Skies on Fire

Smitty always makes sure I'm awake to see the morning sunrise. He's very thoughtful that way.

The sunrise is only part of it. I might miss the hummingbirds at the feeder without his assistance.

I was hoping to catch this one in flight, and this is the best I could do before he flew off.

There's more than one reason to wake up early though. Sadie is in desperate need of some lap time.

Yesterday morning, I worked some more on Plate #6. 

When I moved my hoop, I realized I'd come full circle with this. I should have it finished this morning. 

Since I don't have anything else made up for tomorrow's stitching, I'll probably spend at least part of the morning tracing out the next one. A "short" project is up next on my embroidery dance card. As I make my way through the list of five projects, I have a slot for something that can be finished in one go-round. This time I'll be working on a project I picked up when I visited Ireland some years back. I hoped I could find a picture of it, but I couldn't. I'll show you tomorrow after I've traced it out. 

Okay so, stitching aside, I had PT in the morning. As I've mentioned, I really hate going to PT, but I'll admit that I think it's helping. When I leave the building, I always notice the pretty landscaping at the building next door. California poppies are blooming in profusion right now, and I see fields of them when I'm driving. "When I'm driving" is the most important part of that sentence because I can never get a picture of them. Yesterday, I walked next door to capture this shot. I loves me some poppies.

There was still grocery shopping to do, and so the fun was only just getting started. When I had that all finished, I took a nap. Eventually, I made my way into the sewing room to continue my work on the next block for the New Mexico Kitchen quilt. I was working on the taco salad part of the quilt block. There was much overlap of applique on this one, and so I first constructed it on a teflon pressing sheet.

That took the rest of the afternoon. When it was finished, I peeled it off the pressing sheet and fused it to the block background.

I'll need to add in some details with thread, but I'll do that when the whole block is finished.

Outside, Mike was getting a start on prepping our garden plot for planting next week. He first mowed down all the weeds I showed you a day or two ago. He'll let this dry for a couple of days and then till it under.

In other garden news, this peony seems pretty close to popping. Time to start the daily peony watch. I have some poppies that are ready to pop too.

I'm afraid these are the only chive blossoms this year. Mae brought me two more chive plants she dug up from her garden. Between the little ones left behind when we whacked back the sage and lavender, the two I planted myself, and the two from Mae, I'm hoping for a better showing next year. 

For now...no chive blossom vinegar for me. I can only hope the sage will give me enough flowers to make some sage blossom vinegar. 

Today we're picking up a couple of wine shipments. I'd love to stay home and sew, but it's a beautiful day, and picking up wine shipments takes us on a nice drive through the country. We'll probably get lunch somewhere too. I'm still hoping to get the applique finished for the New Mexico Kitchen block.