In a Bind

Good morning, my friends! It's another bright sunny day here today. It's a gardening day for me, and perfect weather for it. It's going to get hot over the next couple of days. Best to get that replanting done now. The sunflowers have sprouted and my carrot seed tape has arrived. I didn't find the carrots I wanted at the farmer's market yesterday, and so I'm more determined than ever to grow my own.  And, of course, there is never a shortage of weeds to hoe down. "Hoedown." Yeah. Dancing and fiddling. We do gardening right here at the Three Cats Ranch. 

There was just enough time to walk around and see what's blooming before I left yesterday morning. The "Fairy Princess" peony has opened. There are several on the plant.

To its left, I wanted to show you the Coral Sunset and Joker peonies. They have bloomed their guts out this year. 

Ignore all the moss on the retaining wall. It comes with the territory in the Pacific Northwest. Mike actually went to work scraping it off some areas of the patio yesterday. Sometimes he gets energetic and takes on an impossible project like that. I'm not sure if he's going to tackle this wall.

At the front of the house, I caught these two squirrels wrestling. They were running back and forth and tackling one another. I took a bunch of pictures, but most were just a blur of tails.

Okay, and you better not eat my poppies, Buddy. You'll be on the next train outta town...or worse.

And speaking of rat bastards, they dug under the concrete Mike poured to keep them out of our basement ceiling. We're gonna need more concrete.

After lunch, I was able to finish the quilting on my challenge piece. When the center was finished, I stitched in the ditch on both sides of the stop border, and then did a ribbon motif in the outer border.

And then it was ready for binding. It's sewn on by machine, but not by hand yet. I expect to finish it today.

Here's how it looks:

I can show you the back, but the fabric might give it away. Here's a peek anyway.

I'll take one more picture when I finish hand-stitching the binding, and then I'll set it aside until the reveal on August 1st.

Okay, so next up, I want to make the next block for the Homestead quilt. The next block I'll be doing is the Schoolhouse. It's a common block. Here's the picture from the brochure I'm using:

I've been using the color of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. June's color is dark and bright blues. It seems as if I already chose those colors for another block...this one:

I suppose I can choose something darker and brighter. If not, I'll choose something else. After that, I'll get to work quilting the Sewing Day stitchery.

It shouldn't take long to finish it off.

So there's plenty to keep me busy, as usual. It's time for our Sunday morning blueberry oatmeal pancakes. With such pretty weather, it can't help but be a good day. I hope you have a good day planned for yourself too.