Weeds-B-Gone

Good morning, my friends. I'm happy to say that I pulled the last of the weeds yesterday. That should give me a reprieve of about ten minutes. Actually, it will be slightly longer, but not by much. When I walk back to where I started, I can see they're already making a comeback. Mike is going to spray as the weather warms up, and that should give us some more relief. On this 18th day since arriving home, it's looking much better outside. We've had rain the past couple of days, but we're looking forward to some summer dinners eaten outside soon. And who's ready for summer? We sure are!

In yesterday's sewing efforts, I set an hour-long timer and went to work top-stitching and quilting my "Vintage" piece. It has a lot of little bitty pieces, and so I wanted to use a small needle and a light-weight thread. For the thread, I settled on this Presencia spool. 

You can see I have several colors of this. I purchased a set some time ago from one of those companies like Groupon (but not Groupon) where they make a large purchase and then resell to the customer at a reduced price. Problem is, there is no return on this sort of purchase. I was having trouble trying to complete the sale online. I ended up purchasing several sets when I only wanted one. This happened years ago, and I'm only just now getting around to using the thread for maybe the second time. 

It's a 50 weight thread.

I wanted to use monofilament in the bobbin: clear or smoky? Since I already had a bobbin wound with smoky, I went with that.

And with all the applique in such tiny pieces, I wanted to use a microtex 60/8 needle. My automatic threader can't thread such a small eye, and so I have to thread it using my eyeballs. (Oh, the humanity!) It helps to put something white behind the needle to make it easier to see the hole. My quilting gloves work nicely for this.

I wanted to test the tension, but I needed my practice piece to resemble my actual quilt. I had a practice piece folded over some batting. I dug some unused fabric with fusible out of the trash and fused it to what I already had there so that I could test my thread on something similar.

Since I'll be stitching right at the edge of this raw-edge applique, I wanted to be sure it wouldn't shred the fabric and that it wouldn't make large holes in the applique sections. This is looking good.

It was working fine on the quilt as well, but that tiny needle eye ended up shredding and breaking my thread. I switched to a 75/11 quilting needle, and that solved my problem.

Smitty was my helper cat. He's been distracted taking phone calls from his agent. They're working out a deal for him to pose for one of the swimsuit issues. As I mentioned earlier, he has a new Speedo, and he's been working on his tan. (Accomplishing a tan is difficult in this wet part of Oregon.)

I spent a full hour on the top-stitching/quilting. When my timer went off, I kept at it for a while longer in order to get to a good stopping place. I made quite a bit of progress in just one hour. It probably won't be finished today, but I expect to be sewing on the binding before the end of this week. Here's your peek.

There was still some time left in the day, and so I quilted two more of the embroidered blocks on the Blackwork Baskets quilt. It isn't always obvious where I should stitch within the embroidered "basket." Each one will be a little bit different.

Here's how that one looks from the back.

Here's the second one.

And here's how that looks from the back.

By then, it was time to get ready for our dinner out last night. We had reservations at the Portland City Grill. It's on the 30th floor of the USBancorp building...affectionately known as "Big Pink" in these parts. Despite having a reservation, we were told it would be a 30-minute wait for a table. The entry hall to the restaurant was mobbed. We opted to wait in the bar where we found an open table. We decided to go ahead and have our dinner there, and that worked out just fine. From the window, we could see the moody skies over the City of Portland. On a cloudless day, you'd be able to see Mt. Hood from this window.

And here we are at an apparently funny moment. Our server was a kick, and she made the evening even better.

It was a special menu...three courses...with several choices for each course. Erik and I chose the same thing for all three courses. Mae and Mike chose some different dishes. In order to avoid being completely annoying, I only took pictures of my own dinner. Erik and I started with the lobster bisque. Mmm, mmm, mmm.

The main course was shrimp and scallops in some sort of bourbon glaze. In the center is some roasted corn with bacon and microgreens. Yum.

And we finished off with Key Lime Pie...a family favorite.

And that was the end of a good day. Plenty was accomplished, and plenty was enjoyed.

Since I was so gung-ho about getting out and finishing the weeds yesterday morning, I didn't get in any slow-stitching time. I'll make up for it this morning. There's one housekeeping chore on the calendar. Otherwise, it's going to be a mostly sewing day. We're expecting better weather today, but it's still gray and overcast. Mike has gone back to bed. Getting under a quilt on the couch is sounding pretty good. Stitching might have to wait.