A Big Finish

There's no accounting for some people. Some people get nothing done when there's no one to hold them accountable. And I did get some things done yesterday, but I spent a lot of my day being lazy. Matthew and I had breakfast in the morning. We'd planned to walk afterward, but then the weather wasn't that nice, and he was in the mood to go foraging for morel mushrooms with a couple of his friends. That was fine with me. I needed to drop off a birthday present for Mae. Later in the day, I received this text from Matthew. He's looking pretty happy about the morels they scored.

I needed to make a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up some eggs. After I got home, I vegged on the couch for quite some time, scrolling on my iPad, accomplishing nothing. Eventually, I got off my keister and filled the bird feeders. While I was out, I noticed the plum tree is blooming.

Also, the wild strawberries are blooming. These produce a very small edible strawberry, and it helps keep the squirrels occupied with something other than my flower pots and cherry tomatoes.

Back inside, I returned to my slothful ways. Sometimes accomplishing nothing is a good goal. It's been a busy and stressful couple of weeks. I'm still waiting on any news about the arrival of a plumber. Mike and I spoke yesterday evening. He has a list of plumbers he's going to call and select one. Possibly someone will show up today, but I doubt it. Probably it will have to wait until Monday. As long as the pipe patch is holding (and it is), it really makes no difference to me, although I would like the downstairs to be put back in order. It will be some time before that happens, and so a few more days really don't matter.

Okay, so eventually, I grew disgusted with my own inertia and I did some slow-stitching. So far, I've been stitching the vertically narrow design at the left edge of the piece. Until I work my way a little more toward the center, there won't be much to fill my hoop. I've stitched the "bracket" that holds the "shelf," and then I've just barely started on the "lace" edge of the "tablecloth." I'm looking foward to getting to the first "pitcher" where there will be more color and some different stitches. 

She's done some buttonhole stitching over the top of the backstitching to fancy up the edge of the tablecloth a little bit. I like the look of that.

As I read over the instructions for starting the stitching on the pitcher, I realized it was hard to understand without seeing more of the design. So I've moved my hoop now to encompass a good portion of the pitcher, and I'll start there this morning. My color palettes have been fairly monochromatic on the last several projects, and so I'm going to enjoy using more color.

There was just one more corner to turn on the Paintbox Pizzazz quilt, and so I turned my attention there. Sadie was Johnny-on-the-spot to help out. Quilt bindings are her specialty.

Smitty could see that a quilt inspector would be needed soon, and so he went to work cleaning his peets. Apparently peet-cleaning is very zen.

Sadie watched him from across the room.

Watching his ecstatic expression as he cleaned his peets worked up her own appetite for some tongue lashing.

There was even less to do than I remembered, and I turned that fourth corner fairly quickly.

And then it was finished. Let's fold our hands and bow our heads. There's some serious quilt inspection in progress.

When it was kitty-tested and appurroved, I took it's picture.

Here's how it looks from the back.

It ends up at 71 x 71 inches. I've promised it to the woman who does my monthly pedicures. This was one of two projects I started for the 2019 Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and so I'll link up there when the party starts tomorrow.

Okay, so it's hard to plan my day not knowing whether a plumber will be knocking on my door. Mike will let me know as soon as he knows anything, but one wonders how much time he'll have for that. They are now camped at the race track, and the race will be starting soon. Assuming I'll have the house to myself again today, I'd like to finish off this emergency embroidery project I started on our drive home from the last RV trip. I'm calling this piece "Give More." I'll make a little wall-hanging out of it.

That shouldn't take long. After that, I want to get going on the quilting for the Paws & Purrs quilt. Ordinarily, I'd make it wait in line behind a couple of other projects that were started earlier. Since it's a donation quilt, I'd like to get it finished and mailed off. 

Yesterday I spent some time reworking our Great Lakes trip. I'm comparing the destinations on the itinerary against the calendar to see how many days this trip will take. It's becoming clear that the number of stops I've included will take more days than we have available. I knew that from the get-go, and so the next step is to decide which things are most important, and which can wait for a future trip. Thank you to those of you who have offered up suggestions. I'm taking them all into account. 

For now, it's time for some breakfast, and then I should probably make myself presentable in case a plumber actually does come calling.