A Finished Quilt Top

Good morning, my friends. I'm thinking of it as a good morning even though we have grocery shopping to do today. It's a long list, and I'm dreading it. When that's finished, though, the day is my own. I should probably water the annuals too. That never seems like a chore, and it gives me a chance to see what's new. Yesterday would have been my usual day to water them, but they were still fairly wet. I decided to wait a day. While I was out, I filled the birdfeeders, and then I walked around to see what was new. Happily, I found that the first of the daylilies had bloomed.

To its right, the stargazer lily is still teasing me. I'm just glad nobody has eaten it...yet.

To its right, the calla lily has unfurled a leaf. It looks as if the slugs have been after it.

For them, I spread some slug bait. I can never spread slug bait without thinking of my dear father-in-law. He'd walk around his garden spreading slug bait calling out like the ice cream man, "Candy! Candy!" Mike and I both do the same thing.

Moving on, the blue hydrangea has several flowers now.

The sage is blooming in the culinary herb garden. I find lots of uses for the sage leaves, and sometimes I make sage vinegar from the blossoms.

Around front, the Red Cardinal clematis has a new flower. 

This has me worried a little bit. It had several vines climbing its trellis, but one of the vines died. It had several flowers on it that never got a chance to bloom. I've tried following the wilting and dead stuff to the ground. I have a feeling some critter bit it off at ground level. The plant is tangled up on the trellis enough that it's hard to follow anything all the way to the ground. I'll keep watching it and remove the dead stuff as needed. I just hope the whole thing doesn't die.

To its right, the purple hydrangea is putting out more flowers now.

Even the rose bush has avoided being eaten by deer. Generally, it's only a matter of time. We'll enjoy the flowers while we can. I gave it a haircut a few days ago, and it's looking better. It had a lot of old dead canes that needed to be removed.

Back inside, I took the first stitches on the newest Girls' Getaway block. I dislike chain stitch enough that I force myself to do a full length of that variegated floss at the bottom before I allow myself to stitch anywhere else. That way, I make a little progress on the rug each day until it's finished.

For this piece, chain stitch is the clear choice. Sometimes I do a different stitch when chain stitch is called for. As an example, the word "Peace" was supposed to have been done in chain stitch on the "Silent Night" piece. I did stem stitch instead.

There was one housekeeping chore on yesterday's calendar, and then I got busy finishing off the Barn Block Sampler quilt top. I had just one more row of blocks to finish. When they were all sewn together, they looked like this:

I was still happy with my choices for borders, but I first checked to see if I could get more of the outer border fabric in case I ran out. 

I could, and so I continued on with my original plan. First, I sewed the pinkish fabric for the inner border. Here's how that looked.

Smitty gave his appurroval. There was enough of that fabric to cut binding strips for the finished quilt.

And then I went to work sewing on the outer border. I already had several cut strips from when I made the baby quilt last summer. I chose the longest among those. Measuring, I figured I could cut a 4-inch wide border from that strip, and so that's how wide I made my borders. As it turns out, I had plenty of fabric mainly from the cut strips. I only needed one more strip from the largest bits of yardage to finish it off.

The barn block patterns were a gift from my friend, Wendy. (Thank you, Wendy.) She gets a Moda Sew Sampler box monthly (I think), and she didn't want to do these blocks. She sent them to me to enjoy. I won't do them again, and so I'd be happy to pass along the patterns to someone else...free of charge. Just email me and let me know if you want them. And you can thank Wendy for her generosity.

Already I'd selected several fabrics to use as a back. I wasn't sure, though, and so I went searching through my stash and came up with these chickens. When I bought this fabric, I'd intended to use it in a different quilt, and then changed my mind. It seemed perfect for the barn blocks, and so I went to work to create a back. Also, with all those farm animals in the border and on the back, I was motivated to start calling this quilt "Barnyard." 

Bummer, though. I thought I had four yards, and I only had three...not enough to make a back for the quilt unless I pieced it with something else. So I went online to see if I could get another yard. And, I don't know if I could or not, but when I saw this fabric...

I liked it even better. I ordered four yards of that. It's called "Cottage Farm," and it's made by Windham. Windham happens to have a 25% off promotion going on right now, and so one of those four yards was free. Cool! I'm expecting that to arrive by the weekend, and then I can move this project to the "To Be Sandwiched" pile. Speaking of sandwiching, I'm going to have to do that soon. I have just one more quilt sandwiched for quilting...this one, currently lounging on my sewing chair until it's turn under my needle.

Not to worry though, there are ten (so far) on my list to be sandwiched. The good times just keep rolling in, don't they?

Okay, so next up will be to finish and quilt the "Tiny Hearts" project. This was the "stitched inchies" stitch-along project from Crabapple Hill for International Embroidery Month this past February. It shouldn't take long to finish it off.

The Barnyard quilt took all of my sewing time yesterday. I didn't make any more progress on the Blackwork Baskets binding beyond the two corners I've stitched so far.

It'll be a good project to come home to after our grocery shopping trip today. Heck, I might even end up taking a nap under it while I stitch. Either day, I expect to have a finished quilt by the end of the day today. But first...I have to survive my grocery shopping trip. Having a quilt to finish when I get home should be motivation enough.