Snow Day

Happy Valentine's Day, my friends! If you've been paying attention, then you know we've already had our evening out to celebrate. Nevertheless, I'll be making us a special dinner of Beef Bourguignon this evening. I've linked to the recipe I'll be using, but I'll be serving it over mashed potatoes in place of the bread. Probably I'll make us some kind of dessert too. You can never have too many celebrations of love, right? And, as I noted in my title, it snowed here last night. We have about three inches of accumulation. When there's enough light outside, I'll take a picture to show you. Don't go away...it's coming.

Yesterday's sewing started with the day's inchy. It was all backstitch with a couple of French knots thrown in.

When that was finished, I went to work hand-stitching the binding for the Project Quilting quilt. Sadie was my helper cat for that.

Smitty was resting nearby for when he had to go on helper cat shift.

My quilt ends up at 15 x 17 inches, and so it didn't take long to finish it off. It's not my best effort, but it's finished, and that's the point. It was good practice, if nothing else.

Here's how it looks from the back.

And then, as expected, it took the rest of my sewing day to make the fifth tiny house. I like this one.

I've realized the four made before this one were all trimmed too small. Up until House #5, I've been trimming the block to five inches before adding the border. It really should be trimmed to 5-1/2 inches. So I'll figure out what to do about that when they're all finished. I can think of at least a couple of ways to fix them without having to make them over...and I'm not making them over again. Either I'll add a little "mercy strip," or else I'll put them all in a row together, or else I'll think the finished quilt is better off without them. That will be a bridge to cross when I come to it.

Okay, so here are the snow pictures I promised. This one is Eliza's view.

This next one was taken through a long narrow window above our bed. Think of it as a skylight on the wall. I like that the wind hasn't blown the snow from the bare branches of some of the deciduous trees. It looks like a fairyland outside.

Finally, the view from where I'm sitting as I write.

Obviously, it's a stay-in-and-sew day today...just like every other winter day at the Three Cats Ranch. With the two projects above finished, I'm ready to get back to my "meat and potatoes" sewing. Today I'll stop talking about it and actually get to work on the Bunny Go Round. And there will be some time set aside for cooking and baking too. It's going to be a busy day. I hope you have something nice planned for yourself.