Meanwhile, Back at the Three Cats Ranch

Good morning, my friends. We're approaching what passes for normal here. We're unpacked, showered, straightened, laundered, and mostly put away as of this morning. Within the next week or so, I need to get out and do some yard clean-up. The weeds partied hard while we were gone. The vegetable garden is weeded over and fallen down. We'd hoped for some corn upon our return, but found it old and tough. Oh well. The tomatoes came through, though. There were two slicers awaiting our harvesting hands:

Yesterday, I harvested the ripest of the sauce tomatoes. There are still plenty of green ones.

There aren't enough here to break out the canner, and so I'll probably just freeze them. When I have a recipe that calls for tomato sauce, I just whir them in my blender, and voila! Fresh tomato sauce. Well...frozen, if you want to get all technical about it.

But let's back up to the moments after we arrived at home. We sort of expected this, but the scale of it was epic. It's the time of year when the boxelder bugs return to live in the cracks of our siding for the winter. They congregate on the west side of the house where the sun shines in the afternoon. Look carefully, especially on the window and the green eaves.

Now here's a close-up so you can see the scale of this year's invasion. In the 21 years we've lived in this house, I've never seen them in such numbers. It's surprising because we had a cold winter.

We both can remember seeing plenty of dead ones in the spring, frozen to death over the winter. We expected a light turnout this fall, but whoa! All I can say is that there have been some bug shenanigans going on this past summer. Yikes. Fortunately, they are completely harmless to both house and person. They move in to stay warm. This usually lasts about two weeks, and then we don't see them again until spring, when they move back to the trees again. Still, a few find their way into the house, and we vacuum them up as we see them. They're utterly disgusting, but that's the worst of it. It's an Oregon thing, and they especially like our cedar shake siding. The dark color makes a warm home for them.

Okay, moving on. My first act was to switch out my table runner, topper, wall-hanging decor. Summer was still out, and with Halloween approaching, it seemed important to act fast. Besides...priorities, people. Who can unpack with summer runners staring you in the face? So, now the "Cornflowers" runner is on the breakfast bar. I tried to find the pattern for this. I purchased it long ago when I visited a quilt shop in San Diego. I wasn't able to find it online. The designer was Sticks and Broomstraws, and I can't find a website for that either.

On the table, this "Pumpkin Patch" topper. This was designed by Julie Weaver, and featured in the September, 2016, issue of Quilter's World.

Finally, I used that same pumpkin pattern to finish off this "Pumpkin Pie" wall-hanging. The embroidered panel was from a class I took with Meg Hawkey of Crabapple Hill Studios. The pattern was free in the class, but I note she's included it on her website now as a dish towel.

The kitties burst out the camper door practically before I had it open. I can only think they recognize the turns that lead to home. When we spent our last night on the road, across the state line into Oregon, we both had the feeling they knew they were close to home. Sadie wasted no time getting in a luxurious dust bath...pine needles at no extra charge.

Then she ran over and gave this dappled willow tree a good trunk scratching. A girl's gotta groom her murder mittens, doncha know.

Later on, she sunned herself on the corner shelf of her catio. There's so much room to roam here.

Smitty wandered around checking all the squirrel holes and fresh catnip offerings.

This purple hydrangea still has flowers. They're such an unusual color. This was a gift from Mae one year, and it has been a gratifying bloomer.

The echinacea are looking a little bedraggled, but there are still a few flowers.

Similarly bedraggled, the dahlias are still blooming away. I'm sorry I wasn't here to see them, and to keep them deadheaded. This is the Firefighter dahlia.

And this poor Checkers dahlia got so heavy with flowers (and probably with water), it fell over, breaking the stem. Sad. Oh well. It's nearly time to cut them back and move them inside. I bought these for their size, thinking they wouldn't need staking. Clearly, I'll need to stake them next year.

In the sewing room, I have three more Tiny Houses awaiting my attention.

These three are the tail-end of my project. When they're finished, I'll be able to start sewing them into a quilt.

While I was doing the rest of the laundry, I washed the three completed "Kittens" blocks. You might remember when I was puzzling over the stamped ink on these blocks. The design was stamped directly on the fabric, which makes them a good traveling project. But the instructions told me not to use a hot iron because it could set the ink. Okay, but then, how do I add my iron-on stablizer? So I experimented a little to see how color-fast the ink was. And my experiment really did not yield any useful information. I ended up spray basting them and backing them with muslin, smoothing them flat with my hands.

So, when I was doing laundry yesterday, I pinked the edges of the finished blocks, and then washed them in a mesh bag. I'm happy to say the ink washed out completely, and I was able to iron the blocks flat. The look a lot better without their wrinkles.

I have the fourth one hooped up, and that's where I'll start today. When I've finished with it, I'll put all the kittens into my regular embroidery rotation and finish them as their turn comes up.

Most everything I need to do is finished, and so I'm going to give myself a day in the sewing room. We're meeting Erik and Mae for dinner. It's Erik's 44th birthday today. While we were traveling, Erik sent me this picture of himself, which cracked me up. Many people told us the Barbie movie was a "must-see" movie, but it was Erik's endorsement that convinced me. After he saw the movie, he ordered this sweatshirt for himself. And you'll have to see the movie for this to make much sense.

And while we're talking about this, wouldn't you agree that I'm much too young to have a firstborn child turning 44 today? Thank you. I knew you would agree with me. I'm a little to disorganized to make dinner for guests, and so we'll meet them at a restaurant and buy their dinner. Also, I have a couple of t-shirts I picked up for Erik while we were traveling. I'm looking forward to seeing them.

So that's all the news I have for you at this point. I haven't done any slow-stitching for a couple of days. The only thing I really need to do as one of my home-again chores is to get out and do some yardwork. That can wait, though. I'm going to give myself a day in the sewing room. I'll finish off the tiny houses one hour at a time. Also, I'm behind on the Homestead blocks. That project is my RSC project for the year. These are the blocks I have so far:

I need to make a block for September and October, and so I'll work on that after my Tiny House hour. When those are finished, I'll be ready to start back at the beginning of my white board list. Next up will be to quilt the Strips and Stripes quilt. It's been lounging on Eliza for a couple of months at least.

You might remember when I visited a quilt shop in Moab and found this straight-line foot that might be compatible with my machine.

Since I'm planning to do straight-line quilting on the Strips and Stripes quilt, this foot would be very helpful. It occurred to me that I can find out if the foot is compatible with the Handi-Quilter Sweet 16, which is the exact machine as my Baby Lock Tiara II. If it is, then I'll have my answer. I'll write to Handi-Quilter today and see what I can find out. A local quilt shop sells these feet, and they have a special sale going on this week. I might be able to get a deal on it.

Okay, so that's all I have for you today. I'm going to spend some quality time with my slow-stitching, and then I'll spend some time in my sewing room. It's going to be a sewfull day.