Outer Limits

When I finished writing yesterday's post, I went downstairs to find Sadie had commandeered the best seat in the house at this time of the year. She could lie in the sun *and* watch the hummingbirds. Any questions?

When the sun was gone, she came and sat on my lap while I stitched up some more leaves. When I had it this far, I decided to move my hoop.

Now I have it hooped to the extreme right. I'll probably spend this morning's stitching time working on the tree trunk and branches. I'm using three strands of floss for the leaves, and that makes it just slightly more difficult to pull the needle through the fabric. After two days of that, my thumb is getting cranky. I'll give it a little break this morning. It is improving though. I think there is hope for my thumb.

From there, I had a few little houseworky things to do, but it wasn't long before I went to work on the outer border for the Sundress quilt. I'm working on the stars and Dresden's now. Each star will be quilted the same...like this one:

And each Dresden will be quilted the same. Like this one:

As I'm making my way around those blades, I'm also stitching the outer circle. These ended up kind of strange. It was my first time making Dresdens. The yo-yo's were made to the size the pattern indicated, but when I went to sew them all together, the yo-yo didn't cover the hole in the middle of the Dresden. Oh well. So I appliqued a circle to cover the hole, and then stitched the yo-yo over the top. Whatever works, I always say. 

Working around the outer limits of the quilt is much easier on my shoulder. Working in the middle, I was required to haul the bulk of the quilt around. Working at the edge, I can leave the weight of the quilt on the table while I'm stitching, and just move little bits at a time. Yesterday's goal was to stitch one side, but I managed to stitch all of two sides and a part of a third before deciding not to press my luck further.

I'd been doing laundry all day. When I left to go downstairs for the final time, I found Sadie lounging in the afternoon sunshine. She's enjoying this improvement in our weather.

On the catio, Smitty actually got too warm in his afternoon sunbath, and so he moved his hunky self to the catwalk that spans the distance between his usual spot and the wooden ladder. If you're wondering, I've never seen either cat climb the ladder we provided for them, but they do like the catwalk.

He had a good birthday. He spent most of this time digging for gophers. He didn't catch any gophers, but he did get a very dirty nose. He'll be working at cleaning that for a few days, I think.

So despite this morning's red sky warning, warm weather is heading our way this week. 

Looking to the right, it looked like this:

We're expecting weather into the high 70's later this week. We're going over to the beach next week for a few days, and so I'm hoping this good weather will hold. I'll say more about that as the time gets closer. Today I have physical therapy, and then I'll get back to work on my quilt. It's probably overly optimistic to think I'll finish the quilting today, but maybe by tomorrow, it will be ready for machine-sewing the binding.