Fresh Start

Good morning, my friends. It's good to have the quilt sandwiches done so that I can get back to my regular routine. Of course, some things never change. Unless something pressing happens, the day must start with some slow-stitching. Yesterday, I took the first stitches on the 11th block for the "Kittens" quilt. 

From there, I took a walk on the treadmill, and then I took a walk around outside. The kitties are allowed out in the morning, and we keep pretty close tabs on them. In my walk-around, I noticed buds on at least three of the four dahlias. I'm hoping these will bloom within the next month. We'll be heading out after Labor Day for a short trip, and I don't want to miss them.

The echinacea is blooming away...

Much to the delight of the bees and butterflies. I'm pretty sure I saw a Painted Lady butterfly here a couple of days ago. They're almost always too quick for photos.

And look at the color on this Pow Wow Wild Berry. Except for cropping, I've done no photo editing on this. It really is that color.

When I planted the annuals in pots lining our sidewalk back in June, the squirrels ate every flower within the first day. Finally, after weeks, the geraniums are making a comeback.

Same goes for the gerbera daisies. 

We moved these smaller pots to the other side of the patio, hoping the squirrels would leave them alone. They've done much better in this location. I've found sunflower seeds sprouting there, and so I know the squirrels have been in these pots. For whatever reason, they don't eat the flowers.

And look how pretty these are. I love the colors.

We have a good crop of dandelions going too. 

Mowman needs to come soon, but Mowman has been working his other job as Jeep Maintenance Guy. He's been working for the past couple of weeks catching up on Jeep maintenance and making other repairs so that our Jeep will be in tip-top shape for its shakedown cruise to Moab next month. It'll also be ready to be our "toad" when we go to Alaska next year.

Back inside, I was ready to start on the applique for the new Merry, Merry Snowmen quilt. I used a scrap of white to trace the designs that would require some embroidery. I've embroidered through applique before, but I'd rather not. These designs are simple enough, I can trace them onto the fabric and stitch them before adding the Heat 'n Bond. When I had it this far, I realized I hadn't given myself enough room for my hoop. (I know some folks can embroider without a hoop, but I'm not one of them.)

No problem...and I would have done this anyway. I added some iron on stabilizer...

And that gave me some breathing room for a small hoop.

Probably, it took a little less than an hour to do the stitching.

From there, I trimmed off the excess stabilizer, and then I added Heat 'n Bond to the back. The stabilizer has the added advantage of preventing floss tails from showing through. It will also prevent the background fabric from showing through the white snowmen.

When the fusing medium was added, I could trim them, and my applique pieces were ready to go.

The snowman peeking from the corner got his head first.

And then I went to work on the rest of the applique. For the snowman body, I used the iron-on stablizer again. I'm only using this with the white pieces.

Then I added the Heat 'n Bond.

And it didn't take long before I had all the applique done.

I added arms for the snowman and a string for the sign. Those will be embroidered using my machine's triple stitch. It was late in the day by then, and this seemed like a good stopping place. The applique still needs top-stitching.

For dinner last night, I tried a new salad recipe. On the left of the image below is a Cucumber-Blueberry Spinach Salad. That was really good. The full recipe serves six. I made the full recipe for the blueberry vinaigrette (delicious), but only half the salad. We'll have the rest as leftovers in a couple of nights. The sandwich on the side is something I've made before, but not for a long time. It's an Apple and Fontina Grilled Cheese sandwich. The combination of the fontina cheese with the apple is especially nice.

That was a pretty easy dinner after a busy day. 

Okay, so I came up with a new idea for blogging. While I was doing my one housekeeping chore yesterday, I was thinking about some question comments I've received. It bothers me when someone asks a direction question, and I'm not able to answer because the questioner is no-reply. It occurred to me that I can add a section to my blog, say, once every couple of weeks where I answer those unanswered questions. If your question appears in the list, you can know that your comments to the blog are no-reply. To change that setting you can read this tutorial right here. It's simple. I promise. It's just a matter of checking a box.

So I backed up a bit in my list of comments to find the questions asked recently. Here goes...

Judy from Maine asks:

Q: Just a quick question..your shop hop 2.0, are those blocks photos printed on fabric?

A: No. They are swatches of fabric from visits to quilt shops during our travels that have been pieced into polaroid-style picture blocks. Fabrics are chosen to represent the area where we're traveling, something special about the quilt shop, or something that happened along the way.

 Helen asks:

Q: Will the spray basting hold them very long? just curious.

A: Yes, the spray baste will last indefinitely. I've basted several different ways. I've pin basted, which just about wore out my fingers. I've also basted using Sharon Schamber's method. It was the one quilt in which I ended up with a pleat on the back. For me, spray basting works best. Others may disagree. To each, his or her own.

Carol in Texas asks:

Q: How do you make your cranberry chutney? 

A: This is the recipe I'm using. 

Bec asks:

Q:  Do you have a pattern for Cats & Flowers? I saw it in one of your posts. 

A: I'm not sure which quilt your referring to. I'm not making any quilt called "Cats & Flowers." Possibly you're asking about the "Kittens" quilt? It was on a preprinted panel, and it can be found right here. If not, then email me so that I can give you the correct answer.

Helen asks:

Q: PS on your Alaska route I don't see number 28. Did you miss that one?

A: I create those maps using an app called RVParky. If we visit the same place twice (or two places close together), the numbers are hidden behind one another. I cannot miss a number since the app does the numbering. If you don't see a number, you can assume it's hidden behind something else.

Nancy Malloy asks:

Q:  Love your new humming bird feeders! Where did you get them? Also you mentioned a book in you recent travels posts that helped you to find great camping spots - can you remind me if the name again?

 A: The humming bird feeders came from Amazon.com. They were recommended by someone in a birding group I follow on Facebook. I'm happy with them, and I don't spend nearly as much time fussing with them. As for the book about camping spots, I use a couple of different books. The only one mentioned recently was the 50 States, 500 State Parks book mentioned in this post.

And that takes me through the month of July. I'm going to try to keep track of the unanswered questions and answer them in a single post. But if you'd rather not wait, then please read the tutorial I linked to above and change your settings so that I can give you a personal response. 

Okay, so that's all I have for today. I expect to finish the top-stitching on the Merry, Merry Snowmen block today, and then I'll get busy making four more blocks for the Scrappy Plus quilt.

Yesterday before quitting for the day, I opened the bin for this project and was immediately completely confused. All the pieces are cut and labeled, but I'm going to have to try to figure out what I was doing before I can go any further with it. 

Be sure to check in for tomorrow's post. At long last, I'll be revealing the "Vintage" quilt.

I can hardly wait.