me miss them. I always knew I'd lose my parents one day, but I thought I'd have my brother for much longer. He passed away suddenly and unexpectedly in 2003. Of course, I miss him less so many years on, but it was devastating when it happened. Anyway...giving up blood in the morning puts me in a mood for lamentation.

Okay, so it must be my week for appointments. Mike and I are participating in a study at one of the local hospitals, and we'll both be giving up more blood on Thursday. I'll say more about it when it happens. And then Friday I'm getting my eyes checked. So, it's a busy week, and I'm going to be doing some canning too. It's good that the Tuxedos quilt is being so cooperative.

So I hope the rest of the day is a little more relaxing and peaceful, and I really hope your day started off better than mine. And poor Sadie...well, the day isn't over for her.