A Purrfect Finish

Mike arrived home yesterday afternoon. It was almost like he never left. The RV is parked in the driveway once again, awaiting unpacking. This morning there's a kitty in his lap. And Smitty would like to purrtest the lack of adequate lap space here at the Three Cats Ranch over the past week. When you have two cats, and just one lap, the situation becomes purroblematic.

Fortunately, the weather was halfway decent yesterday, and so the kitties had a good amount of outdoor time.

Finally, the clematis is having its proper day. It has been threatening to bloom for at least a couple of weeks. Finally, the flowers are opening.

With a few days of sunshine, we should start seeing lots of color in the garden. The azaleas are just bursting to open.

This one next to the relatively warm foundation of the house couldn't wait any longer.

The poppy bud is large enough now that I can find it without pulling back the foliage. It's about the size of a ping pong ball.

Back inside, Smitty helped me sew the quilt binding to the Paws & Purrs quilt. In case you haven't noticed, a cat's tail is its most important tool.

Usually I machine sew my bindings to the front of the quilt, then flip to the back for hand-sewing. Quilts for Kids prefers a machine binding, and so I sewed this one to the back to flip to the front. Then I sewed another line of stitching to the front edge. I didn't like how the folded edge of the binding wanted to curl up around the stitching, and so I went around again with a line of zigzag stitching. That oughta hold it.

And now it's been washed, and it's ready for packing up to be mailed off for donation.

Here's how it looks from the back.

I realized I don't have a properly large envelope for mailing it, and so I'll need to pay a visit to an office supply store before I can do that...no later than tomorrow.

Next up, I want to make May's block for the Books and Roses quilt. I traced out the embroidery. 

Usually, I'm using a bit of the border fabric as an applique on the embroidered portion of the block. This month's RSC color is "forest green and sage." I chose this fabric, but I didn't see how I was going to make the embroidery stand out against that green.

For this block, I'm leaving off the applique. I'll have to leave it off a few more for consistency. This one will be all embroidery. Sadie helped me with that part. And here, you can see the problem with our inadequate lap situation. If Sadie is on my lap, where is Smitty supposed to sit? Huh?

We pondered that very important question while I stitched it up.

It's ready for sewing the borders on now, but Mike arrived home about that time. I figured I should at least say hello...welcome home...and so I quit for the day.

In other slow stitching, I finished up the section of the left pitcher. There was just a little more to do on the spout. You can see it outside the perimeter of the hoop.

While we watched the news last night, I stitched up the remainder of the pitcher and started on a section of the sugar bowl. I should have that finished this morning, and then I'll move back to the bottom edge where the tablecloth is.

Usually, I'm fairly systematic about how I move my hoop around a large piece like this. This one is going to require a little more flexibility.

Oh yes...I almost forgot. I wasn't sure if Mike would be home for dinner, and so I planned a light dinner for myself. I'd seen this recipe online, and I like how cucumber and cream cheese taste together. So I gave it a try for dinner last night. This is the image from the website for a Cucumber Sandwich.

It was easy to make and low-calorie enough. It was very tasty. I'm a great fan of fresh dill, and it was nice with the cucumber. I think this sandwich would be good with just a little bit of sweet onion or red onion. Also, the cream cheese spread would be good with any vegetable sandwich...not just cucumber. I used the low-fat cream cheese, and I substituted low-fat sour cream for the plain yogurt. I offered to put a slice of ham on Mike's sandwich, just to increase the protein, but he liked it the way it was. The recipe claims to be enough for one, and so I doubled it. We each had a sandwich liberally spread with the cream cheese, and there's a little left over for lunch today.

We're heading out to the grocery store this morning. It's going to be fairly nice weather today, and so I want to plant my cherry tomato and maybe accomplish a few more things outside. If there's time for sewing, I want to get busy making green blocks for the Jericho Walls quilt. Here's where I left off last time I worked on it.

I'm making three blocks from each color.

So there's plenty on the day's agenda. Breakfast is up next. After that, what passes for normal around here can resume.