Courageous Quilting

Welcome to Wednesday, my friends! It's a pedicure day for me. And, miracle of miracles, I see blue sky and sunshine! We're expecting rain pretty much every day into the foreseeable future, and so I'm surprised to see so much light this morning. It's a nice change from the past several weeks. 

Yesterday morning, I spent about twice as long as usual on my slow-stitching. I wanted to stitch up enough leaves to move my hoop to a more interesting spot. All leaves and all green all the time makes for some boring stitching.

There are still more leaves to stitch, but I've moved the hoop to where there are some bees and more of the bunny to keep my interest alive. It's getting close to a finish, and so I'll need to make up the next block for the Domestic Affairs quilt.

Of course, my excellent snuggle cat was a purrfect companion to my success.

Since it was expected to be the only dry day for weeks, I went out for a walk at the bottom of our hill. Leaving my car, I could hear geese honking, and I could see some livestock off in the distance. 

Sometimes with so much rain, the road will flood where I was walking. I didn't see any of that, but the fields were flooded. Of course, the ducks were reveling in it. Just as I snapped that picture, some geese flew overhead.

Drainpipes and ditches were flowing rapidly. I don't usually see this much water here, but then, I'm not usually walking here at this time of year.

There's my favorite barn. I like how the newly-planted fields are sporting undulating bands of green now.

Farther up the hill is another barn.

You might remember my sadness that apples were left on some of the apple trees, and the apples were going to waste. Well, I can feel better now because something is eating these apples. I'm thinking it's probably birds, but it could be squirrels too.

My walk takes me down one long street, and then I turn around and make my way back on the opposite side. When I turned to go back to my car, I noticed some deer running across the hilltop. I don't know where they were hurrying off to, but they were on the move.

There were two more to the right of the one above. It might have been a doe and her twin fawns, but it was hard to tell from this distance.

Closer to me, I spied a cat, who was kind enough to post for its picture.

There was plenty of drippage keeping the ditches flowing.

I didn't see a single blooming thing. Even the snowberries were in short supply, but I did find a nice cluster right here.

Just before reaching my car, I noticed a red-tailed hawk sitting in a tree. He was on the hunt for field mice, no doubt.

Back home, I iced my knees, had some lunch, and then got to work on my quilting. I did the same heartsy swirl in the middle of the pinwheel, and then more dot-to-dot around the outside edge. I like how the thread contrasts in the dark purple.

More BFUD here.

And finally this little grouping of 2-inch squares. I treated them like a single block with some dot-to-dot quilting.

I took a break there because my next task was to fill in some of the larger areas of black with some line drawings I found on Pinterest. Smitty was, of course, very helpful in my attempt. I stitched the first one and then readied myself to take a picture when...

Okay, and I didn't want him jumping up on the quilt while I was trying to do these line drawings, and so I dispatched him to the hall and closed the door. My patience has its limits. So here's the first one.

And I can't draw worth beans, so I was pretty happy with how this turned out. I used a Bohin white ceramic mechanical pencil to first draw the images, and then I stitched over the white line. A clean toothbrush removed the lines nicely. Next, I tried this hummingbird.

Of course, I needed to do a cat.

There was barely enough room to squeeze in this butterfly.

Here's another bird. I think the loop for the eye should have been a little higher, but I'm leaving it as it is.

There was just one small area left, and so I did a few more flowers. I'm planning to use this same flower motif all around the outer border.

From here, I have just some narrow sashing areas left to do. There is quite a bit of ground to cover before I'm ready to make my way around the outer border. I doubt I'll finish it today. The rest will be done in feathers and other motifs appropriate for borders or sashings. Also, I want to add a few more sunflowers, just to bring back the rust, yellow, and green threads in a few more areas. I might add some bright hot pink too. There's no plan. I just wait to see where my needle and thread will take me.

The day might get a little busy. I have a 12:45 p.m. appointment for my monthly pedicure. I hate that appointment time. It kind of wrecks the whole day. There will probably be time to do a little quilting when I get home, and I'm starting some split pea soup in the slow cooker before I leave. Dinner will make itself. Tomorrow, I have an early appointment for a badly-needed and long-postponed haircut. (Long postponed = badly-needed.) There may not be time to post in the morning, but there will be time later in the day. I'll keep you up-to-date on any more quilting progress.

It's time now for some breakfast and to get that slow cooker going. Possibly we'll get another nice day out of this temporary break in the rain. Fingers crossed. Everybody stay safe out there. I'm especially looking at you, my California friends. Don't go driving your cars through any flood zones. And absolutely no swimming allowed.