4/5/22

A Rainbow Day

There was plenty of hand-sewing to keep me busy yesterday, but I wanted to make April's blocks for this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt too. April's color is pink, and so I started my sewing day choosing pink scraps in dark and medium values. Smitty was my helper cat in the sewing room. He takes great pride in his work, and it fulfills him.


He can't imagine a more gratifying job than being a sewing cat. His tail is his most important tool. Here, he demonstrates how to most efficiently take advantage of this purrticular talent exclusive to most cats. Sadie lacks this ability. He wants to make sure you to know that.


With his help, I chose pinks for three more blocks.


When they were sewn together, they looked like this:


Here are all the blocks I have for this quilt so far. 


Back upstairs, I took the first stitches in the binding for the Charm Stars quilt. This is where Sadie shines as my helper cat. You know how quilts try to jump off your lap when you're hand-stitching? Sadie holds them down so they can't get too crazy.


She likes to get up close and very purrsonal when she works. She would also like to point out that having no tail is an advantage for this kind of work.


With such a good helper, I was able to turn the first two corners on the binding. 


Usually, I'd say I have only a small part done, although half the corners are done. In this case, I'm actually about halfway around the quilt. I'm hoping to finish it off today.

In other slow-stitching, I filled the first hoop on this Heartland Barns center panel. Now I've moved my hoop to the right, and I'll start on the house...or maybe it's a barn...I forget.


And while I was doing that, the day was ending as it began...with a rainbow.


It was weird spring weather yesterday, with a little of everything. We often get days like that in the Pacific Northwest. We had high winds and rain in the morning, then some hail, and finally, some sunshine at the end.

Today I'll keep working away at my quilt binding. If I make my way into the sewing room, I'm going to sandwich the Posies quilt for quilting. It's a small quilt, and so I can do it on my work table in the sewing room. No need to set up the sawhorse tables in the garage.


This is my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt from 2021. It shouldn't take long to quilt. I'm just going to do some simple straight line quilting, and call it good. Maybe I'll do something in the colored borders of each block. I haven't decided for sure. Sometimes I just have to sit at the machine and let my hands decide what to do next.

We're still watching for that warmer weather. I know many of you are too. So, off I go. It's been nice chatting this morning. I hope y'all have some good stuff coming your way today.


10 comments:

Barbara said...

If you hold a cat by the tail, you learn things you cannot learn any other way.
~ Mark Twain

piecefulwendy said...

We are having a windy, overcast and a bit rainy day today. Feels like a good day for a nap, so that may happen in a bit. Your projects are moving along nicely. I'm sure it's because you have all that purrfect help!

Julierose said...

Your selection of pinks are so pretty--nice blocks for RSC this month
hugs, Julierose

The Joyful Quilter said...

Lovely PINK blocks for the RSC, Barbara! Aren't you lucky? Sadie is such a good helper!

Kara Benavides said...

I absolutely love your narrative! And those squirrel pics are awesome. Is the pink and yellow fabric all one piece? (the backing of your scrap quilt that you got half bound.)

Darlene S said...

I always thought it was you who had the excellent eye for selecting colors. Lucky you to have Smitty helping you out. Maybe someday he can share tips for selecting colors. These are lovely pinks! Cat fabric is purrfect!

Kate said...

You have such great helper kitties. I really like you choice of RSC block for this year, the blocks so far promise to make a really cool quilt.

Magpie's Mumblings said...

Smitty helped choose some great fabrics (particularly the kitty one). I'm not a fan of pink myself so I'll happily wait to see what colour comes next. Green perhaps?
Great rainbow photo....my camera isn't good enough to even begin to capture such things.

Char said...

Love the contrast of the black with those blocks and your embroidery is wonderful. Cudos to your purr-fect helper kitties.

Chantal said...

I love your RSC blocks. I too am making Jericho Wall blocks for my RSChallenge. I also use black as my center but use wine coloured-fabric for the corners and scrappy neutral background. Love how they look in grey. Gorgeous! ;^)