Sizing Up

 Good morning, my friends and Happy Autumnal Equinox! I don't know about you, but the first day of fall has me fluffing my nest, settling in for the winter. Already this morning, I switched out my summer table runners to fall. We haven't noticed a lot of fall color in our area just yet. For this week, we're in our second summer. We missed a little bit rainy weather while we were traveling, and we came home to some very nice days. I want to get outside and weed before the rain sets in for good, but I'm waiting for the little bit of moisture we're expecting later in the week. It'll soften the ground and those weeds will pull up a lot easier.

Mike and I were A-list lazy yesterday. I think the strain of traveling, and then the strain of unpacking and getting back into our routine finally caught up with us. We both took morning naps, and then sat around as if we were waiting for something to happen. When we convinced ourselves that nothing would happen unless we made it so, we got up and got moving. I'm not sure how Mike spent his day. I spent mine in the sewing room.

Yesterday's goal was to bring all the Homestead blocks to the same size. 

The largest was the blue one at the lower right. The blocks are all different colors. They were made for the 2023 Rainbow Scrap Challenge. If you've been following along, you might remember we were traveling during the fall of 2022. One of our stops was at the Homestead National Historical Park in Beatrice, Nebraska. While there, I was handed this booklet with pictures and explanations of various traditional quilt blocks. I decided then and there to use the booklet for the next Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Here's a little explanation of the park and the reason it featured a "Quilt Discovery Experience."

Someone smarter than I might have been able to make all these blocks the same size. Some of the designs were a little complicated, and besides, it would involve math. As I've said many times, I'm much too old for math. Time is precious these days, and so I went with the instructions I could find online. 

Smitty was my helper cat yesterday. He doesn't like math either.

This block known as "Lincoln's Platform." With the blocks so many different colors, it seemed advisable to give each one a stop border. I decided a one-inch strip around each one would be the easiest to work with, and so that's what I did. I chose a solid gray from my stash for that.

That brought the size of this largest block to 15-1/2 inches, and that was the standard for the remaining blocks.

This next one was the smallest of the bunch. I gave it the same solid gray stop border.

And then I used this gray polka dot from my stash to bring it to the requisite 15-1/2 inches.

While I cut the strips from the polka dot, Smitty kept the solid gray under control.

If I were to do this over again, I might add a narrow border of the polka dot around the blue block, but then it would be larger. I really didn't want to make the blocks any larger than they already were. And so I laid them out together with the blue I'm planning to use for the sashing.That looked fine to me, so I continued on my merry way.

It took most of my sewing time, but by day's end, they were all brought to the same size.

There was still a little time left in the day, and so I added the vertical sashings to the rows of blocks.

I was getting tired of sewing by then, and so I stopped there. Today's task will be to add the horizontal sashings, and then I'll add the same blue border all the way around. After that, I'll add a second border from this Homestead fabric.

Probably I'm going to try to find more of this fabric to use on the back, but I'll wait and see how it all works out when the top is finished. Either way, I'll use that same blue from the sashing for the quilt binding.

So that was a good day of sewing. It was nearing dinner time by then. I tried out this new recipe for Macaroni and Peas.

This was a great recipe for using up little bits of things. I had half a box of farfalle, half a container of diced pancetta, half a bag of frozen peas, several sad looking green onions, and a nearly-empty pint of heavy cream. All of it was used up making this dish. 

It was simple and tasty, and there's enough left over for another meal. It's a little like a carbonara, but not as rich. We liked it. The recipe is from the NYTimes. It's posted below if you want to give it a try. I made just half the recipe. We had it with a slice of Texas Toast...another easy side dish.

 

So that brings me to this morning. My reprieve from housework has ended now, and so I have one housekeeping chore on my to-do list. Also, I didn't get in my treadmill walk yesterday, and so I'm determined to get back to it today. We were just too lazy yesterday morning. How could I possibly walk on the treadmill with so much laziness to attend to? Impossible. Clearly. Anyway...today is the day. And then I'll get back to my sewing. 

How are you spending your first day of fall?