Seemly Seams

Good morning, my friends. It was a mostly sewing day yesterday. The sky clouded over, and it was fairly chilly for most of the day. It was good I didn't have anything to do outside. Today will be a grocery shopping day, but I still think I'll have time for sewing this afternoon.

My yesterday started with the usual slow-stitching time. I spent a little more time than usual on this. I wanted to fill in enough to move the hoop to the right. I thought all those little gray straight stitches might be a pain to stitch. They take time, but they aren't difficult.

When I quit for the morning, I'd moved my hoop to encompass the right wing. That's where I'll pick it up today.

There was one housekeeping chore on the calendar, and then I was ready to get at my sewing. Sadie was putting on her most adorable self, hoping we'd finish off the Shop Hop quilt.

And that is exactly what we did. I finished sewing all the blocks together.

And then I added a black border to finish it off. It ends up at 67 x 67 inches.

Smitty gave his appurroval of the background fabric.

This was a fabric originally selected for my first Shop Hop quilt, but then I ended up using something else. 

The first Shop Hop quilt ended up a very large quilt. I'd already collected a huge number of fabrics by the time I decided what to do with them. Here's what it looked like when it was finished. 

I ended up using this quilt shop fabric on the back. If memory serves, I found this at a quilt shop in Henderson, Nevada, and purchased enough for the quilt back.

When we returned home from that trip, I realized I'd already purchased 6 yards of this next one.

So...what could I do but make another Shop Hop quilt? And now I have! And I already have another one in the works! 

Ordinarily, I don't pay much attention to patterns on fabric, and I certainly don't try to match things up. For this one, though, I thought it would look too weird if the vertical and horizontal stripes didn't match up. I've never done this before, but I figured out a way to sew the two sides together and match up the pattern. This caused me to hold my breath until I turned blue, but I got 'er done. Ta-da!

It was easy enough to match up the horizontal stripes. The vertical stripe was the challenge. I was sewing two selvage edges together and it worked out nearly perfectly. When I was finished, I was pretty proud of myself. (Polishes fingernails on shirt.) Can you see the seam? I've marked it below, so you won't have to guess.

And now that one is on the quilts to be sandwiched pile. Don't look for it again until sometime next year.

Next up, I wanted to get a start on the 20th Tiny House. I got as far as cutting the sections apart, and that was the end of my sewing day.

There was a little time left in the day, so I took a walk outside and checked on the peonies. Several more "Joker" peonies have opened.

I expect this next one, known as "Coral Sunset," will open sometime today.

But I'm keeping careful watch on this one. It's the one bud on the cruel "Rosy Prospects" peony that might actually turn into a mature flower. My hopes have been dashed before, but maybe...just maybe.

To their right, I noticed the first flower bud has appeared on the daylilies.

Back inside, Smitty demonstrated what it means to live in the sublime.

Okay, so there's grocery shopping today. I'll have to check the flower pots to see if they need water. Our weather hasn't been terribly hot yet, and so things aren't needing as much water as they will later on. Aside from that, there's nothing else on today's agenda. There should be plenty of time for sewing this afternoon. I'll spend one hour on the Tiny House, and then I'll get to work quilting my challenge piece.