First Snowfall

It's a chilly morning here, my friends. We've had our first dusting of snow for the season...or maybe it's the second. The days become a blur sometimes. In any case, it snowed overnight, and snow is falling now.

The star magnolia is already putting out next year's buds, and I suppose it is used to our weather after more than 20 years growing in the same place.

It's a confusing morning for Smitty. First, there's the snow. A cat has to stay right next to the house to avoid sitting in this cold, wet, white stuff.

And where is Sadie? Well...she's gone to the dentist this morning. It was a terrible morning for all concerned since we picked up their food and water last night, and no morning treats were dispensed when we got up. In kitty speak: WTF? (In case you're wondering, that stands for "Where's the food?")

Okay, but let's just back up to yesterday, shall we? It was a nice morning, and it stayed nice well into the afternoon. As I've mentioned, we're trying to get more movement in our days, and so I jumped at the opportunity to get out for a walk early. We were expecting rain by afternoon, and this sunny morning came as a delightful surprise. As I was leaving, I turned to snap this picture of the Three Cats Ranch.

There were a few things that caught my eye as I was walking away. First, the water droplets on things were enchanting as they glinted in the sunshine.

Also the sun shining through the few remaining leaves caught my eye.

From our front door to the paved public road, I'd estimate our gravel driveway to be about a quarter mile long. It's half downhill, and then half uphill to the public road. When I reached the road, the pavement appeared wet, but nothing more. After just a few steps, I slipped and fell...black ice. I'll admit to uttering a four-letter word here, but I wasn't hurt. And, honestly, I wanted to go walking up to the top of our hill. I tested the pavement for a few steps more, then tried walking along the gravel shoulder. In the image below, you can see what I saw...frosty tips on all the leafy weeds. 

It was clearly too treacherous to continue. And I do NOT want to break another bone. As Trevor Noah says, "Ain't nobody got time for that." Okay, so my walk was short. Coupled with yesterday's effort at dusting and vacuuming the downstairs, I probably got enough movement to satisfy whatever gods of health happen to be paying attention. 

It was after lunch time when I made my way into the sewing room. I was determined to finish top-stitching at least the first of the two Whimsical Garden quilt blocks.

My friend Angei left this question on yesterday's post:

I’m not much of an appliqué or embroidery person but I have a question..would it not save time and energy . . . to prepare all the blocks with sashing as you did with first one and then they would be ready for you to transfer the design to as you come to that block?

Angei, you are no-reply, and so I can't respond directly. I'm hoping you'll see the answer here today. It's a good question, and so I thought some of you might also be wondering and interested in the answer. Allow me to explain.

First, I couldn't make the first block without first adding the sashings. The tail of the bird extended out into the right side of the block and over the sashing. (Some of the applique for this quilt actually extends into the adjacent block.) As you can see in the image below, I wouldn't be able to complete any part of the bird without first adding the tail, and so I went ahead and sewed the sashings to the background before fusing any of the applique.

Here's the trade-off doing it that way. The stems of the flowers for this block come right to the edge of the background. In retrospect, I might have done this part of the block first, and then added the sashings before adding the bird. That's not what I did, however, and so the stems of the flowers butt right up against the green sashing. It meant top-stitching around the bottom. The top-stitching isn't a problem as long as the stem is exactly in the right spot so that there is no gap between the sashing and the applique.

The preferred way is to fuse the applique first, then trim the background to size, then add the sashing. You can see below that in the second block, the flower pot is caught in the seam when the sashing is added, giving a nice clean look with no gaps.

Contrast that with the second flower stem on the first block, where there is a tiny gap between the two.

After top-stitching, it mostly doesn't matter, but you can see the thread could only cover so much, and there is a tiny gap between the two. 

I hope that all makes sense. My preferred way is to build the applique over the background, then trim the block, and then add the sashings. It really comes down to personal preference, but to my eye, this way gives a cleaner look.

Except for top-stitching the yellow petals in Block #2, both blocks are complete now, and I'll be moving on to my challenge piece while also quilting the Trashy Triangles quilt.

Taking Sadie to the vet and having snow on the ground wasn't the only weird thing about this morning. We learned that Mike's sister Meredith passed away in her sleep yesterday afternoon. She'd had a several-years-long battle with leukemia. Her daughter called to notify us this morning. Here's a picture I took of the two of them together when we visited the Oceanside Pier in California last year.

Her birthday was just last week, and so they had a chance to talk. He sent her some flowers, and it seemed a fitting last interaction for them. It leaves Mike and me (both youngests) as the last living members of our families of origin. When you're in the autumn years of your own life, being the upper-most leaf on the family tree feels a little precarious. We'll need some time to absorb her loss, but we're both doing fine.

There's nothing on today's agenda except to sew, and that's where I'm headed soon. I haven't yet done my morning slow-stitching, so I'll start there.