Recuperative Sunshine

It was truly a lovely day yesterday. We had sunshine from dawn to dusk. Today we're back to our usual gray and gloom, and snow is in our forecast for tomorrow. We'll see how it all pans out. But let's just talk about yesterday's sunshine, shall we? We'll leave the gloom for another day. I was committed to getting out and pulling a bucket of weeds, which I did. After that, I went around checking to see what's what in the flower business. 

The red flowering currant at the edge of our woods has opened completely now. Probably I've said this before, but I feel very fortunate to have this Oregon native growing wild at the edge of our woods. They are also sold in nurseries. I noticed ours the first year we lived in our house.

I walked a short distance into the woods to see if there were any new wildflowers. I didn't see anything in particular, but the wild violets are blooming like a lavender carpet.

Back up near the house, the now weed-free blueberry bed looks a lot better. The blueberries were planted just last year, and they are coming back strong. They appear to be forming flowers.

Buds are forming on the cherry trees as well.

At the front of the house, I can see the colors on the coming lilac blossoms.

We're getting plenty of tulips in our whiskey barrels now. I'm hoping they'll get a chance to bloom before the deer spot them.

Okay, and so I took some time to ice my aching knees, and then headed into the sewing room. Smitty followed me there to make sure I actually did some sewing. He was worried about me getting another bout of the I-can't-help-it-itis. This could negatively impact the treat dispensing, and so he tries to stay on top of any symptoms he sees. He stayed long enough for sewing to commence, and then he went back outside.

The day before, I'd quilted one of the horizontal sashings on the Posies quilt.

Yesterday, I quilted the little fancy flower stitch into all the sashings, starting with the horizontal ones.

Then, I did the vertical ones. Where they overlapped, I briefly switched to a straight stitch and just stitched right through the intersection. Of course, I looked both ways before crossing. One can never be too careful.

When that was finished, I did a straight stitch right around the edges of the embroidered centers.

Here's how it looks from the back. It's a little hard to see in all that color, but I really love that fabric. I bought way more than I needed, and so I have enough for another quilt.

I could have selected almost any color for the binding, but decided to go with this pale green.

And now it's sewn to the quilt's edge, and it's ready for hand-stitching. That's probably where I'll spend my time today.

With such nice weather, we were planning to eat dinner outside if the warmth lasted long enough. In anticipation, I'd made some Quick Pickled Onions earlier in the day. These are so easy and good. Mike likes to add them to sandwiches, and so I try to keep a jar in the refrigerator at all times.

On our menu was this Barbecued Sirloin and Blue Cheese Salad. This is a perennial favorite around here. We've had a similar salad in a nearby restaurant. The restaurant version includes the pickled onions, and so we add them too. We had some hunks of tri-tip steak that Mike barbecued, and that made for a very nice evening sitting outside in the waning sunlight.

As we sat, I took the opportunity to test out the telephoto capabilities of my new camera. These little black-capped chickadees like to hop around in the lilac bush, about 20 feet away. Even in the low light, I was able to zoom in and get a pretty good shot of one of them. I was even able to capture the "eye spot."

I was able to capture this little hummingbird. He was just over my shoulder about ten feet away.

Here's another shot of him slurping up some hummingbird food. I'd just cleaned and refilled their feeders, and so there was a lot of hummingbird activity.

Looking off quite some distance, this is a favorite tree for all birds.

The hummingbirds like it because they can guard both feeders from the tippy top of the tree. Here's where the camera reached its limits. I was zoomed in with the digital zoom, which is less satisfying than the optical zoom. Also, I've cropped him from a larger image, and so he's a little pixelated, but I wanted you to see this bird sitting in the catbird seat.

Looking back over my other shoulder, Smitty was enjoying the evening in his catio. He loves this time of year, and you can find him in this position most evenings. Sometimes when we're sitting outside, he'll come to the window and cry to be let out. He was happy here yesterday.

And that was the end of our day here at the Three Cats Ranch. We took good advantage of the sunshine and warmth. It might be the last we'll see for at least another week.

Today I'll endeavor to finish the quilt binding on the Posies quilt. If I can finish that off, I'll be back to working on my list of WIP's. First on the list will be to make another block for the Vintage Linen quilt. Here are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

I'm not completely happy with that block on the left. I cut it off center, and I think I should have cut the center piece a little larger. I'm leaving it for now, but I might decide to remake it when I get most of the blocks finished. Another possibility is to simply add a strip of fabric to the right side and then trim it on the left, bringing the center panel more to the middle. On the other hand, it might get lost in the shuffle when it's included among the planned 20 blocks. We'll see. This quilt is strictly for my own use, and an experiment in bringing my grandmother's handwork out into the light. For now, I'll just stick with what I have, and decide later if I want to make any changes to that one block.

Okay, so slow-stitching is next. I'm nearly finished with the section I'm working on. It's sounding like the day will be mostly slow today. If there's any sunshine, I'd love to get out and deadhead the hydrangeas. As usual, there's no shortage of things to keep me busy.