Bloomers

Good morning, my friends! My condolences if you have to return to work today. I hope you enjoyed your three-day weekend. We had a lovely weekend here. Some new flowers are taking over as stars of the garden. When I went out to do my walk-about yesterday morning, there were several new eye-poppers. Smitty accompanied me on my garden stroll.

One of the peonies was looking very promising. We were expecting a warm-ish day, and so I hoped it would open before day's end.

Sure enough. By afternoon, one had opened. This one is called "Joker."

There was another poppy open next to the greenhouse.

Two more had opened on the patio.

When I looked out this morning, yet another two more had opened. It seems the poppies and peonies are starting to take their turn as the stars of the garden.

There was plenty to do outside yesterday, and so it was fairly late in the day when I made it to the sewing room. Of course, Smitty was there to help. He likes standing next to my lightbox. He's used to being in the spotlight. Fame has its price, you know.

I spent the rest of my sewing day finishing off the collage. Then, I added two borders and readied it for quilting. I'll start the quilting without the backing fabric attached. When I make my way to the borders, I'll add the backing fabric and finish it off. Here's your peek:

That was the end of my sewing day. Sadie was mad we didn't make any more progress on the Shop Hop quilt. She's been to *all* of the places listed on the quilt...

oh...except for this one. That was when she was a naughty girl and hid in a spot from which she could not be retrieved. 

She stayed home for that short trip.

When I turned off the machines and turned out the lights, I headed back upstairs to find Smitty flaked out in the afternoon sunshine.

Dinner was in the slow cooker. I tried something new in the form of this Healthier Slow Cooker Creamy Tortellini Vegetable Soup. It was tasty, and it was certainly easy to do. It's easy enough to do in the RV too, which is always appreciated.

I used a bag of the julienned carrots from the grocery store. Otherwise, I made it pretty much the same. I left out the fennel seeds. Fennel has a licorice flavor I'm not fond of, and besides...seeds. Also, I used a package of the "baby kale" from the grocery store. Mike is not fond of kale, although he will eat it. If/When I make this again, I'll substitute baby spinach for the kale. The kale imparted a slightly bitter flavor. I think spinach would be preferred. 

Also, as I was getting it ready to go, I wondered whether it wouldn't be just as easy to do it on the stove top. As it turns out, there are instructions included for both an instant pot and the stove top. It was certainly easy doing it in the slow cooker, but if you were to forget to start it, you could decide to do it on the stove top too.

Okay, so there isn't much on today's to-do list. It's tempting to start right away quilting my collage piece, but I'm going to finish sewing together the Shop Hop quilt top first. This is where I left it.

There are three more rows of blocks to sew together. After that, I'll add at least one border. I have the backing fabric selected, but it will require some careful piecing. The fabric has a pattern to it, and I'll want to attempt to match it up. If I can get that finished, I'll get going on the quilting for the collage piece. Probably, I'll institute the one-hour rule because it's going to be a bear quilting it. Or maybe not. I won't know until I get started.