We're All in our Places

Things are returning to normal slowly but surely. The kitties have been a little freaked since we arrived home...Sadie, especially. As a formerly feral cat, she's easily over-stimulated, and all the changes have meant she needs a lot of alone time. She spends most of her days sleeping on top of the hutch over my desk, coming out for snuggles and pets only occasionally. Also, she's happy to be outside in the morning. (We limit their outdoor time to a few hours in the morning.) This morning, she sat on my lap for the first time since we've been home. When I left her, she was snuggled up in a flannel quilt. Life is good for Sadie.

I've been freaked too without my sewing room. Yesterday, I set up a temporary space for myself on the dining room table. We only use the table when the family comes over, and so I can stay set up here for at least a while. Most everything I needed was readily available. I had to hunt down a few things, but found everything I needed. In the image below, you can see my travel iron set up on the breakfast bar in the upper left corner. As I searched for some other items I needed, I found my big iron and my wool pressing mat, and that was a much better solution for ironing. 

Also, I brought up my portable Ott light to give me plenty of good lighting. I happened to have the seat cushion I use in the RV to give myself a boost, and that turned out to be a good choice for the dining room chair too. My "go bag" of a sewing box, had a seat to my right side. Nifty, huh? It's the first machine sewing I've done in months.

My goal was to finish the "Boustrophedon" challenge piece for The Endeavourers art quilt challenge. And my quilt was quite a challenge this go-round. Since my sewing room was dismantled before the prompt was announced, my only choice was to set up elsewhere. And then throw in traveling for two months out of the three-month challenge period, and you can see that timing was everything. I decided my best bet was to hand-stitch something on the road, and then finish it off when we arrived home again. (When I made these plans, I expected my sewing room would be back in order when we arrived home. Ha! Silly me.)

Okay, so my ideas about my quilt were still within the confines of my mind, but it all went together perfectly. Absolutely no need for my seam ripper, although I had it close at hand. I first trimmed the hand-stitched center panel, and then added two borders. When that was finished, I added the batting to the back of the quilt top. I had in mind to use one of the fancy stitches on my sewing machine to add to the design, but it also serves as some of the quilting. I was using stitch #401 on my Bernina 750QE machine.

Here's a peek at that:

From there, it was ready for binding.

The kitties helped by being on the wrong side of the door...constantly. Whichever side of the door they were on, it was the wrong side. It negated the need for a workout because I jumped up and down out of my chair at least 462 times during the day. 

I got an upper body workout by opening and closing the sliding glass door each time. Kitties...so health conscious.

They were inside for good when I settled in for hand-stitching. By day's end it was finished. Here's your peek. You won't have to wait long for the reveal. It's November 1st, and I'll show you more details then.

It turned out to be an NBS day (Nothing But Sewing). The best kind of day, and sorely needed by this now-home traveler. I took the first stitches on February's block for the Joyful Journey quilt.

We had a simple dinner last night, and it was an easy-going day. I needed a day off badly. Mike spent his time getting the hot tub up and running, and we're going to enjoy a good soak this morning.

Today I'll have to get back to cracking the whip over myself a little bit. My day's activities will be weather-dependent. It's looking a little threatening, but if the rain can hold off for a bit, I'll get out and weed the herb garden. Also, I need to cut back the peonies and do some grooming on the pickling cucumber. I expected the cucumber to be dead when we got home, but it's still out there producing cucumbers to beat the band. They're too big for pickles, but with a little TLC, I might get a few before the freezing temperatures set in. And if the weather refuses to cooperative, there's housework on my agenda too. It will be one or the other, but not both.

Early tomorrow, I have an appointment with my new PCP for my annual physical. I've only seen her once before. We were masked up at the time, and we will be again. I'm not expecting anything other than normal findings. I only mention this because I'm going to take another day off from blogging tomorrow. I have some other appointments in the coming week, and so my blogging schedule might be a little spotty over the next few days. Starting in November, I believe we'll be back to the normal day-to-day. I'm looking forward to it.