Monday's Movements

Good morning, my friends. It's the last day of spring. Summer moves in tomorrow. Yahoo! I know some of you are already experiencing too-hot weather. Here in the Pacific Northwest, it's still on the coolish side. The vegetables are barely grown above seed stage, and so some sunshine and warmth will be welcome.

Yesterday was my day to rest up and relax from all the cooking the day before. Also, it has rained the past couple of days, and so there was no need to do anything in the garden. I think I might have gone the whole day without once stepping outside. Most of the day was spent in the sewing room. Sadie joined me right away. First, she reminded me to drink more water.

And then she called Smitty to negotiate the day's helper assignments. Negotiation ensued.

She's going to do more papurr-piecing, Smitty.

When they'd worked out the purrticulars, they both left me to sew by myself. Oh well. 

My first task was to fix the upside-down block in the Painted Ladies quilt. (Kitties do not like it when the seam ripper comes out.) It didn't take long to rip out three seams, flip it over, and sew it together again. There. That works better.

Okay, and then I went to work on Tiny House #23. I set a timer for one hour, and then went to work. This one is lettered Sections "C" through "N." When my hour was up, I'd finished up through Section "F." 

I believe I'll be able to finish it off this afternoon.

Next up was to get started on the next two blocks for the Whimsical Garden quilt. Block #11 has applique extending out into the border. So I first trimmed the background, and then added the borders.

This one went together pretty quickly. It still needs top-stitching.

I was only just getting started on Block #12 when I needed to stop for the day. This one has a lot more pieces, but I still think I'll be able to get it to top-stitching stage by the end of today.

Last night's dinner was another new recipe I tried, trying to use up the remaining half of a red bell pepper hanging out in my refrigerator. There was also a half-used bag of shrimp in the freezer. This was an easy recipe for One-Pot Garlicky Shrimp and Broccoli. I don't know about you, but any recipe that starts with the words "one pot" sounds like a winner to me.

In all honesty, it takes two pots because it's served over rice. It was easy enough that I won't hold that against it. The recipe is from Eating Well, and so it's low in calories too.

While I was cooking dinner, Sadie was enjoying the afternoon sunshine on her catio.

So I'll finish off with a few leftovers. When Sue and I had breakfast last week, she told me about her little friend who comes over occasionally and lets Sue fill in as a substitute grandma. She's the child of a friend of Sue's son. She told me this little girl loves quilts and dives under Sue's quilts whenever she comes. Well. When I heard that, I had to unload one of my trashy quilts on Sue's little friend. She sent me this picture yesterday. That's the "Chicken Feed" quilt, if you don't remember it. Now it belongs to this little girl. I love seeing pictures like this.

And speaking of little people and quilts, I learned a friend of my own son is expecting a baby. Before I started my sewing yesterday, I perused my quilt pattern notebooks and came across this one from Victoriana Quilt Designs. 

I'm told they're expecting a girl. Sometimes those predictions are wrong, and so I wanted to keep it gender neutral. It's made with 3-1/2 inch squares. No doubt I could have figured this out on my own, but I wanted to be able to blog about it with a clear conscience, so I bought the pattern. You can find it right here. When I'm ready to move to the "Quilter's Choice" section of my white board, I'll make this quilt as a "fun finish."

So there's plenty going on in the sewing room right now. I believe we're expecting a little more rain today, and so my day will probably be spent sewing again. Before I started writing this post, I put a chicken breast in the oven for tonight's dinner. I'm making a pasta salad that includes shredded chicken and basil pesto. That means I'll be making dinner this morning so that it can chill during the day. I like making dinner in the morning and having everything ready to go when the time comes. I believe there is one housekeeping chore on the day's agenda, but then sewing and more sewing. It's going to be a good day. I hope you have a good day planned for yourself. It's the last day of spring. Come on summer!