Snow in Nevada

Don't let that title scare you...there is no snow in Nevada right now. On the other hand, we have been right here in Pahrump when snow has fallen. Here's a picture from our visit last year.

Okay, but we've written that off as an aberration of the pandemic year when everything was crazy. (Whaddaya mean everything is still crazy?!?)  It does get cold here sometimes, and sometimes it snows. Just not now...and not today, because it's sunny and warm outside right now. I'll get to the snow in a just a minute, but first, yesterday's inchy:

It was an easy one, and I needed it after the dreaded bullion stitches of the day before. Smitty could see I didn't need help with this one, and so he took the opportunity for a long winter's nap, including dreaming and kicking. (He'll be embarrassed to see this image when he reads today's post.)

After that, I went straight to work on the Scrappy Mini Single Snowflake. Right away, I decided to do the cutting a little differently. If you read the pattern at the link I've provided above, I was to cut 112 – 1-1/2” blue squares and 98 – 1-1/2” cream squares. The pattern goes on to say that from each color, 41 of these squares will be used to make half square triangle blocks. And that seemed kind of silly to me. Why cut all those little blocks? Why not use a different method to make the half square triangles so that there is less cutting and less waste? So, rebel that I am, I went ahead and cut 72 of the blue squares and 58 of the cream squares. Then I cut 21 - 1-7/8" squares from each color to make the half square triangles two at a time. (There was one left over when I was finished sewing it all together.)

If you're unfamiliar with this way of making them, just know that by adding 3/8 inch to any size square, you can make two half square triangles in the proper size. Simply draw a line corner to corner, stitch 1/4 inch away from each side of the line, then cut on the line and voila! You'll have two half square triangles in the size you want them. (Trimming is highly recommended.)

When all that was finished, I was ready to start sewing it together. I divided the picture from the pattern into four quadrants and sewed them together starting with the northwest quadrant...

Then the southwest quadrant...

Then the northeast quadrant...

And, finally, the southeast quadrant.

Then I sewed them all together and my quilt top was finished.

And since I'm trying to use the iron as much as possible while I still have electricity, I sewed together the binding strips, folded them in half and ironed. You can see the binding on the right side of the image below.

As it turns out, I packed this kit up as thoroughly as I did the Mini Apple quilt. In addition to binding strips, I had batting and a backing included. I'll be using the fabric below for the backing. These were the cut-off edges from the quilt back on another larger quilt I made a while back. It required sewing one seam to get it to the right size.

And then I sandwiched it for quilting, using my hairspray again for spray baste.

So I had the quilt this far, and even posted to social media when I realized there was a piecing error. Do you see it? Go ahead and look. I'll wait. (Doh!) Only then...I'd been so careful...and so I went back and looked at the picture from the pattern (shown below). Do you see it there too?

Okay, well hers might actually be a very light blue, but it looked cream to me, and so I copied what she'd done. I was already scheming about how to fix this without taking it all apart again. I decided instead of changing it, I'm going to either quilt or hand embroider a little blue snowflake there using a blue metallic thread (or metallic floss), and I'll probably stitch some little beads there too. I might even like it better with that little bit of sparkly embellishment. It's all good, and I'm happy with what I have so far.

Okay, and so then, after trying dozens of times during our stay here, I finally caught an Annas hummingbird at the feeder. His head is aglow in the afternoon light.

And then I turned around and admired how nicely the roses have kept since Valentine's Day. 

This morning's inchy is already stitched. It was another easy one, but I like it. It's very dainty and pretty.

Today I'm going to hang out and relax some more. Since I spent the whole live-long day inside yesterday, I want to get out for a nice walk. For today's walk, I'd like to get out of the RV park and take a walk through the adjacent neighborhood. Mike is off getting yet another flat tire fixed. He noticed one of the front tires on the truck was low yesterday. We both looked at the tire, but couldn't see anything, so I'm curious what they'll find when they fix it.

So that's all the news from the Traveling Three Cats Ranch. We have just today and tomorrow in Pahrump, and then we'll be moving on to Death Valley National Park for a week-long stay. I hope your Saturday is off to a good start.