Sewing Season

Good morning, my friends. We've had a couple of rainy days Thursday and Friday. It was good soaking rain, and it will go a long way toward greening up our field. After having to evacuate for a wildfire a couple of years ago, we're a little gunshy about leaving our place in the fall these days. With this bit of moisture, we can feel a little better about it. One of our trees is reminding us that fall is just around the corner.

I took the first stitches on the new Phenology piece yesterday. The motifs are small. Probably it should be worked with one strand of floss, but I never like how that looks. I'm using two strands.

I had some morning things to do, but made my way to the sewing room after lunch. Smitty was my helper cat.

My first task was to make more sashings and cornerstones. I think I spent as much time on this as I did sewing the blocks together. The black strips are 1 inch. The striped strips are 3/4 inch. The cornerstones are 1-3/4 inch. I've used most of these now, and so I'll need to make some more before I can finish sewing the blocks together.

With those finished, I sewed the third row of blocks together...

And then the fourth row.

There are still two more rows of blocks, and then some borders to sew on. I'm going to try to finish the two rows today in order to clear some space to finish making the "Spices" quilt top. Now that I have the fabric I need, I want to finish it off. Here's a peek to remind you.

Annoying, isn't it? I suppose it could be a map of the world if our world was purple. I won't be able to start the thread work until I receive the Peltex stabilizer, but I'd still like to get the borders sewn on.

After leaving the sewing room, I had a few ideas about how to find a fabric I like for the Homestead blocks:

Given the theme, I was looking for something with conestoga wagons...or something cowboy...or some other thing related to moving west and homesteading. I did a search for "western" fabrics, but didn't like anything I saw. Often, I'd see something appropriate, but the scale was too large. So then I tried "homestead," and that turned out to be the ticket. I liked this fabric. It came in three colors, and I chose the color described as "light gray." It looks white to me, but whatever.

And, without thinking about it enough, I went ahead and ordered it. I'm getting close to the point of no return when it comes to ordering things online. My brain told me...you still have ten days...it should arrive by then. Well. My brain sometimes doesn't think things through because those ten days include two weekends and a holiday. It may not make it before we leave. Our mail will be held at the post office, and the package should be held as well. Nevertheless, I'm nervous about having packages sitting at the post office. I'll just have to hope it all works out one way or another.

The only other thing I did yesterday was to make good on my threat to bake a peach cobbler. This is an Easy Buttermilk Peach Cobbler. The recipe is from the NYTimes, and so you'll need a subscription to open that link. As always, if you want the recipe and you can't open it, just email me. I'll be happy to send it to you. It's intended to be made in a 10-12 inch cast-iron skillet. I cut the recipe in half and made mine in an 8-inch skillet to make it a cobbler for four. 

That was a tasty dessert with some vanilla ice cream on the side. We'll have another serving for tonight.

So that's all the news that's fit to tell. I'm hoping to get a little more quilting done today, but my highest priority will be to finish sewing together the quilt top for "It Takes a Village." I want to get it out of my way so I can work on the "Spices" quilt. Most of next week will be devoted to cooking and packing for our upcoming trip, and so I'm trying to get these projects to a good stopping place.\

Okay, my friends. Time to get going. I hope y'all have a good day planned for yourself.