Catching Up

Good morning, my friends. With so much excitement this past weekend, there was a need to return to what passes for normal around here. I spent the morning catching up on household and gardening chores. Before that, however, I took the first stitches on June's block for the Joyful Journey quilt. Those green leaves take a long time to stitch.

There were a few things I wanted to do in the greenhouse. The cukes and zukes are planted in little pots now. We're hoping to get the garden in by next Monday, and so I'm hoping they'll sprout quickly. The weather is supposed to warm up this week to record-breaking warm temperatures by Sunday. There's still a lot to do between now and then, and so I'm only hoping we can pull it off.

Returning to my quilting project, I'd left it needle down on the machine. Needle down indicated to me that I'd sorted out the tension problems, but no. I believe it readjusted itself in my absence, and it was no better than when I left it a few days ago. I decided to use a different thread in the bobbin. I was using a Bottom Line thread, which is a 60 weight thread. On top I had a 40 weight YLI quilting thread. I've had mixed results with the Bottom Line threads. Sometimes they work great for me, but I'm afraid the machine couldn't accommodate the differences in weight this time around. I switched to a similar YLI thread, and my tension problems disappeared. 

Okay, so the quilt has 12 blocks. I had in mind to do four each day, and then take another day to quilt the border. Two blocks were quilted a few days ago. Yesterday, I did two more.

I might have continued on, but I wanted to make some progress on the next Tiny House. Sadie was my willing assistant, although she isn't happy being the designated papurr-piecing cat. In her purrsonal opinion, Smitty gets to skate way too often on the papurr-piecing purrojects.

This is the house I'm making. It's sections are lettered "C" through "O" this time. 

I was able to finish sections "C" through "I" yesterday, and so it's a little over half finished.

With all that sewing, Sadie was 'zhausted by the end of the day. I left her napping on the table in her little bed.

Today's plan is to quilt four more blocks, and then finish off the Tiny House. There are some other things on the agenda too, but all of that should keep me out of trouble for the day.

We're looking forward to the week's warm weather. We're thinking we might be able to have dinner outside this evening. It would be the first time this year. That might be overly optimistic, but one can always hope.