Two Little Finishes

Despite my hurry-up morning yesterday, I managed to finish all my morning activities with time to spare. There was about an hour to kill before I needed to get ready for my physical therapy appointment, and so I had some time to relax before heading out. Oh yes, I guess that makes three finishes: consider me a physical therapy graduate...for now, at least. I don't have any plans to return for this particular injury, but you know...💩 happens.

Before getting out to hoe weeds, I finished the remainder of Block #3 for Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage. Remember that blocks 2, 3, and 4 for this quilt are all stitched on one large pieced-together background. Here's Block #3's share:

Here's how the whole piece looks so far. Block #2 is on the left. Block #4 is on the right, and I'll finish this whole section with its next go-round. 

After that, it was time to get after the weeds in the vegetable garden. During the hour I had remaining in the morning, I set myself up to watch the comings and goings of the violet-green swallows. For the second year, we have a breeding pair living in one of our four nesting boxes. One flies in...

The other flies out. This one is carrying a "fecal sac." You can read more about it if you click on that link. This is apparently a full-time job since I've caught this activity twice in my unplanned and lame attempts to photograph them. Also, it's an excellent demonstration of my point above about 💩 happening.

I was sorry I didn't capture any photos that showed their colors. They are pretty birds. Here's one I caught last year.

The kitties were out keeping busy while I was hoeing weeds and taking pictures. They went inside with me. As I was getting ready to leave, I noticed Smitty had parked himself on top of the china cabinet to cool off.

Sadie was still enjoying the sunshine on the catio catwalk. 

Speaking of the catio, Mike completely disassembled the interior of the catio last week and then replaced the fencing where the squirrels had chewed a hole. Within a day or two, they'd chewed another hole. (Shakes fist!) 

Clearly, he's going to have to replace the fencing with metal. We like this fiberglass variety because it disappears from view, and it doesn't rust. But it also doesn't stand up to gnawing teeth. They chewed a large enough hole that Sadie could escape if she got that in her head. For now, we've put up a board to cover it. Nevertheless, I saw another squirrel trying to break in at this same spot yesterday.

When I got home from PT yesterday, I started on a mountain of laundry, and then headed into the sewing room where I finished another section of the bear quilt. It's half finished now. I'll get it to 75% by the end of today.

 

It won't be available for its snuggleability test (very important in a baby quilt) until it's been quilted. For now, the kitties are giving it the sit test. Smitty seems to have some questions about how well this is going to work.

He and Sadie discussed the pros and cons of their findings. Here, she was considering his purrsition on the matter. Nothing has been settled yet. Perhaps today's sewing will provide answers to their concerns.

When I'd finished working on the bear, I went back upstairs and took the final stitches on the farm quilt binding. Now it just needs embellishing. That will be on today's to-do list. I'll be sewing a bell on the cow, and apples on the apple trees. If memory serves there are about 50-60 apples of different sizes, depending on the size of the tree. When the embellishing is done, the quilt will be done.

Finally, having finished this go-round with Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage, it was time to make the 7th plate for Pieces of the Past. This is a small plate. I traced it onto the background fabric.

Then colored it.

And now it's hooped up and ready for stitching. Ya gotta love a project that fits in a single hoop. Actually, I'm not sure I can stitch that close to the hoop, but I'll give it a try.

So I'll start there, and then I'll get back to work on the bear quilt. I'm hoping I can finish off the embellishing today, but the bear quilt takes priority. Also, I'm going to need to water the flower pots and pull some weeds. 

It seems I've escaped another day of jury duty. Only three call-ins left before my commitment is finished at the end of June. Sadly, I'll need to make a trip into town today. I'm doing a test recipe for America's Test Kitchens, and I bought the wrong beans. I was supposed to use dry beans, and I purchased canned. Duh. It's okay. I need some other things too, and it'll make for a shorter list next time around.

All right...so a busy day ahead. We're expecting unseasonably hot weather over the weekend, and we're under a burn ban. After last year's evacuation, we're both a little nervous when the world heats up and there is no burning allowed. Last year's fire was caused by an illegal camp fire. I seriously hope our neighbors on the other side of the hill have learned their lesson on that point.