More Planning

Good morning, my friends. It's a new week. Are you feeling refreshed? We had a quiet but busy week last week. We were both feeling a little rickety last night. Aside from the usual household chores and sewing, I pulled a bucket of weeds. That means lots of sitting down and getting up again, which is at least as tiring as the task itself. Mike kindly installed drip irrigation for the dahlias and the hanging petunia baskets. It occurred to me that someone would need to be around to water the dahlias when we leave on our September trip. Mike decided to plumb some drip irrigation from inside the greenhouse to the dahlia pots on the outside wall. Great idea! I'm telling you this because his day involved a lot of sitting down and getting up again too. We were tired pups by day's end.

Before getting down and dirty (literally) with the weeds, I took a little walk around. The Firefighter dahlia was my first stop. It was still just halfway opened.

When I checked it again at the end of the day, it still looked just the same. It seems to be a shy guy. Across the yard, the hydrangeas caught my eye.

Back inside, I got a head start on dinner, and then I finished tracing all the "book spines" for the Shop Hop 3.0 quilt. This will be a good take-along project. It uses only one color of floss. "Pack light" are watchwords for trips in the truck camper, and this project will take up almost no space at all.

Then, I turned my attention to this problem child. I wanted to experiment with that blue ink to see truly how colorfast it was.

So I cut a couple of the words from the line of instructions at the bottom. The one on the right was pressed with a hot iron. The one on the left was left as is.

Then, I took them and wetted them both down, using hand soap to try to scrub away that blue ink. As you can see, even the piece that was not ironed didn't wash out very well. I'm going to say that ink is permanent no matter what you do. So then, I was curious to see how well three strands of embroidery floss would cover...and, not so well.

I tried it again on one of the cross-stitch sections. Clearly, I'm going to have to be very precise with my stitching. 

Oh well. I'm still satisfied that it will be worth the effort to stitch it. Possibly washing it properly in the washing machine will make the difference. In any case, I decided not to iron the pieces. Instead, I cut them apart. Then, I laid some freezer paper on my ironing board for protection. Then, I cut muslin backing pieces, sprayed them with spray baste, and then just smoothed them with my hands. The crease in the one below is less obvious in person. I think that's more of a shadow you're seeing than an actual crease.

And then I just kept going until all 12 were complete. I still need to get the embroidery floss to go with this, but then it will be ready for traveling. Ordinarily, I'd pick from my leftover floss stash, but I don't want to run out on the road. It makes more sense to start with the full skeins suggested on the pattern.

Those two projects should keep me busy for the entirety of our trip. I really hate it when I run out of stitching.

Okay, and then I went to work on my art quilt piece. I'll be using this fabric. Sorry. Just a peek since the fabric could give it away.

After some cutting and arranging, I had it laid out for sewing.

And here's a peek at the detail. I know. I'm so mean.

There was more to do, but I ran out of time. I went outside to see what Mike was up to. Sadie was cooling her tummy furs on the patio.

One of our nearer neighbors was firing off some kind of gun for target practice. It's one of the banes of our rural existence. It doesn't happen a lot, but when it does, there's nothing we can do except hope they'll stop soon. This went on for around an hour...right at dinner time...on a Sunday afternoon. Sheesh. The kitties were beyond offended. Kitties are quiet people. 

For last night's zucchini battle, I made this Burst Tomato Galette with Corn and Zucchini. It's a little like a veggie pizza. It takes some time to make it, but it isn't difficult. I've taken to making my crusts in the food processor, and this one was easy to work with.

We had it with some of the garden green beans. This is a delicious way to prepare green beans. The recipe for Charred Green Beans was one we gained when we were doing the Cooking Light Diet. I made one little change to the recipe, and I've linked to my version back there. It was a good dinner. 

Mike liked it enough to have seconds, and there's still enough for another meal.

Smitty has taken to waiting for me on the stairs at dinner time. My routine is to finish with dinner. Mike cleans up. While he's cleaning up, I head upstairs to get into my jammies. Smitty has claimed this as his purrsonal petting time, and he has included it as a part of his daily routine.

We have about ten minutes of cuddle time to finish out the day. A guy's gotta get his lovin' in, you know.

Okay, so I have a day on my feet ahead. I need to pickle and can those carrots I picked up at the farmer's market last week. I'll save the beets and do those in a few days. Also, the tomatoes are coming on fast and furious now. I expect I'll have enough for salsa before the week is out. Obviously, canning season is in full swing. 

A few weeks ago, I checked in with our CSA farmers. We don't get CSA shares any more, but I still hit them up for tomato tonnage at the end of each season. I sent them a short email telling them I was hoping for some tomatoes this year. Yesterday I received their response. They now have an 8-week old baby! Well. Doncha know I have to put a baby quilt on my list of to-do's now. I spent some time searching for a pattern I liked last night. I wanted something I could put together quickly. It would be nice to drop it off with them when I pick up my tomatoes. So, I settled on this freebie from American Quilter's Society. It's called Sweet Dreams. Here's the picture:

I don't know if they had a boy or a girl, and so I'll keep it gender neutral. I'm sure I can come up with some fun fabrics for this. I still have some of the vegetable fabric I used in the Bunny Patch baby quilt. It would be fun to incorporate a "farm" fabric.

And the newest Tiny House block has been released. This one looks kind of fun. I love a good lighthouse.

Okay, so there's plenty to do to get my week off to a busy start. Time to put on my shoes and get moving. After so much sitting down and getting up from yesterday, a day of standing is sounding pretty good. I just hope my feet agree with me.