Moving Slow

Good morning, my friends. I had a lazy day yesterday. I spent some time on my slow stitching, and then wasted a good part of the day. Probably I was dragging my feet getting to my quilting project. Once I got started I made a good amount of progress, but there's still a long way to go. 

Before I did any sewing, I churned the Cherry Sherbet I made the day before. It's a recipe from the Pioneer Woman. Probably we won't eat this right away since we have several dessert options available, but I wanted to do it while the cherries were fresh from the tree.

After that, I took a walk around the house. The kitties went with me. There was nothing new under the sun insofar as blooming things go. Smitty likes to be stealth under this Dwarf Japanese Maple. We call it the "umbrella tree." His white socks always give him away.

My morning started too early, and so I took a nap after lunch before getting to my quilting. Y'all are going to think I have a vested interest in this Line Tamer ruler, but I don't. I just think it's a great tool, and I use it almost every time I quilt at my sit-down machine. For this project it's been a great help making sure my lines go from corner to corner, even when there isn't a good place to line it up.

As a reminder, this is how the quilt looks.

It's easy enough to line up the ruler corner to corner for the smaller blocks. But some of the blocks are larger, and then the ruler will not extend all the way from one corner to the other. 

In the image below, you can see how I can line up the 45° angle markings on places where the blocks are too large for the ruler's length. I can line it up here.

And then I know I'm going to be on target when I reach the other side. This block, for instance, is twice as large as the others. And so I can stitch halfway across...

Then slide the ruler the rest of the way, lining up the 45° marks on the other side.

And since this quilt has a border, I can do the same thing at the quilt's edge, making sure my lines are straight and parallel as I cross the border section.

Clear as mud, right? I hope that all makes sense. 

So I picked one of the longer distances to start with. When I get to the quilt's edge, I ricochet off in a different direction so that I don't have to cut threads. Eventually, I'll run out of lines to stitch. Usually, I have to go back and quilt a few that I've missed before I'm finished. For now, I'm guessing I'm only about 20% of the way through the quilt. There's still a long way to go before it will be ready for binding.

Today I'm getting my twice-rescheduled pedicure. I suppose it could get rescheduled again, but I'm not expecting that. After that, there's nothing going on beyond food preparation and quilting. Originally, I wanted to make a Cherry Galette. We're a little on cherry dessert overload, and so I'll put that off a couple of days. If there are cherries left over when the galette is finished, I might try making some cherry vinegar. It would be something new to me. Since I didn't make any chive blossom vinegar this year, it's a good time to try something new. 

The only other thing I did yesterday was to spend some time on the Alaska trip. There's still much more to plan for that trip, and I'll share it when it's nailed down a little more. For now, I'm just perusing different guide books and trying to decide on places to stop for the night. For whatever reason, this trip seems more complicated than the ones we usually take. There are international borders to cross, and there are animal health certificates to obtain, and passports to include. It all seems fairly daunting, and so I'm starting early. We're still many months away from our departure date, and so I'm taking my time with it. Occasionally I ask a question on one of the Facebook RVing to Alaska sites. There is a lot of good information there.

All right. Time to get on with my day. The annuals need watering, and the birds need feeding. If I'm really energetic, I'll get in a walk on the treadmill.