Just a Little Sewing

Good morning, my friends. It rained yesterday. It was so good to get a little moisture onto our parched field. We keep the field watered up near the house...for fire protection. The rest of the field is too much to water, and so by summer's end, it's crisply dry and brown. The first rain can work miracles to green it up quickly. 

My haircut appointment was early (for me), and so not much happened on the home front until I got back. I had a short grocery list, but I told myself I could skip it if it meant being away from home past noon. There was no problem getting home by lunch time, and so I picked up a few things on my way. When I arrived home, I needed urgently to fill the bird feeders. Right away, a downy woodpecker stopped in for a visit to the suet feeder.

To my left, I noticed one of the giant sunflowers has bloomed. These are the only sunflowers that have not yet bloomed. This one was around nine feet tall, and well over my head. I wanted to move that leaf out of the way, but it was too high for me to reach without a ladder.

Checking in on the latest dahlia, it's still in hiding. This is the Bumble Rumble dahlia. I haven't looked this morning, so maybe it will be open by the end of the day today.

When it opens all the way, it will look like this:

It's one of my favorites, and the bees will love it.

Heading back up to the house, I noticed the chives are nearly finished for the year.

But wait...what's this? The plant appears identical to the chives, but it has a different flower. Clearly, it's some kind of onion, but what kind? 

Just now I googled it. It could be a wild white onion. When my chive plants were inundated by the sage plant a few years ago, Mae gave me some of her chives to re-establish mine. This might have been among the ones she gave me, or maybe it just volunteered. There's no way to know for sure.

When I reached the door, I found the purrtectors of the house on duty.

They were just waiting for me to dispense some treats.

Back inside, I went to work on my slow-stitching. I'd skipped it to get to my haircut appointment. After eating some lunch, I filled my hoop.

Now I've moved to the top left portion. It's a little more than half finished. I'm going to need to stitch fast, if I'm going to finish it over the next week. Those green leaves take forever.

When I finally made it to the sewing room, Sadie let me know what she thought about starting yet another Tiny House.

This is what I think of papurr-piecing.

Instead of helping, she turned on her lasers in an attempt to get me to open the doors to her clubhouse.

My paper-piecing went on without her. This one is pretty easy. There are only five sections, and I finished the first three during my hour.

From there, I turned my attention to the mini quilt. The pieces were all cut.

The next step was to sew the longer colored strips to the white ones, and then cross-cut them to make eight 2-patches from each color.

Then I added some shorter white sections to create this little block. It's 2-1/2 inches as you see it here. It will be two inches when it's sewn into the quilt.

Mini quilts are fun to make, and it's very good practice for cutting and piecing accuracy. I can never seem to get mine so that all the sections stay nicely square. It probably has to do with sewing a nice straight line of stitching. At this size, even small deviations will appear large. So, this is just the first block. I'll keep working at improving my accuracy. 

Today, I have a pedicure, and then I need to do a little housework. There should still be plenty of time for sewing this afternoon. I'll finish off the Tiny House, and then I'll keep going on this mini. If you want to know the truth, it takes almost as much time to make a mini as it does to make a full-sized quilt.

Okay, my friends. We're expecting another coolish day here. I'm appreciating this fall-like weather. And to my friends in Florida, please stay safe. We're watching from a distance, and hopeful everyone will come through safely.