A Welcome Day at Home

Good morning, my friends. To read the title of this post, you might think that I'm running around town all the time...every day. In fact, I'm home most days. Sometimes a whole week passes, and I don't leave the house. It's how I like it. Formerly a very busy person, I'm happy to claim my hermitry. So going out twice in the same week...two days in a row, with no vacation in between...it was a sad thing. Staying home gave me plenty of time to sew. Wanna see what I did?

Okay, well first I stitched the day's Tiny Heart assignment. This one will be finished today. She made it a two-parter. This one includes buttonhole stitch, French knots, back stitch, double lazy daisy, and long straight stitches.

When I'd finished that part, I went to work on February's "Joy in the Ordinary" block from Jenny of Elefantz. I thought I might be able to finish this, but time ran out when I had it this far. I'll be able to finish it off this morning...and the one above too.

While I was working out on the Bow-Flex, Mike finished clipping the flannel quilt. Then it was washed and dried, and we had ourselves a finished quilt. It was still linty from its trip through the dryer. Mike drove into town later, and I used some packing tape to unstick most of the lint. I expect we'll be picking threads from it for a little while at least.

He and Sadie put it through its paces right away. Before he left to go into town, he informed me that it functioned perfectly.

Finishing this flannel quilt was my goal for February's

so I'll link up there when the part starts at the end of the month.

After lunch, I rewatched the video for Week 4 of the Dot-to-Dot QAL, and I filled in the remaining areas around the outside of the star. Here's a run down of what I did. First, these two diamonds. It's hard to know what to do inside some of the smaller ones.

Here's a prime example of not knowing what to do. It's kind of okay, but not very symmetrical.

From there, I started focusing on symmetry. This one looks pretty good.

Here's another one, just like the other one.

This next one is one of the larger squares. 

Instituting the one-hour rule, I'd set a timer for one hour. It went off just as I finished the last of the areas for the outer part of the star. Here's how it's looking so far.

It's a little hard to see the quilting on the back, and so I've bumped up the contrast some in the image below.

Today I'll watch the fifth and last video, and I'll see what she has in store for us in the center star and in the gray areas around the outer edges.

From there, I added borders to the two blocks for The Story of My Day. I really love these blocks. They're fun to stitch, and they're fun to finish. This one is "Housework."

This one is "Shop for Shoes."

That makes 16 of 25 blocks completed. Here they are together.

That brought me to the end of my sewing day.

Last night, I tried a new recipe. A Facebook friend posted this recently and said it was good. It was easy, and we liked it. This is Tuscan Chicken. It's all made using a single pan. The chicken is browned, and then a sauce is made using onion, garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh spinach, and seasonings. Show me a recipe that uses sun-dried tomatoes, and I'll have to make it immediately. I love sun-dried tomatoes. It makes a delicious sauce, and so I served it with some long-grain rice to soak up all that deliciousness.

We cleaned our plates, and there's enough for another meal...always appreciated. Also, it's easy enough to do in the RV.

So today will look a lot like yesterday. I'll spend an hour on Week 5 of the quilt-along, I'll finish off my slow-stitching projects, and then I'll get to work making another blocks for the Cats in Pajamas quilt. Here's the first block...maybe you're tired of seeing this block. Not to worry, I'll have a new one for tomorrow's post.

Since writing yesterday, I've had a bit of inspiration about these. I want to make one to look like Smitty and one to look like Sadie. February's block will be made to look like Sadie using some black and gold fabric (for the tortie in her). I'll give it gold eyes, and I think I can see a way to shorten the tail to make it look like hers. When I do Smitty, I'll use a gray and give it green eyes and a pink nose. Now I'm excited to get going on it. We'll be traveling for a bit, and I'm going to fall behind, but I'll keep track of the colors, and catch up when we get back.

Okay, so Mike has requested French toast for breakfast. I guess I'll go feed him.