Purrplexed

Good morning, my friends. It's Friday morning...the weekend is almost here! Of course, in retirement, every day is Saturday. There are no days off. Just Saturday...day in and day out. We're feeling liberated right at the moment because we got our grocery shopping done yesterday, and so we're good for another week.

When we got home from our grocery shopping expedition, it was time to fill the birdfeeders. While we were gone...just two weeks...the birds left the scene. I'm sure some of them have flown south, but I was still surprised that it took them a full two weeks to empty the feeders. For a while, it seemed as if all the birds were gone for good. Now, they're back, and tapping their little birdie feet when the feeders are empty. When I'd refilled everything, I noticed a grateful Northern Flicker came to peck at the suet right away.

While I was out, I checked in on the dahlias. This "Firefighter" dahlia is the most watched thing in the garden right now. Neither it nor the "Fuzzy Wuzzy" dahlia have bloomed yet. 

We're expecting rain today followed by some warmer days next week. I'm really hoping they will get with the program...and soon. Time is growing short for blooming. The "Checkers" dahlia and "Bumble Rumble" are both still blooming away.

It's nice having these fall bloomers brightening the garden with everything else bloomed out long ago.

Back inside, I headed into the sewing room where I found my day's helper cat ready to get to work.

She helped me measure and cut fabric to make a back for the Homestead quilt.

I sewed one long seam for that. Now, it'll take its place with the quilt top to be sandwiched next time around.

And then, we went to work on our list of WIPs. Next up is the Scrappy Plus quilt. This will be my third go-round with this project. Each time, I open the box to find a whole bunch of cut pieces, and complete confusion about what to do with them. I'm going to write myself a note this time around so that I don't have to reorient myself next time. Sadie helped me figure this out.

There are three values of grays cut in 4-inch and 3-1/4 inch squares. There are also four different colors of squares for the "plus" parts of the design, cut in two sizes. And there are triangles of grays and whites. It was all very confusing until I read the pattern instructions and remembered that I needed to start by making half square triangles in different hues and different values. I'm using the 4-inch squares to make these two at a time. So I started by stacking and marking.

There are 24 pairs.

Those were sewn into 48 half square triangles.

And then trimmed to size.

Okay, and that's where I left it yesterday. Today I can start laying them out and sewing them together. 

We had a morning visitor today. This is a terrible picture, but I documented it, and so you have to look at it even if it is a terrible picture. It's a big barred owl, sitting on the vegetable garden fence. He sat there for about five minutes before flying away. I snapped picture after picture, hoping to get something in sharper focus. I was far away and shooting through a window, and there wasn't nearly enough light. Oh well. There it is anyway.

We hear them at night. They make a very loud whooping call. You can hear it and see a better picture at that link. It's fun to see them in the daylight.

So I have a couple of short housekeeping chores to do today, but it's a stay-at-home day, otherwise. I didn't get any slow-stitching yesterday, and so I'll probably spend a little more time on that this morning. This afternoon will be devoted to sewing together the Scrappy Plus blocks. I'm hoping to have a couple of those done before the day is over. We have leftovers for dinner, and so sewing will get my undivided attention once I've finished the rest of my to-do's. 

My stomach is telling me it's time for breakfast. I suppose Mike's is too. Time to go save a life.