Distracted

Good morning, my friends. As I look out my window, there's some fog, but we're expecting a day of sunshine that will extend for the next several days. It'll be Mike's golden opportunity to finally finish off the trailer brakes. The poor man has been working on them for weeks, as weather permits. He's down to the last possible problem, and then they should be in proper working order. I'll be glad to know it's all finished since this is the sort of thing that bubbles up in the background of my feeble mind on occasion.

Speaking of my feeble mind, I finished writing my post yesterday talking all tough about being the boss of me. I went straight down to the sewing room and collected the Blackwork Baskets quilt to have a look and consider whether I wanted to start the quilting. After giving it some thought, I decided I didn't want to add extra work for myself by attempting to quilt such a large quilt before we leave. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time leaving things unfinished. My brain won't let loose of things until I've reached a good stopping point. The sewing chair was as far as the quilt got...a good stopping point...and it'll be there waiting for me when we get home.

Also on the chair and underneath the Blackwork Baskets, the Dot-to-Dot panel is awaiting my return. Here's where I left off.

I had every intention of coming back and putting in another hour on it, but it completely skipped my mind. It was forgotten until I headed into the sewing room, and by then, I was committed to another project. 

I'm getting a little ahead of myself, however, because I first did some slow-stitching. I stitched up Day 9's Tiny Heart. This one has chain stitch, back stitch, French knots, and feather stitch

When that was finished, I took the first stitches on November's Joyful Journey block. This one is called "Gather."

It was a laundry day, and so I got started on that. From there, I headed into the sewing room. Smitty was waiting for me. He sticks close by the phone in case his agent calls with another cover photo gig.

Confident he wouldn't miss any important calls, he stood by awaiting instructions.

My first stop was to add borders to February's Joy in the Ordinary block.

Here are the two blocks I have for this quilt so far.

And then I was bent on sewing together the Whimsical Quilt Garden. This is what distracted me from my quilting. Already I had everything out when I realized I'd forgotten about the quilting. Oh well. There was no turning back from that point, and so I went along my merry way.

You might recall that some of these blocks had applique that extended out past the block borders. I needed to sew those blocks together, and then set up the machine for top-stitching. There were three sections like that:

If you're wondering about those red and white sashings, the pattern had them done all scrappy. I didn't have enough red scraps in the proper sizes for that, and so I used just two fabrics, choosing them and sewing them together randomly. My hope was that they would appear scrappy if I mixed them up.

Besides, I made a mistake with the second block, and it was finished by the time I realized it. Mixing them up was an easy design decision after that.

 When those were finished, I could start sewing the blocks into a finished quilt top. Smitty held them down while I worked.

By the end of my sewing day, I had all the blocks sewn together.

There are two borders that still need to be sewn on. I asked the Resident Retired Engineer for a consult, and he helped me choose these two fabrics. The yellow will make a narrow stop border, and the flowers will be for the outer border. I expect some of the flower fabric will also be used in the quilt back.

It was time to stop by then, and so I folded it up and left it lying on the table. As I turned out the lights, I noticed Sadie was giving it a pre-border snuggleability test. It would be a shame to spend time sewing on the borders only to learn it had failed its snuggleability test. Wouldn't you agree?

We're less than three weeks from our departure date now. It's the time before a trip when thoughts of the trip are bubbling in the back of my mind at all times. What will I take? What kind of weather can we expect? Don't forget those eclipse sunglasses! What foods should I be making ahead? What frozen leftovers do I want to take? What cuts of meat should I bring along from the freezer? Where do we still need reservations? But...as you might guess...my sewing projects are ready to go. Priorities, people.

In case you're wondering that's my little travel iron on top. It holds my iron, and it opens up to make a little ironing board. It's a very handy traveling package. If something like that interests you, you can find the info about it at this old blog post. Mine is for a travel iron, but they also make a caddy for a full-sized iron. As for these project bins, they just need to be loaded into the RV and then the most important part of the packing process will already be finished! Of course, nothing else can really happen until the day gets closer, but I'll have it all sorted out in my already-enfeebled mind.

This morning, I'll get back to my slow-stitching. I've told myself I'll fit in a Bow-Flex workout, and I have one housekeeping chore to do. By day's end, I expect to have a finished quilt top. Maybe if I work fast, I can have a finished quilt back too.