A Day's Work

Good morning, my friends. It's a rainy day here at the Three Cats Ranch. It rained some yesterday too. It makes all of us tired just looking at those gray skies. We're promised a few more sunny days this week, but then I'm afraid the Big Dark will be on us until next spring. Sadie was resting up on the bottom rung of her kitty pole. Apparently she was too exhausted to jump to the top.

Smitty was doing his online banking when he just gave up, closed the lid, and fell asleep.

While they slumbered, I finished up the fourth Kitten. The edges were pinked, and then I washed it before pressing it for its picture.

These will go into the regular embroidery rotation now. Here are the four kittens I have so far.

This morning, I'll take the first stitches on the tenth block for the Domestic Affairs quilt. This won't take long. There's only a small amount of embroidery.

Knowing it won't take long, I've chosen my "Short" project. When I've finished with the Domestic Affairs block, I'll start in on this little stitchery for Christmas. This is from Anni Downs at Hatched and Patched. You can find the free download right here. I'm thinking about what fabric to use in the background, and what colors of floss to use.

While the kitten stitchery was washing and drying, I went to work making a batch of applesauce. Applesauce is pretty easy. I just core and chunk up the apples. No peeling is necessary. They're run through a food mill after they're cooked, and it removes all the skins and deposits the apple puree into a bowl. After that, it's brought back to a boil, ladled into jars, and processed. The whole batch took around two hours. When it was finished, I had myself seven pints of applesauce. Usually I use Gravensteins for this, but this is made from Fujis.

Okay, and then I went back to my quilting, finishing off two more rows. That makes five of seven rows complete. I couldn't quite get my arm up high enough to get a picture of the whole thing. Sorry it's cut off a little on the right.

Here's a closer shot so you can see the quilting. I'm happy with how this is going.

Here's how it looks from the back. It looks just the way I hoped it would.

Probably I could have finished this, but I was being smart with my wrist. The morning's activities loosened up my wrist so it felt good enough to quilt two rows. I worried I'd be overdoing if I continued with the final two rows. 

It seemed too late to start on anything else, and so I spent some time at the computer planning our trip for next spring. Next spring's trip will take us nearly all the way across the country, and we'll see the remaining four states from the lower 48 that we've missed. We've actually been to some of the new states before, but we haven't been together and not with the RV. Nothing is set in concrete yet with the exception of a couple of dates. We want to be in Whitney, Texas, for the solar eclipse in April. And, as luck would have it, we'll be in Kentucky for the Paducah Quilt Show, also in April. I'm thrilled about that.

Here's our route, roughly laid out, although we'll undoubtedly make some changes before the time comes. The trip is working out to be fairly long. Everything before Paducah is as it should be. Where we go afterward is still up for negotiation.

So don't start packing your bags just yet. There's a whole lotta water that will need to flow under this bridge before we're ready to take off.

Smitty was my trip-planning catpanion. He has some ideas about places he'd like to visit too. And there is grass to be sampled everywhere. He's heard about some really good Bluegrass in Kentucky, and he wants to find a primo spot for sampling.

There's a busy week ahead. I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow. Then on Wednesday I'm getting my pedicure. And that's all so I can look my best when we get our flu and COVID shots on Thursday. Friday is clear, but I'm planning dinner for the kids next Sunday, and so there will be some cooking over the weekend. It's a good intro for the silly season when things always seem more busy and hectic.

Sticking with the schedule for today, I'm getting back to the Chamber of Horrors, picking up the workouts on our Bow-flex and our treadmill that we both abandoned in favor of outdoor activities this past summer. Now that the rain has arrived, we'll get back to torturing ourselves in the basement. When that's accomplished, I'll get back to my quilting. Just the rows at the top and bottom need quilting, and then it will be ready for binding. There's lots to do today, and now seems like a good time to get started.