A Day for Rainbows

If I'd been paying attention, I might have seen a rainbow outside yesterday. It wasn't meant to be, though. I spent the day in the sewing room, working on rainbow projects in there. I'm happy to say June's contribution to my two rainbow projects is complete. My morning stitching effort was devoted to stitching June's Books and Roses block.

It was time to get dressed and start my day by then. When I came downstairs to get started on whatever was at the top of my list, I noticed the sun was shining. It actually cleared up around lunch time and turned into a nice afternoon. I had a couple of little things that needed planting, and so it seemed as good a time as any. Of course, I had company while I was out. 

Both kitties kept an eye out for little furry mammals.

The volunteer catnip isn't panning out much this year. When we were at the grocery store the other day, I picked up a good-looking catnip start and re-established the Gracie Memorial Catnip Garden. Gracie's garden didn't come back last year. It might have had something to do with the squirrels digging it up, but that's just par for the course. Hopefully, they won't destroy this one, and we'll get a good crop of catnip for kitty dining pleasure. 

I've been drying it and crumbling it, but we've run out of our home-grown weed. I gave Smitty some store-bought the other day, and he looked at me with eyes that said, "What's this sh*t?"

Also, I replaced the dead rosemary with a living one. And I added a French tarragon plant. I have a hard time keeping either one going in the herb garden, and usually end up starting new each year.

That was all the planting I needed to do, so I took a little walk around. The peonies are the most watched thing in the garden right now. If we could get some warmth and sunshine, I think these would pop open.

Their neighbors to the left look ready to pop as well.

This next one is the cruel, never-blooming, peony. It looks like this flower is getting ready to do something.

There's another one too...it sort of looks like I can see its petals. I've seen this before, though. I won't be fooled until I see the whites of its eyes...or whatever.

The golden chain tree is blooming away. I'm happy to see this since this is our third try at getting a golden chain tree going. 

Several flowers on the dark purple rhodie have opened. It's always the last to bloom, and I'm assuming it's because it sees itself as the best.

It's neighbor across the sidewalk is almost completely bloomed out.

The poor poppy plant was all weighed down with moisture. Seven flowers have opened. I shook all the water off the flowers, hoping they'd come back to their full brilliance. I was sad to find one bud on the ground. I don't know if the rain beat it off its stem or if the squirrels had something to do with this flower bud murder. I shook my fist at them just in case.

Inside the greenhouse, the cucumbers are looking good. I'll have to keep an eye on them. When they start blooming, they'll need a little fondling with my soft make-up brush to be sure they get pollinated.

Okay, so back inside, I added borders to the Books and Roses block, and that completed June's block.

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

The cutting was already done for the three Jericho Walls blocks. I laid them out.

And then sewed them together.

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

Those are my two Rainbow Scrap projects. I'll be linking up next Saturday.

From there it was time to turn my attention to the challenge quilt. I might be showing more than I'm supposed to, but I'm going to show it anyway. This is the background I cooked up for my animal. I'm pretty sure that "sunset" fabric is one of Vicki Welsh's hand-dyes.

I wanted to do curved piecing for those bottom two fabrics, but I couldn't make it work. I ended up cutting the seams straight. Then, I fused the animal to the background. Here's your peek.

Now I'm ready to start the thread-painting. These are the variegated threads I've chosen. I'll probably also be using solids in these many shades of brown, and I'll be adding in some black threads as well.

That will be how I spend most of today. I'm excited to move this on to the next step, now that all the piecing is finished.

It's looking gloomy out again today. We need to make a short trip into town, and then I'll get back to my sewing. I expect we'll hear from the reconstruction company today about what our next steps are for the basement. It's probably at least a couple of weeks before I'm kicked out of the sewing room.