Happy Father's Day!

Good morning, my friends, and happy Father's Day to all who celebrate. If you live with a father, please pass along my wishes for a very happy Father's Day. We're having a breakfast to dinner celebration here. This morning started with Eggs Benedict.

We'll end the evening with dinner at one of our favorite Portland restaurants. They have a special Father's Day menu for this evening. Erik and Mae will be joining us there. It's going to be fun, and I'm looking forward to it.

Backing up to yesterday, it rained off and on for most of the day. Mike was able to get some weed-whacking done, but I stayed inside most of the day. I ventured out for a bit and found our one little rose fully opened. Surprisingly, no one has made a snack of it yet.

Also, I noticed the wild strawberries are blooming. These have a job as a ground cover in a portion of the culinary herb garden. They produce little marble-sized strawberries. We don't eat them, but the squirrels and birds love them. I have to keep after them, or they'd like to take over the whole herb garden.

Back inside, I stitched enough of the "Silent Night" piece to decide to move my hoop.

Now, I have most of the Northeast portion of it in my hoop. I'll start there when I'm finished here.

There were a few easy housekeeping chores on yesterday's calendar. I interspersed them with sewing activities throughout the day. Smitty helped me clean up the sewing room. When I make a collage quilt, I end up with stuff scattered from "a" to "izzard."

Pardon me while I go all tangential for a minute here. The phrase "a to izzard" didn't come into my life until I met Mike. It was something his family said. Just now, I decided to see if this was a Stanbro thing or a thing other people said. So, I inquired of The Google and learned this:

From A to Izzard is an old phrase similar to our present day “From A to Z”. In the 1750s the letter "z" had three different pronunciations depending if you were British, Scottish, or American. If you were from Britain, Z was pronounced “zed.” In Scotland they said “ezed,” and in America it was called “zee.”

In 1755, English lexicographer Samuel Johnson was working on explaining the sound of the letter z. In his classic Dictionary of the English Language, Samuel used the word “izzard” to better explain how to pronounce z.

It was from this 250-year-old explanation that the phrase from “A to izzard” was started. It means from beginning to end, or from a to z. (Credit: https://izzardink.com/from-a-to-izzard/)

Okay, pardon the interruption. Now, where were we? Oh yes. We were cleaning the sewing room. Smitty could scarcely believe his eyes. Where was his catnip dish?

He helped me sort through the landscape prints that went unused, and generally helped me clean things up. (He helped clean up some of the catnip too.)

When we had it all cleaned up, I made a background for my "Vintage" collage. Carefully, oh so carefully, I peeled it off the teflon pressing sheet and then fused it to the background. Here's your peek.

I needed a day off from it before I start on the top-stitching and the quilting, but it was very nice to have a clean sewing room after working on it since the beginning of the month. It's lying there on the ironing board, but I've blurred it out. There's no need to cover your eyes.

Instead, I decided it was time to start quilting the Blackwork Baskets. I started the first stitchery for this quilt way back in December of 2021. It has been draped over my sewing chair since before we left on our trip back in February.

So, I first needed to peruse my thread collection. Thanks to my quilting fairy godmother, Ila, I always have just the right color. For this quilt, I'll use this pretty variegated Valdani thread in the borders and setting triangles.

For the black border, I'll probably use the black thread, although I might be bold and use the variegated thread there too. I'll use the variegated thread in the blocks with the Native American prints, and I'll use a smoky monofilament in the bobbin.

Smitty helped me get the tension adjusted properly. In case you were wondering, Smitty is an excellent sewing cat.

While I was quilting, he sat watch in the window, scanning the landscape for any quilting marauders.

I wanted to try some of the dot-to-dot quilting I learned from Angela Walters during the quilt-along from last winter. For these embroidered blocks, I'm stitching around the edges of some of the blackwork embroidery. Then, I used the dot-to-dot to fill in the corners of the block. Those are creases in the middle of the block from having been folded up for so long. The quilting in that area follows right along the edges of the embroidery.

Here's how it looks from the back. A little hard to see, I know.

I was able to finish two of the embroidered blocks yesterday. Here's the second one.

And here's how that looks from the back.

When I quilted the first block, I was cutting threads at each corner. But then, I figured out a way to quilt all the way around all four corners without cutting thread. It will go a lot faster that way.

Smitty was exhausted after being so busy all day long. When I stopped for the day, he was snoozing out in the chair beside my machine.

When I finished making new flannel quilts for our morning snuggle quilts, I put Mike's old flannel quilt here in this chair. I've been trying to get Smitty to nap there while I sew...as opposed to attempting to nap on the quilt I'm currently free motion quilting. He never liked it very much until I laid down the flannel quilt. Now, it's one of his favorite napping spots.

And speaking of napping spots, Sadie found this sunshine spot under the dining room table. Ahhhhhhh...burn me, sun.

Okay, so I have a little housework today. If the rain lets up, I'll get out and finish the weeding. I need just one more day to finish it off. Mainly, it'll be a sewing day until it's time to get ready for tonight's dinner date. I'll start with my slow-stitching, and then I'll give myself an hour for top-stitching the "Vintage" piece. (I'm dreading that, but I'm happy with the quilt so far.) When my hour is up, I'll get back to the Blackwork Baskets.

Have a good day, Everybody. Be good to the fathers in your life today.