Next Steps

Good morning, my friends. Although it has been snowing off and on for the past couple of days, there's been no new accumulation. That's very good news. Yesterday as I looked out the window, I noticed the heather is blooming. We planted it for its winter blooms, and it looks pretty with the snow.

As expected, I finished May's block for the Joyful Journey quilt. This one is called "Butterfly."

Here are the five blocks I have for this quilt so far.

Then, I went back to work quilting Mr. MacGregor's Garden. The diagonal grid was near completion. I finished that off, and then I went to work quilting a "paper clip" motif in the first border.

In the outer border, I quilted a "ribbon" motif.

And then it was finished! I took it downstairs where I have the best light for showing the texture.

Here's how it looks from the back. 

I'm so happy to have used only fabrics from my stash for this. Of course, looking at my stash, you'd never know anything was removed. Even the binding was from a scrap binding, although I had to add more fabric to make it long enough. The quilt ends up at 40 x 51 inches.

For now, I'll set this aside with the Dream Big Leaf quilt, and I'll hand-sew the bindings for both when we go camping next month. Camping at this time of year always includes rain, and so having plenty of hand-stitching along is a good idea.

There was no kitty help yesterday. When I came upstairs from having finished the binding, I found Sadie curled up on the lowest rung of the kitty tree. She likes this spot because the birds come to the bush outside the window, and she can watch them from there.

And look at this cat...dead asleep. He's exhausted after a night of keeping us both awake.

There's another Tiny House to work on today, and then I'll get busy quilting my "maps" challenge quilt. I've been looking forward to this. It's going to have some fun quilting on it, if I can pull it off.

My body sets limits on how much time I can spend at the quilting machine. For breaks from that, I'll start sewing together the quilt top for Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage. When I worked on it last, I had it this far:

It has a row of traditional quilt blocks all around the outside edge, and so I'll be making lots of quilt blocks for this. It's a good change from spending time at the machine doing free motion quilting, and it makes both jobs go a little easier.

So there's plenty to keep me out of trouble today. Right now, it's time for breakfast. My growling stomach is telling me it's time to get on with my day. For slow stitching, I'll be taking the first stitches on the newest blocks for "The Story of My Day." 

And there you have it...the story of my day...yesterday.