Quilting Irish

It was kind of a weird day yesterday. A crew came to wash and wax the outside of the RV. The RV looks great, and they were here and gone after about two hours. We weren't sure when they would arrive or how long it would take, and so it was kind of hard to plan the day. Sadie and Smitty knew what to do though. They napped while we waited, and put an extra helping of cat snot on the window.

The cat snot was for Mike to clean. (You didn't think I was going to do it, did you?) They didn't want him to feel left out.

While we waited for the crew to arrive, I had time to stitch the day's inchy. This one was easy enough, but it took a long time.

I had some good stitching friends while I worked on that. Friends don't let friends stitch alone. 

If you're wondering why there are two kleenex boxes there, well...one has kleenex. The other is an empty box. I keep the empty ones to use as a little trash box for all my bits of snipped threads. I have one next to my sewing machine at home too. Works great, and when it's full, it goes straight into the trash.

Okay, and then it was a dreaded sewing machine moment. I'd planned on quilting while the crew was here, but I first had to install this surprisingly difficult-to-figure-out free motion foot to my machine. For as many times as I've done this, I still can't do it without consulting the instructions. So I had it installed, and then I took this picture. But it still wasn't on right. 

In the image above, you can see there's a small metal thinga-ma-bob (technical sewing machine terms) that has to go above the screw that holds the needle. Here, I had it installed so that it was below the needle screw. And it's impossible, even with the presser foot up, to fit the foot under the whole thing without removing that whole assembly. So, I did that, and put it all back together. In the image below, you can see that it's now in the right place. When it's installed improperly, the needle is blocked from going up and down.

And this is why I've put off doing any quilting until all the piecing projects were finished. Now that it's on the machine, I'll quilt all three of the small projects I have with me before switching back to the regular quarter-inch foot. I'll sew on the quilt bindings when all three projects are quilted.

Okay, so let's get to the quilting, shall we? I kept it pretty simple. I stippled around the words and included little shamrocks as I went.

In each corner, I put a little stylized shamrock.

And then I did some cross-hatching in the outer border.

Oh, but no quilting day would be complete without doing something like this. Drat!

It wasn't as bad as it might have been, and I was able to fix it in about 15 minutes. Now it's ready for binding.

It's pretty hard to see anything from the back, but here it is anyway.

When I'm ready to sew the binding strips on, I'll be using this green stripe. It's a leftover binding from another project.

By then the crew had come and gone. We held off putting up the bird feeders until they were finished. Now, I'm hopeful we'll get some birds. Seed feeders are permitted here. Having the tree nearby should help.

Okay, and so we'd planned a trip to my favorite store, Goodwill. Mike didn't bring enough t-shirts along and he's been rotating the same 3-4 shirts for weeks. He wanted to find a couple of t-shirts. I was looking for a sweatshirt. I hope this doesn't fall under the category of TMI, but I'm going to tell it to you anyway. Smitty sleeps snuggled up next to me at night, and being a cat, he simply cannot resist kneading me with his claws. I've taken to wearing a sweatshirt to bed, no matter the weather, to act as my skin's protective shield. 

Approximately 25 years ago, I purchased three brand new sweatshirts at Goodwill. In the intervening time, all three have been worn literally to tatters. The last of them was the one I had here in the RV. Since the beginning of the trip, I've been pointing out Goodwill stores to Mike so I can get a new sweatshirt to act as my bedtime suit of armor. Finally, yesterday afternoon, we went. I'm was looking for something in good shape and approximately three sizes too big to make it roomy and comfortable for sleeping. I found the perfect thing. It appeared brand new...never even washed. I have an idea why:

Okay, and I'm just the messenger. I don't care what it says...it'll work for my purposes. And since Mike's the only one to see it, it kind of works no matter how you think about it. 

So we ended up with two t-shirts for Mike, a sweatshirt for me, new food dishes for the kitties (the ones they have now give them whisker anxiety), and a 6-inch cake pan. Yes, I found the exact same cake pan I bought from Amazon this past week (priced at $8.39) for 99¢ at Goodwill. And it's all good because I'll put the Goodwill pan in our truck camper. It's important to have well-stocked baking armory when you're camping, doncha know. And we got all of that cool stuff for a grand total of $18. Now you know why Goodwill is my favorite store.

So that was our day. Today we're going hiking in Red Rock Canyon. Interestingly, we were there exactly two years ago when Erik and Mae joined us in Pahrump for a few days. We did three short hikes with them that day. We were under cloudy skies, and so my pictures weren't all that great. Today is bright and sunny, and so I'm hoping to get some better shots. We'll check our hiking book and pick a good trail...or maybe more than one. Either way, it's going to be a good day.

Probably I won't do any sewing today, but when I get back to it, I'll be quilting the small Rise and Shine quilt. It should be another easy one.

Today's inchy is posted, and so I'll be heading there right after breakfast. It's going to be a full day.