Catching Up

Good morning, my friends. The stratus clouds gave us another interesting and pretty sunrise this morning. Another day begins.

Look closely and you'll see that Mike has the whole field mowed now. All the grass clippings are just lying there, but at least we can walk out in the field without turning into sneezing, itchy-eye factories. Mike noted that the grass had gone to seed, and so now it will fill in any bare spots that have developed. Also, I've pulled all the weeds from the front of the house. Today, I'll start on the culinary herb garden. My part of the yard clean-up is about 75% finished.

It was a full day on Sunday. I got an early start putting some Slow Cooker Texas Pulled Pork into the crockpot yesterday morning. It was a new recipe to me. Generally, I make "pulled" sandwiches from chicken. The pork was good. I neglected to take any pictures, but here's one of the pictures from the recipe.

Also on the morning's kitchen agenda, I made a Tangy and Creamy Macaroni Salad to go with it. That pretty well took care of dinner for the day.

But I wasn't finished in the kitchen. Oh no. I had strawberries to de-seed, and ice cream to make. It still needs churning, but I'll get at that this morning now that it's well-chilled. There were also weeds to pull and some housekeeping to do. And there was a multitude of things standing between me and my sewing. Finally, finally, finally, everything was finished, and I could get to work on the important stuff.

First, I finished stitching May's block for "Joy in the Ordinary."

The kitties thought we'd never get to the sewing room. Sadie heaved a big kitty sigh of relief when we were able to get busy.

Smitty just wonders when we're going to get busy with June's cat wearing blue pajamas. 

Our first task was to sew the borders on the stitchery.

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

With May's block finished, I guess I can say I'm caught up. June's block is still waiting, but this is June. Until the month is over, I can say officially that I'm caught up. Same goes for the Cats in Pajamas. June's blue cat is the only cat waiting to become a quilt block.

From there, I spent another hour on my "Vintage" art quilt. I spent at least half that time making the first piece wrong three different ways before getting it right. Needless to say, an hour didn't give me  time to make very much progress. I did, however, start using the tiny pieces that were printed onto fabric. That's going to work out just fine. Here's your peek.

It was 4:00 p.m. by then. It seemed too soon to stop, and yet, too late to start anything else. Knowing I would run out of slow-stitching when I finish the next "Joy in the Ordinary" block, it seemed as good a time as any to trace out the next block for "Joyful Journey." This is the next block, called "Silent Night." It's also the last block I need to turn this into a finished quilt top.

So, I was determined to get caught up on cooking, gardening, and housework yesterday. It meant a full day, but not a whole lot of sewing. Today I'll be churning the ice cream, and I'll pick another bucket o' weeds. Other than that, It's going to be all sewing all the time. I'll spend another hour on my "Vintage" art quilt. It's getting far enough along that it's starting to hold my attention without the need to turn it into a forced and timed event. Also, I'll satisfy Smitty by getting started on June's cat in blue pajamas.

Next up, I'll get started stitching the "Joy in the Ordinary" block. There's no rush to get outside to pull weeds, but I am anxious to get the job finished. I probably have three more days of weed pulling to get caught up on that. We're both wanting to get the yard looking better so we can enjoy dinner outside on these nice summer evenings. 

That's all I have for you this morning. Things feel pretty well back to normal here. It's the beginning of a new week, and I'm ready to settle down and enjoy summer.