Focus on Slow

Slowly, we're all recovering around here. Smitty is far from 100%, but he's improving. This morning, I found him on the top shelf of his kitty pole. It's his purrimary place of residence when he's not helping me with sewing, and he hadn't felt strong enough to jump to the top for at least several days. Although he's still sneezing some, he feels good enough to jump high. If you missed the update on what we learned from the vet, you can read it right here.

It was lunch time when I was home from my grocery shopping yesterday. There was just a little bit left to finish off Plate #8 for the Pieces of the Past quilt. When it is sewn into the quilt top, it will be positioned vertically, as you see it here:

These are all the plates I have for this quilt so far. There will still be one more plate, and then I'll start working on some of the other designs for the quilt. There is a lot of embroidery in this one.

With that one finished, it was time to make up my next embroidered quilt block. Having finished all the blocks for Dancing Chickens and Flying Pigs, there was an opening on my embroidery dance card. 

As I've mentioned before, I have so many embroidery patterns that I can't choose among them. I want to make all of them, all at the same time. And so I made a numbered list of patterns (a version for long-term and short-term projects), and I use a random number generator to select the next one I'll work on. (I do the same thing with my list of books to read.)  As it so happens, the random number generator selected Jennifer Reynolds' (Jenny of Elefantz) 2016 free BOM offering of "Gentle Domesticity." There are 12 quilt blocks in the set, but no finishing instructions. Here's a look at the 12 blocks she designed and stitched:

You can find her post about this BOM right here. I've done some poking around on her website. It seems some of the designs are still available for a small fee in her shop. I'm starting with the first block released in 2016. Jennifer's version looks like this:

There's very little offered up in the way of instructions or color choices. I'm just eyeballing hers and doing whatever looks similar. Yesterday, I did the applique and tracing. 

Also, I'm changing the name of mine to "Domestic Affairs." I'll admit to enjoying domestic challenges, and I've often said I was born 50 years too late. I would have loved being a stay-at-home mother and housewife, but it was not of my time. When Mike and I were raising our kids, one income just didn't cut it. That said, I'm not nearly as squishy about homemaking as Jennifer is.

This morning, I'll start stitching my version. It's hooped up and ready to go. 

And that's about all that happened yesterday. I did a few things around the house, including filling the birdfeeders and watering the flowers. Today has been designated NBS (Nothing But Sewing), but I'll still need to get out into the garden and harvest green beans and zucchini. The corn is also ready for harvest, but we'll hold off until the kids come up Sunday. Won't it be nice to have fresh garden corn for our little get-together? After we've eaten our fill, Mike and I will harvest the rest for freezing.

Aside from vegetable harvesting, there's just one miniscule item on my list of housekeeping chores. Other than that, I'll be spending the day in the sewing room. It's time to get a start on the Vintage Linen quilt. I've been chomping at the bit to get after it.