Wild Weather

Good morning, my friends. We nearly were blown off our hill yesterday. Quite a storm blew through. Our power stayed on, but we were hit with a dozen or so momentary glitches...enough to wreck all the clocks we'd just reset. Other than that, we survived. We were bored and went out for dinner last night. We thought we'd try a new restaurant we spotted in Beaverton. We even made a reservation online. When we arrived, the place was dark, and all the large businesses around it were dark and closed, including the 24-hour Walgreen's. Traffic signals were out, and we encountered two downed trees. One of the main roads through town was coned off and impassable. Clearly, the storm hit harder in this area.

We doubled back and got the heck outta there. Sheesh. We ended up at a Chinese restaurant halfway across town, where we waited over an hour for our food. And then...there was no fortune in my fortune cookie!!! Well. That can't be good. So, I'm sitting here writing this morning, but who knows how long that will last after such a sad evening of misfortune. (Did you see what I did there?)

Okay, so backing up to my sewing day yesterday, here's what happened. I'll finish up the Bernie stitchery this morning, which means I need something new to stitch. Next on the list was to finish the last bit of embroidery for Pieces of the Past. I found the last completed stitchery still in its project box. I must have done this one on the road because it had never been pressed or trimmed, and the only pictures I have of it are very rumpled. So here it is...finished and trimmed.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the next steps for this were very involved. Here's the picture of the section from the pattern cover for reference:

I needed to add two borders. My inner floral border is brighter than hers. Mine is left over from when I made the Sundress quilt.

Same goes for the next yellow border. It too was leftover from the Sundress quilt.

So, there was to be an embroidered scroll framing the stitchery added to the yellow border. But as I read the instructions, I realized that I was to sew all the blocks together using muslin as a sort of "place holder" for the center panel. Then, I was to trace the embroidery onto the yellow border, stitch it, cut it along the curved scroll stitching, and then applique it to the center. Well. That just seemed like the makings of a nightmare...or maybe a disaster...or even a catastrophe! Even my fortune cookie could see what was coming with that. Smitty and I pondered what to do next. We bowed our heads in prayer.

We looked to the heavens for inspiration.

Finally, we knew just what to do. 

I'm not going to do that last bit as hand embroidery. I'm going to sew the whole quilt together as I have it. I'll probably have to do some fitting and trimming, but I'll get 'er done. And then, I'll add that scroll work when I quilt it. Phew! Close call. So I put everything back in its project box, and moved the project from my embroidery dance card to the quilt-tops-to-finish section of my white board. (Cue Christine McVie singing "You Can Go Your Own Way.")

Okay, so that was settled, but I still needed something to stitch after Bernie. Next up was April's block for the Joyful Journey quilt. I'll probably start stitching on this tomorrow.

But knowing we're heading to a rainy camping trip next week, I probably need something else. You should never underestimate the power of a woman holding a needle and thread with nothing but time on her hands. So, I decided to trace May's block too. If I don't start it while we're gone, I'll set it aside until its turn comes up again.

But that's not all the stitching I'll have to do on our camping trip. You might remember when I made this Poppy Mosaic last year.

It's been hanging out on a quilt rack since it was finished. Recently, when we were putting the guest room back in order from the plumbing catastrophe, I noted there was a big wall with no pictures nor anything else. It's a good place to hang this quilt, but it needs a hanging sleeve. It's been sitting out waiting its turn for several weeks. I made the sleeve yesterday, and I'll take that along for stitching on the road too. If you've never made a hanging sleeve, there's a good tutorial right here.

Okay, so I'm ready to get started on the next project listed on my white board. I'm at the "Quilter's Choice" section. This time around, I'm making a mini wall-hanging for Valentine's Day. This will be for hanging on the skinny wall between our kitchen and dining room. It's a free pattern I found on the Fat Quarter Shop website called "Stitches from the Heart." The pattern has two different sizes, and I'm making the smaller of the two. It should finish at 12 x 12 inches.

So the rest of my sewing day was spent rounding up eight values of red to pink. Here they are:

It's a grocery shopping day, and we have a long list. I'm hoping I'll have time for sewing when we get home. And you know how it is...when we have a long list, a long nap is usually required. If there's any hope of sewing today, then I guess I'd best be on my way. With that, I'll leave you to your day. Please stay out of the way of falling trees today, okay?