Mostly Sewing Day

Good morning, my friends. The sun is just rising as I'm writing this. It's still fairly dark outside. Our sunset yesterday was around 4:30 p.m., and the days are only getting shorter. It's been bright and sunny, but too cold to be comfortable outside. I'm getting my monthly pedicure today, and it's always a question about what to wear on my lower half on pedicure days. Today might see me wearing loose sweat pants. Also, I have a vague recollection of bumping into something somewhere sometime. Whatever happened has long since left my steel trap of a brain, but I have a big purple bruise on the inside of my right calf as proof that it happened.

There was more time spent on my slow-stitching yesterday than I'd originally planned. Sometimes I find it hard to stop...especially when I'm procrastinating about something. Yesterday I was procrastinating about getting on the Bowflex and doing a workout. Later, I procrastinated about deboning the turkey carcass. In the middle, I finished two blocks for the Shop Hop quilt. Smitty was my reluctant kitty helper. The blocks are partially paper-pieced, and the kitties are getting pretty tired of paper-piecing.

The first one was from So Simple Hobbie House in Hico, West Virginia. Just as I linked to the post about this shop, I realized I'd misspelled the "So" in the name. It should have been "Sew." Oh well. I stitched what I stitched, and it stays as I stitched it. (Try saying that five times fast.) I selected this fabric for the many rustic barns, covered bridges, and grist mills we saw in the area. We were there to see our newest national park (at the time) New River Gorge National Park. The quilt shop was just a delightful side trip.

I purchased enough of this fabric to make a larger quilt. It went along with a panel I picked up at the same time.

Next, this block for The Quilt Rack & Wool Cubby in North Platte, Nebraska. This was another surprise in a small town. We were in North Platte to see the Union Pacific Bailey Yard. (You can read about it at that link I've given you.) Bailey Yard was recommended by a friend, and it was worth the trip. The quilt shop was another bonus, and the train fabric was a no-brainer.

From there, I was ready to make up the next barn block. I'm on Block #9 for this quilt.

I've been doing these in the colors for 2023's Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and I've lost track of what colors I was supposed to use. I flipped through the blocks I already have to see what colors I've missed.

Orange seemed like a good choice, and so I selected a light and dark orange and then cut all the pieces I'll need.

It was tempting to go to work right away, but I was still procrastinating on deboning the turkey carcass. It's a messy job, and I was dreading it. Rather than continue torturing myself at the thought of it, I decided to get busy and actually do it. As it turned out, there wasn't much meat left on the bones. We started with a 14-lb. bird. Mike and I had three Thanksgiving-style dinners from it (including Thanksgiving day), the kids made up plates to take home with them, Mike had been eating it for sandwiches all week, and so I had just enough to make up my turkey noodle soup last night. It was a nice way to end the day.

I suppose everyone has their own way of making soup from leftover turkey, but this is the recipe I use. It's easy and tasty.

So today I'll get my pedicure, and I need to stop at Staples to have three more enlargements made for "When Quilters Gather." Window guy didn't come yesterday. We spoke on the phone, and he had us measure the window ourselves and send him the measurements. In the meantime, Mike and I had already decided to put off replacing the window until next summer. Instead, "carpet guy" is coming today to measure the upstairs and give us a carpet quote. Happily, Home Depot called yesterday to say that carpet is on sale right now. If we make our purchase before December 3rd, we can get a significant discount. That was good news. I'm still dreading the carpet job with every fiber of my being, but at least the fibers devoted to cost were appeased somewhat.

If there's time for sewing, I'll get busy sewing together the pieces for the Barn Block. After that, I'll get busy making the next vertical row for the Painted Ladies quilt. Here are the "painted ladies" I have for this quilt so far.

And with that, it's time to get going. Have a good day, everybody!