Another Day of Rain

As I'm writing this, the sun is shining, and the day's weather looks promising. Reconstruction is supposed to commence in our basement today, and so I'm hopeful the good weather will continue. It probably doesn't matter since new carpet is a part of the deal, but I'd still rather people not be tracking mud onto the soon-to-be-replaced carpeting. 

You might be tired of me complaining about the rain. I am too, but it isn't just our imagination here. We really have had a record-setting amount of rain this spring (if one can call it that). I saw this on Instagram yesterday...a post from our local newspaper.

And let me just say I knew it!! It's always good to be vindicated when one complains about the weather on a daily basis.  The kitties know what to do in this kind of weather. There's sewing weather, and then there's sleeping weather. Cats choose the one offering the most warmth.

Before I get too far along today, several of you have asked questions about the Sticky-Fabri-Solvy I mentioned in yesterday's post. Sadly, several of you are no-reply, and so I can't answer you personally. Enough people asked to warrant some extra explanation blog-wise, and so I'll direct you to this post from many years ago when I used the product for the first time. You can see there how it works in this "Trying Something New" post. When I'd finished stitching that particular quilt block, I followed-up with a "Last Word" post later. (And before you go away, read on for my final last word on the matter.)

Fast forward to today, and I've changed my way of rinsing it from a finished quilt block. Although some people told me not to do this, I went ahead and did it anyway, because you know...I won't be bossed around. Nowadays, I put the quilt block into a mesh bag, run plenty of water in my washing machine, and run it through a rinse cycle. It does a better job of removing the sticky stuff, and I've had no problems with the washing machine. If you have a "high efficiency" washer like mine that minimizes the amount of water it uses, I suggest adding in some clean towels or something to force it to use more water. 

So, getting back to yesterday, while kitties slept, I got back to my quilting. I've finished three of five rows now. Yesterday's started with this tulip. I outlined the applique, then added in some "shape lines" to the leaves and flower petals, and then did some stippling around the background.

To its left was a basket. I considered how to quilt it, but then returned to this motif I stitched in a free motion quilting challenge some years back. (I love that thread. Thank you, Ila.) I've always liked this motif, and so it seemed a good time to use it in the basket that follows.

And, voila! I filled in the basket portion as above, and then did this "paper clip" motif in the handle. I'm usually working that one vertically. Yesterday I stitched it horizontally, which was harder to do. Then I finished the outer portions with more dot-to-dot quilting.

This next block combined dot-to-dot quilting in the flowers with outlining the applique and stitching in more leaf veins.

Here, things got dicey because my bobbin thread ran out, and it took me three tries to get the bobbin wound evenly. The thread kept popping out of the tension disks and making a big mess. I ended up wasting a lot of thread too. Oh well...finally, I had it right again, and I could finish off the last block of the day with more outlining and more dot-to-dot quilting.

From there, I headed down to my basement sewing room to work on some of the Calendula Patterdrip blocks. By then, Smitty was wide awake and ready to help.

So, you might recall, I had six half square triangles sewn into this configuration:

As I was leaving the sewing room that day, I glanced at the picture from the front of the pattern and saw this:

Oops...I think I sewed those HST's together wrong. So I checked it again yesterday...sure enough. So I took them apart and sewed them together again. Now I had one "broken dishes" block and two more HST's. Easy enough to fix.

Then I made a variation on a 9-patch...

and a traditional 9-patch. That tall ship fabric is some I bought as a regional fabric in an Astoria, Oregon, quilt shop.

Moving on, I needed one "rail fence" block....

a "flying geese" block...

and a "friendship star."

And I was getting tired of sewing by then. As I was leaving, I glanced again at the pattern. Oy boy. Do you see what I see? I had those six HST's sewn together properly all along. The "broken dishes" block comes later. I hate it when I undo what I think is wrong only to realize I had it right all along.

So, okay...I couldn't walk away knowing that, and so I made four more HST's and sewed them together as I had them originally. 

Now I need five more blocks to finish Section 7 of the quilt, but I won't be ready to sew everything together until I make the blocks for Section 8. You can see where Section 8 is in the image below.

The rain had stopped by then, and it was nearing dinner time. I took a walk outside to see if there was anything new at the peony bed. This one is a little farther along, but nothing else was happening. They're waiting for the sun to come out, just like the rest of us.

Today will go pretty much like yesterday...more quilting and more quilt blocks. And today, add in the sound of reconstructing our guest room. The kitties are not going to be happy about Mans invading their purrsonal space with their cat-stomping feet and their noisy machinery. If they survive the day, it will be a meowrical.