A Quilty Day

Good morning, my friends. It was all quilting, all the time yesterday. Compared to my previous day of sloth, yesterday was fairly productive. 

February is International Embroidery Month, and so each day of February has started with the day's Tiny Heart. Yesterday's was only partially completed. The outer border will be stitched later. I happen to know it's the dreaded bullion stitch, and so it's just as well we put it off as long as possible. At least that way I'll be able to finish all the hearts before the bullion stitch has me wanting to slit my own throat. Here's yesterday's contribution:

It contains back stitch, satin stitch, cross stitch, French knots, and a basket weave stitch.

There was some housework to do, and I got in a Bow-Flex workout. When I came upstairs from my workout, it was pouring rain outside. But then...lookie there! Blooming mini iris! Can spring be far behind?

These come up in our whiskey barrels and other places every year. Interestingly, I did not plant them. I continue to believe the squirrels planted them as consolation for eating all my tulip bulbs.

By early afternoon, I was ready to get started quilting the Dot-to-Dot panel. I'm making my way around the outer edge now. Yesterday's practice was to experiment with some of the designs I've learned, but also to work on symmetry. So I started on the left side and then worked my way across until I turned the corner. Here are the designs I came up with:

That was enough for a single day. I have to be mindful of my wrist. Looking at the whole side, it looks like this:

Today's goal will be to work my way around the second side until I turn the second corner.

There was still some time left in the day, and so I went to work sandwiching this little "Joined by Thread" stitchery for quilting.

When I posted this piece a few days ago, my friend Siggy Bee asked where she could find the pattern. Siggy Bee, you're no-reply, and so I can't respond to you directly. Here's the skinny on this stitchery, though, for anyone who's interested. It was a part of a Facebook group that started up during the worst of the pandemic called "Love and Hugs from Australia." A group of Australian designers created a number of quilt blocks and some folks eventually sewed them into quilts. 

This block was a part of that series. I didn't make all of them, but some of them were too cute to pass up. This one was created by Leanne Knell, whose webpage is Petals and Patches. I spent quite some time this morning trying to find Leanne's original post, but was unable to find the pattern wherever it appeared the first time. Nevertheless, I still have it in my Dropbox, and so if anyone wants it, I'd be happy to share. Just email me for the link.

But getting back to my sandwiching, thankfully, Smitty was on hand for that. He's an excellent helper cat. He was a little miffed that my sewing interrupted his nap.

I hadn't intended to quilt it, but there was still time left in the day, and so I went to work. I used this fancy stitch from my sewing machine around the outer edge of the stitchery.

And then I did a little heart motif around the outer border.

I found this reddish-brown binding in my binding scraps, and it was exactly the length I needed. It always makes me feel smug when I can use one of those leftover binding strips.

And that was the end of my sewing day. Hand-stitching the binding will be at the top of my to-do list today, and it should be easy enough to finish it off.

So there you go. We're looking at a pretty decent day of weather today. I'm planning to do some more quilting, but I'm also thinking it would be good to get out and pull some weeds. We're going to be traveling during the worst of weed-growing season. I actually dread returning home to the jungle that will flourish while we're gone. It would be good to get a little head start on those and pull them before they can go to seed. I'll admit to being reticent to be out working in the yard when it's still so cold, sunshine or not. For now...breakfast. The day awaits. My to-do list is still being created.