Good morning, my friends. Is everyone staying warm and dry? My goodness, we've had a lot of rain here. It slowed to a sprinkle for a few hours yesterday, but then started up again last night. It's been warm enough...this being a "Pineapple Express" from Hawaii. But man...wet, wet, wet. If the forecast is to be believed, we should start drying out sometime tomorrow, and we're actually expecting dry weather for at least a few days starting on Sunday. It's perfect timing for our camping trip. Fingers crossed the forecast is correct.
We thought we'd do our massive recycling yesterday, but then when it rained so much, we decided to just bag it for the day. I believe we'll do that today. Instead, I spent most of my day top-stitching the Whimsical Quilt Garden blocks. Sadie was my helper.
But only if we're not doing any papurr-piecing. In this, I stand furrm.
She helped me finish off Block #17.
The blocks are time-consuming to top-stitch, and Sadie was tired by then. Smitty stepped in to help.
With his help, I finished off Block #18.
I'm nearing the end of the blocks for this quilt. There are just two more blocks to make before I can start sewing the quilt top together. Here are all the blocks I have so far. (I suppose I could have laid them out a little straighter.)
Okay, so I mentioned our new pile of recycling. Fortunately, I think this is pretty much the last of it. There are still a few odds and ends stuffed into nooks and drawers, but the lion's share is finished. We'll take this to the recycling depot today (I hope).
In addition to papers that should have been discarded years ago, there are a lot of paperback books. We used to be able to resell books at our local Powell's book store. Last time I brought in a load of books, they weren't interested in most of them. We'll save ourselves the trip this time. There are also a few hardback books, but those will get donated to Goodwill. (I chuckled when I noticed one of the hardback books still had a price tag from Goodwill.)
When that's finished, I can get started quilting the Heartland Barns quilt. It's been lounging over my sewing machine and chair, relaxing its wrinkles out. It's a surprisingly effective method when a quilt has been folded and stacked in a pile for months.
But I can't start on that until we get rid of the recycling. As you can see, it's all piled uncomfortably close to my sewing chair.
And let's just talk about the quilting, shall we? Hopefully, I've learned my lesson about quilting for too long and making my wrist hurt. Today's goal will be to do the embroidered panels in the middle. I'll start with an off-white thread and outline some of the motifs, and maybe quilt some stuff in the sky...clouds, sunshine...it'll come to me as I go. The rest of the quilt will be done in a darker thread...brown, probably...and I'll use some sort of leafy motif, although I'm still mulling that over.
Finally, I'm making good progress on The Story of My Day blocks. I'm nearly finished with the first one. So, I'll need some stitching to take along on our camping trip. Already I have the Ties & Tails quilt to finish hand-sewing the binding.
We're only gone for three nights, but that should still give me plenty of time to finish the binding.
When that's finished, I'll start on the tenth block for the Joyful Journey quilt. Within the next day or two, I'll trace that block for stitching. Here are the blocks I have for the Joyful Journey quilt so far.
I like this in-between period of time where I've finished with one thing and I'm looking at what's next. The anticipation and planning is fun, and the frustration hasn't set in yet.
So there's a full day of activities ahead of me. It's a good way to stay dry, except for the recycling, of course. I have one housekeeping chore to do in addition to the recycling adventure, and then I'll get busy with the quilting.
5 comments:
The concept of Shwopping is so clever, I think. The idea is that every time someone goes shopping, they can take an unwanted item of clothing and pop it in the recycling bin in their M&S store for Oxfam. ~ Joanna Lumley
I've donated books that I've purchased (used usually and I usually check out my books at the library) to the library. They have occasional sales and I figure they'll maybe get a little bit of money off the books I donate. Often they do 'bundles' to sell so I'm sure most everything goes one way or the other.
Books are always hard to deal with. We used to have Half-Priced Books here in Oklahoma, but the building leases got too expensive, so those are all gone. Whimsical Garden is really coming togheter, it's such a fun quilt. Fingers crossed you get some good weather for next week.
Sometimes libraries have a 'friends' group that is happy to take books in good condition and then sell them to raise funds for the library. Ours does and I take books there as well as being able to leave them in our little lending library in the laundry room in our building. That's after I've passed them around to two of my friends.
Looking forward to seeing how you quilt the barns!
Sometimes it's just easier to pile all the stuff, and take it to recycling, rather than chase all over, dropping it off here and there. Especially when you make the effort and then there's little interest. Anyway, your quilting projects are looking good, and your stitchery is lovely as always. You come up with such fun designs!
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