All Ahead Slow

It would be nice to say I spent the day sewing yesterday, but I did not. It was another busy morning of hurrying through my outdoor chores, just so we could go to the grocery store. Do we know how to have a good time, or what? As we were leaving home, I mentioned to Mike that I need to get my flower-pot-watering days and my weed-hoeing days separated, so I don't have to do it all at once. But never mind all that busy-ness. I still managed to fit in my slow-stitching time. The day goes better for everyone if I do. 

I finished stitching a portion of the barn and the barn quilt.

The barn quilt was to be stitched in yellow. I didn't think there was enough contrast between the yellow floss and the background fabric, and so I outlined each section of the block with brown. When I moved my hoop, I could fit this next section of leaves and tree into my hoop.

It was time to get busy outside by then, but I went back to it while we were watching the news last night. The leaves stitched up surprisingly quickly, and then there was just a little bit left to finish up this portion.

Now, I've moved the hoop to the right. I'm going to go out on a limb (did you see what I did there?) and say I'm more than halfway to the finish line now.

We had just a short grocery shopping trip yesterday, but we ran some other errands in town too. My thanks go to my friend Leigh, whose recent comment reminded me I could always buy starts for the seeds I'm having trouble with. I'm still hoping for melons, and I'm still hoping the pickling cucumber seeds will come through. But I gave myself a break and went shopping for some pickling cucumber starts while we were out yesterday. Now I have a whole bunch of them, and I'll plant them in the garden this morning. There's more than one way to sprout a pickle. 

These appeared to have been a little neglected at the garden store. They were dry and a little yellowed. I gave them a shot of Miracle Grow when we got home, and I left them overnight. Hopefully, they soaked up some fertilizer in the meantime. And if the seeds I planted sprout and grow, I guess we'll just have a lot of pickles this year. If we're really lucky, they might even taste good.

By then it was time to get back to my quilting. Smitty, my quilting consultant, was on the job.

Are you pawsitive you have all the settings adjusted propurrly?

And do you have appurropriate thread on your spool?

Okay, then. You have purrmission to purrceed.

So, I spent my whole hour finishing off the largest section of the quilt. This was the section I was most worried about because it has so many tiny pieces in those quilt blocks. It all went together just fine, and now I can move along.

Today I'll get to work on the sheep. It shouldn't take too long since there aren't many pieces. Don't you love the expression on the sheep?

When that is finished, I'll have most of the applique top-stitching finished.

In my mind, I have this divided up into sections. I'll finish up each section of applique top-stitching. When that's all finished, I'll feel more confident about moving it around too much. I've worried about losing some of the tiniest pieces. So, when that's finished, I'll add some quilting to the fields and sky in the largest section. Then, I'll top-stitch around the vine border. Then, I'll quilt the sashings and outer border. If I can keep up with this each day, I'm hoping to have the quilting finished by the end of next week. It's going more smoothly than expected. Have you ever noticed how a dreaded project is never as horrible as you expected it to be? Maybe the horrors conjured up in the dreading have a way of making our fear seem overblown. (Philosophy talk for the day.)

Okay, so I'll be planting the pickling cucumbers today. While we were at the grocery store yesterday, we found both cherries and apricots available. (Cherries have been around for a couple of weeks, but no apricots.) And if you've been following for a while, you know there's an annual dessert I make when cherries and apricots make an appearance together. I'll say more about that tomorrow. And then...just sewing. I'm optimistic I can finish the sheep today, and then I'll get back to my project "In the Good Old Summertime."

I cut a back for it yesterday, and so my next step is to sandwich it for quilting. At 24 x 38 inches, it's small enough to quilt on my domestic machine, and that's what I'll do next. Our weather cooled down significantly yesterday. There is no rain in the forecast, and so we have some nice days ahead.