A Little Bit of Sewing

Good morning, my friends. Happily, I got a better night of sleep last night. I was dragging yesterday. After writing my post, I did some slow-stitching, and then slid down on the couch for a morning nap. It was a short nap. We needed to drive into town to run some errands. When we got home, we had some lunch, and then I lay down for another nap. That too was short. The two naps helped me keep my eyes open during the time when I was supposed to be awake. However, they did nothing for my energy level, and I spent the day dragging myself around, trying to accomplish something.

By mid-afternoon, I made my way into the sewing room. I figured I had energy to make two pieced blocks for the Girls' Getaway quilt. This first one is an "Hourglass." There must be similar names for different blocks because my idea of an "Hourglass" is different from this one. 

Just now I checked in at Quilters Cache and found there are at least four different "Hourglass" blocks.

There are two "Hourglass" blocks in this quilt's border, and that was the second one. They end up at 9-1/2 inches, and then a narrow strip is sewn to one side or other other so that it will fit the 10-1/2 inch border when the quilt is sewn together at the end.

The second one is called "Grandmother's Choice." There is just one of these.

Here are the pieced blocks I have for the Girls' Getaway quilt so far.

So, I'm expecting to have the Girls' Getaway embroidered panel finished within the week. That will bring me to the "Short" item on my embroidery dance card. Yesterday, I spent some time gathering what I'll need for that. These "Mini Charms" from Chickadee Hollow Designs have been in my patterns-to-stitch box for quite a long time. 

The come pre-printed on fabric, and so they'll make a good take-along project for our upcoming trip.

I've been thinking about using them as cornerstones for a fabric panel I picked up when we were visiting quilt shops in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. I really loved this panel, and so I purchased one. I have some dark solids I'll use to sash it, and I'm thinking the stitched "charms" will make great cornerstones for this when I sew it into a quilt top.

And talking about this reminds me that it was just a happy accident that our upcoming trip will have us in Kentucky while the Paducah Quilt Show is going on. Well. Don't you know I jumped at the chance to go to Paducah. I've always wanted to go to one of the really big shows. So far, I've seen Road to California, but the other quilt shows have all been smaller local shows. Maybe the Outdoor Quilt Show in Sisters, Oregon, counts, but Paducah seems like the real prize to this quilter. 

So...anyway...when I visited the quilt shops in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, I was given the royal tour by my friend, Robin. We had a fabulous day. Robin lives near enough, and so I asked her if she'd like to go to Paducah with me. And she said YES!!! Now I'm so excited. She'll be staying in the same town with us, and I just think we're going to have a blast at the quilt show. I'm hoping we can contain ourselves enough that we don't get kicked out. Here's a picture of Robin and me...seven years ago.

FYI, Mike is thrilled Robin will be joining me. He was going to be a good sport about the quilt show, but he'll be happier staying at the RV with the kitties.

And all of that to say I picked floss colors for the mini charms.

Now they have their own box, and I'll plan to take them with us when we go. As for my next embroidery project, I'll start tracing the next blocks for The Story of My Day quilt within the next day or two. Here are the blocks I have for that quilt so far.

Okay, so next up in my sewing room today, I'll make two more blocks for the Shop Hop 3.0 quilt. These are the two I'll be doing. The fabric on the right was custom made for that quilt shop. Three Forks, Montana, is one of the places Lewis & Clark were traveling on their epic journey.

When those are finished, I will have reached the end of my list of WIPs. Ordinarily, this would bring me to the "Quilter's Choice" section of my whiteboard. With Project Quilting going on, I'm going to skip over that section for now. Problem is...that brings me back to the first section, which is to quilt a large quilt. And that's a problem because my quilting machine is disassembled right now in preparation for the carpeting going in on Monday. Fortunately, it'll be back in working order soon enough. I'm going to be three weeks behind on the Dot-to-Dot Free Motion Quilting Challenge. I've only been able to complete the first two weeks.

When the machine is set up, I'll want to get caught up on that before I do anything else. And that means, I'll probably start sewing together the blocks for the Whimsical Quilt Garden. I have some fun fabrics to use when I finish this off.

That brings us up to date on the goings on here at the Three Cats Ranch. Today I need to get busy emptying out my dresser drawers for the carpet on Monday. This weekend is going to be all about getting ready for carpet. It's going to be nice getting that finished and putting away all the boxes currently sitting around the house. Since I was too lazy to do a workout yesterday, I'll get one in today. There are leftovers for dinner, and I'll be putting my energy toward readying the place for the new carpet. With two weather-related delays, it's been a long time coming.

Now seems as good a time as any to say I might sign off for a day or two while the carpet job is at the forefront of our activities. I'll write if I have anything to say. If all I'm doing is moving boxes around, I probably won't. In any case, I'll be back by Tuesday morning. Until then, keep the coffee hot.