Nearing a Finish

My feet were dragging after making a trip into town yesterday. I had to run an errand, mail a letter, and pick up about 10 items at the grocery store. It wasn't really that big a deal, but it seems any time I have to drive into town, I arrive home exhausted. I had some lunch and took a nap. By 1:30, I still hadn't accomplished a single thing in the kitchen for dinner with the kids tonight. Finally, I said out loud, "Get going." And it seems a little bossing myself around was all I needed. There was only about an hour's effort in the kitchen. Sheesh.

On a positive note, I dragged my feet for so long that the fabric I was awaiting arrived. When I was finished with my kitchen duties, I still had about an hour and a half left for sewing. I needed a pretty blue for the Peruvian Sunflowers quilt back, and there was nothing in my stash that I liked. I ended up with a half a yard of this one, and I finished off my quilt back with just one seam.

As I was getting it ready to sandwich for quilting, my quilt inspector showed up.

She waited around while I finished sandwiching...

and quilting. I quilted some meandering sunflower leaves in the green background section.

Then, some clouds in the sky.

And some more meandering sunflower leaves in the blue border. I hope you can see the quilting. I've messed with the brightness and contrast, trying to make it easier to see.

When it was all finished, I needed to let the quilt inspector have a look before I could square it up for binding.

Purr...let's just give this quilt the snuggleability test.

Purrfectly soft and cushy...I'm going to give this a pawssing grade. I could take a nap right here, right now.

Okay, so I felt safe squaring it up. I might have done the binding at this point. It was getting late in the day, and I knew it would take longer than I wanted to spend. So I left it right here.

I have binding strips cut from that same fabric for the inner border, and I'll probably have time to get going on that today.

The kids will be here for dinner later this afternoon. In the meantime, I need to get some baked beans started from scratch. The beans have been soaking overnight, but they need quite a bit of time in the oven to make them delicious. Also, I'm starting some chicken breasts in the slow cooker for pulled chicken sandwiches. Finally, I need to finish off the lemon meringue pie. I made the crust yesterday, getting it to baking stage. This morning I'll make the filling and the meringue. I'm hoping to have it all done early enough to get the binding sewn onto the quilt. The Charm Stars quilt will have to wait another day for its turn to be quilted.

So there's plenty to do on this morning's agenda. I'll spend a little time slow-stitching first, but then, I really need to get going. No time for dragging my feet today.