Bind On!

Good morning, my friends. Happily, I'm finished running all around town until sometime next week. If I'm lucky, not even then. Three days in sequence out on the town too much for this old gal. Our grocery shopping trip was nothing short of harrowing, both for the length of our list and for the number of people in the store. Ours is one of those stores that sells virtually everything, and so people were there for their last-minute Christmas shopping too. The parking lot was packed. 

Before we left yesterday morning, Mike went back to bed. He often does that. Early to bed, early to rise, early to go back to bed. It's a routine with him. While I was waiting for him to get up, I made an early first stop in the sewing room. It seemed as good a time as any to square up the Heartland Barns quilt for binding. When I got downstairs, I found that Sadie has claimed this quilt as her own. Obviously, it is for her. It matches her furs purrfectly.

I talked her off the quilt, telling her it wasn't really finished until the binding was finished. With her purrmission, I went to work squaring it up. 

Binding strips were already cut, and so I sewed those together, trimmed, and pressed them. I could hear Mike tromping around upstairs, and so I knew it was time to get going. I left everything in a pile for finishing later.

We were home shortly after lunch time. We had lunch, and then I went to work making more reservations for our spring trip. I have reservations for up until the day of the solar eclipse (the point of the trip). That's as far as I felt I needed to go, but I'm also making reservations at any state parks we're planning to visit. Those fill up fast, and so I need reservations ahead. I have just a few more parks to reserve, and then I can call that job finished. Where we don't have reservations, we'll figure out along the way.

And that ended up taking more time than I intended. It always does. But I was determined to get the binding sewn on my quilt, and so I did that just before dinner time.

Now it awaits my return downstairs. 

Today I'll spend a little more time making more reservations, but then I think I'll be finished until after we leave home next spring. For sure, I want to get the Purrfectly Pieced quilt sandwiched, and hopefully, get a start on the quilting today. It's a small quilt, and so it won't take long.

That's about all I have for you today. Before I go, I wanted to show you what I saw when I finished yesterday's post. Through the window above our bed, I could see raindrops on the leafless maple tree outside. They sparkled like diamonds, and it was quite enchanting. My picture doesn't really capture the magic, but here you go:

Mike was up early enough this morning that he's already made his own breakfast. I just need to feed myself and then get back to my slow-stitching. I'm happy to be staying home today. It's a good day to get in a workout. My workouts have been lacking this week. And then I'll probably spend a good part of the day on my quilt binding. Hand-stitching is a good way to calm down after several days among the English. Everyone I see is wild-eyed and harried, and it's hard not to get caught up in the stress of the season. Staying home and putting my feet up while stitching a quilt binding sounds like a nice quiet way to spend the day.