A Rose is a Rose is a Rose

When Mike and I got married, I wore a perfume called "A Rose is a Rose is a Rose." I'm not much for perfume, but you know...getting married called for something a little bit special. The perfume was nothing special. I bought it at a department store counter, and it was inexpensive. It really did smell like roses though, and that was the point. And that story has nothing to do with yesterday's sewing, but you know...there's no filter on my tangential brain.

It was a pretty day yesterday, although it was much colder than it has been. Some forecasts called for snow down to our level, but we didn't see anything like that. I kept warm while I did my morning slow-stitching. Most of my hoop was filled, but I didn't want to start on the quilt block until I could capture the whole thing. This morning I'll start there. 

I was out briefly with the kitties and noticed some bedraggled volunteer pansies that refuse to accept the coming of winter.

Smitty was my excellent helper cat yesterday. He used his tail to point the way as I cut out the flower shapes.

As I sewed each flower together, he held them down while I cut the next layer.

And he kept track of the piles I was making to take south this winter.

With so much help, I was able to finish four more flowers for a total of five. That completes the first of five rows.

I'll admit to being not much of a scrap quilter. By that I mean that I use my scraps, but I don't usually make a quilt all from scraps unless I'm using up a collection of bonus triangles or orphan blocks. Also, I make the Rainbow Scrap quilts, but again...I'm only looking at one color and not rifling through a big box of scraps of many colors. There's no reason for this. It just doesn't usually happen.

So, this was kind of fun. The vast bulk of what I have came from other people who are complete strangers, and so it was interesting see what others had in their own scrap bins. These being flannel, there were a lot of baby prints. Also, I noticed lots of frogs. There were a few honoring hobbies like golf and soccer.

You can find Ronald McDonald and friends in the image below if you look carefully. As I was making these, I was just looking for pieces large enough for the template, and then looking for contrast between dark and light. Otherwise, they're just put together randomly. I didn't mention yesterday that the edges are left raw. When the quilt is finished, I'll wash it, and the edges will rag and ruffle. 

In addition to the four blocks, I cut sets of fabrics for ten more blocks, and I'll take these south when we go. It'll be a good take-along project, and the quilt will be more than half finished by the time we return home.

The blocks are easy to make, and an individual block isn't particularly time-consuming. Still, it took my entire sewing day to get all these finished. 

Today I have a couple of things on the agenda. I'm going to bake some Gingerbread Biscotti. It's probably my only Christmas baking this year. I'm still trying to shed some pounds, and it has been *very* slow going. I'm making progress, but Thanksgiving set me back some. Tonight we're going to a Farm & Forage event at a local winery. The whole family will be there, and so it's going to be fun. 

Coincidentally, it's the one-year anniversary of falling on my bike and breaking myself. One year on, my shoulder and thumb still hurt 100% of the time. I can ignore both around 95% of the time, and so it's really not that bad. Although I keep hoping, I'm beginning to doubt I'll ever have full range of motion in my shoulder. My thumb seems to have permanently fused itself at the first joint. It makes gripping a pen difficult, and my penmanship has suffered for it. Oh well. Things could be far worse, and so I count my blessings. As for the biscotti, I'll probably foist some of it off on the kids. I'll have to see how much I end up with, and Mike will have the final say since it's really going to be a treat for him.

Also, I need to make a trip into town and drop off an exchange item at a FedEx box. I bought some shoes online, and I ordered my size. They are about a half size too big, though, and so I'm exchanging them for a smaller size. It's all easy enough to do (despite the drive into town), and there's no extra charge. The one fly in the ointment is that they won't ship the new pair until they have the old pair, and I worry I won't receive them before we leave to head south. That's a bummer, but we can ask a neighbor to pick them up when they arrive. And, if a miracle happens, maybe I'll receive them before we go. I'm not going to hold my breath waiting, however.

Okay, so onward. There's much to do. I'm thinking I'll probably have time to work on the next Ties & Tails block today. We have a fun evening ahead. Get ready for some pictures of yummy food and wine tomorrow.