Bind On!

Good morning, my friends. It was the last of a string of nice days yesterday. The clouds have moved in today, and we're expecting some rain. The weather will improve again next week. It's nice to give the garden a little break from the hot sun. 

I needed to water the annuals. Also, I pruned the rose and dead-headed the peonies. The kitties kept me company while I was out. Smitty likes this corner of the deck where he can survey his territory unobstructed. Also, it's where the squirrels hang out. (Looks like Blow Man needs to come and blow all those stray pine needles away.)

Sadie was enjoying a luxurious dust bath in the sunshine.

It was a little too warm in the sun for kitties with dark furs, however. Later, I found Smitty in the shelter of his umbrella tree.

Back inside, it was time to cut binding strips and sew the binding on the Blackwork Baskets. 

You might recall I went looking for some already-cut binding strips, but couldn't find any anywhere. The quilt has been sandwiched for quilting for well over a year. Honestly, I wasn't sure if I'd ever cut any, although that is my usual practice. It seemed like a good use for purple. I'd been gifted with some purple fabrics from a friend whose quilting friend had passed away. I was the lucky recipient of some of her stash.

Digging through the purples, I came up with this one:

And then I went to work squaring up, cutting strips, sewing them together, and then sewing them to the quilt. And I'm happy with that choice.

And if you read yesterday's post, you might remember when I said this:

Earlier, I looked for any binding strips. I can't remember cutting any, and I couldn't find any either. So, I'll need to cut some binding strips, and then I'll probably find some I've already cut. 

And sure enough. About five minutes after taking the picture above, I found these. (Sigh.)

Oh well. If it isn't obvious, they are solid black. I'll use them for something else...or to bind a different quilt.

All right, so I was ready to get to work on something new. As I mentioned yesterday, my next trick is to sew together the Barn Block Sampler blocks. 

I was trying to decide among three quilt block panels that I could use to fussy cut some cornerstones. I did something similar when I made the Appalachian Memories quilt a few years back. For reference, there's how that looked.

If you remember when I finished this, I had originally planned to put the cornerstones at all four corners of each block. But then, I realized I was going to run out of fabric, and so I revised my design and finished it up as it appears above.

So when I opened this panel...

I found these already fussy cut and ready to go.

Also, I found these:

And I still have the fabrics I used to create those square-in-a-square blocks.

Also, I pulled the fabrics below for consideration.

So finding those little quilt blocks already fussy cut and ready to go made it an easy choice to just cut some more and use those. I need 20 for this quilt. Unless I'm missing something, I think I managed to find 20 different ones.

I haven't yet decided what to do about the borders, but it was easy enough to just start sewing the blocks together. I'm using the same background fabric from the pieced blocks as sashings, and then I'm putting a cornerstone at all four corners.

When the first one worked out right, I went ahead and sewed the first row together.

By then, it was time to stop, and so that's as far as I got. I'll continue on from there today, and I'm hoping to get it at least to border stage by the end of the day. Whether I sew on the borders will depend on how much patience I have for it at the end of the day. Sometimes borders can be a bugger to sew on.

Also on today's agenda, I'll get to work hand-sewing the binding for the Blackwork Baskets. Also, I should make up another embroidery piece. I'm nearly finished with the Joyful Journey, and I'm going to need some more hand-stitching when that is finished.

So there's lots of sewing in my future. Right now, I'm going to nourish myself with some Sunday morning Blueberry Oatmeal Pancakes. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, you know. And I don't know if that's true, but I do like those pancakes. Do I need another reason?