Monday, Monday

The quilting commenced on Ella's Flower Garden yesterday. It's going well so far. When I started, I was fairly certain of the motifs I wanted to use, but I was undecided on thread.

Originally, I thought I'd use all white. I wanted to quilt a flower into the large white areas, and then I'd planned to do a diagonal grid in all the patchwork. Something made me change my mind about the patchwork, though, and I decided instead to do "Terry Twists." I worried that too much white thread in the patchwork would be distracting and so I rethought my thread color. As I looked at the colors in the scrappy patchwork, I thought of this free motion quilting sampler I did some years back.

I loved the thread I used in this sampler. It was a gift from my quilting fairy godmother, Ila. (Thank you, Ila.) It's interesting because looking at it, it appears to have just a few colors. Actually, it has all the colors of the rainbow.

It's a 40-weight thread, and I decided to use it again. It was a bold move deciding to quilt the flowers using this thread on a white background, but what the heck? You only live once, right?

The flower motif I wanted to use was one that Lori Kennedy dubbed "The Easiest Flower Ever." You can see her tutorial and several versions of the flower at the link I just gave you. I ended up using the actual easiest one. (Opinions may vary on which one that is.) Then I wound a bobbin and took a stab at it on an old practice piece. I've practiced on all my practice pieces so many times, I'm afraid I'm going to be forced to make up some new ones. (That's one way to use up some scraps.)

And that was pretty easy. Next, I used a hera marker to mark the center of my quilt block...

Needle down...

Deep breath, and here we go.

Okay, and that looks good enough. Moving to the space beside it, I started in with the Terry Twists. It took some strategizing to decide how far to go and the direction to take to avoid having to cut threads.

I chose that motif for how it would look on the quilt back. If you look carefully in the image below, you can see how it makes a little four-petal flower. It's most easily seen in the lower right corner of the image below.

My goal was to finish two rows of blocks yesterday, and mission accomplished.

It's a little hard to see the quilting in that image, so here's a different angle.

I worried this was going to make my wrist hurt again, but it feels pretty good this morning. I woke up last night, and it was feeling a little stiff then. I'm hoping to do more quilting today, but I'll probably don my splint just to be safe. I really want to get this to binding stage so I can take it along for hand-stitching on next week's little RV get-away. (More about that later.)

In other sewing news, I filled the next portion of my embroidery hoop.

 

And then moved my hoop to the west. And there, my friend, you see the last of the broom straws. The broomstick heads northward on the right side of my hoop. The end is in sight. 

Toward the end of the day, I took a walk outside. The deep blue clematis on the back side of the house is nearly open. There have been several flowers on this plant so far this season, and each one has been bitten off by critters. I'm not sure who the culprit is. I figured I should take its picture while I still had the chance. It was only about half open. 

The sparkly pinwheels seem to be keeping the critters away from the rest of the flowers and the cherry tomato. I decided to give it its own pinwheel, and I'm hoping it'll open all the way today.

As for today, I'm walking with Sue this morning. I learned of a new trail about half an hour from where I live. Sue and I will meet at Chehalem Ridge Nature Park and see what the trails are like. There are around nine miles of hiking trails. We won't walk them all, but I'm curious to see this new addition to our parks and rec system. Of course, I will bring back pictures.

Also on today's agenda, reconstruction is finally supposed to start this morning. Aside from being assured that we were on today's schedule, we've heard nothing further about who will show up nor when. Given past performance on these promises, let's just say I'm skeptical. Maybe, just maybe, I'll be surprised. The window is closing on this project. If it isn't finished by mid-August, it'll have to wait until after mid-October.

Okay, so I need to get ready and take off early for my walk with Sue. Time for breakfast and a little slow stitching before I go. Oh yes, and here's something to take note of: Wednesday is my 12th Blogiversary. That's right. If you've been reading all these years, then consider the time spent as snippets of the past 12 years, you can never get back. For your efforts, I'll have a giveaway for you. Stay tuned for more info in Wednesday's post.