One Row Done

Good morning, my friends. We had some excitement here this morning just before I sat down to chat with y'all. I noticed Smitty staring out the window at something.

The shade was down, and so I got up to open it for him when I spied our friendly bobcat. 

He always appears around dawn or dusk, and so the light is never very good for pictures. He had a bead on something...probably a gopher...and he sat like this for around 20 minutes before moving on.

We were happy to see him. When he left our field a few days go, we heard gunshots from our neighbor's direction. We worried someone was trying to shoot him, and so we were glad to see him this morning. Smitty was put-out at this intruder to his purrsonal hunting grounds.

My morning was busy yesterday. I didn't make it into the sewing room until late in the afternoon. Nevertheless, I was able to quilt the first row of blocks. I'd already started this one the day before. I just added two straight line "frames" around the whole thing. One is in the white inner "polaroid" border. One is outside near the edges of the block.

I'd started this one the day before as well, and so I finished it off with the straight-line frames.

I'm using the Line Tamer ruler for the inner "star" quilting, but just eye-balling the outer lines. I realized, I couldn't keep the Line Tamer lined up with anything. The blocks want to bow and bend as I stitch over them, and I can do as straight a line without the ruler as I can with it.

For this one, I measured out a 7-1/2 inch square over the camera and gave it a border like the other "photograph" blocks. That gave me four corners where I could create the star. Then, I measured the same distances for the two outer frames. It doesn't look symmetrical on top, but it will look the same on the back.

And then there was one more block to complete the row.

So...I can't say I'm thrilled with this quilting, but it's all I can think to do. An edge-to-edge design might have been a better choice for this quilt, but I worried it would distract from the embroidered names and places. And what color thread would I use? I'll just keep going with this. In the end, it will all work out. And once it's washed, any bobbles will be hard to find.

Today I'll continue on with this. I'd like to finish one row per day, and then I'll spend a day on the outer border. If I can keep up that pace, I'll have it finished in about a week. 

I haven't looked at the calendar for today, and so I don't know what's on my to-do list. The weather is supposed to be nice today, and so I'll probably get out and cut back the peonies for winter. I'll give the dahlias a little more time before I retire them for the season. As I'm writing, the sky is getting brighter. It's looking like a good day. There won't be many left, and so we're enjoying the last of the good weather before the Big Dark sets in.