Ready for Binding

Good morning, my friends. Sadly, I must report that I have to go somewhere today. It's time for my monthly pedicure, and so I'll be heading out mid-morning for that. I like getting a pedicure. I just wish the pedicure would come to me. After that, I'll pick up a couple of items that have accumulated on our grocery list, and then I'll head for home. There's no telling how much time I'll have for sewing today.

If I can get to it, I'll be sewing the binding on Shop Hop 2.0 today. I finished up the border quilting yesterday. Since these fabrics were acquired on road trips, I used this motif that reminds me of tire tracks.

I switched to a black YLI thread to finish it off, both top and bottom.

We were going along fine, but then the thread broke. Of course, that's nothing unusual, and so I rethreaded the needle and then continued on. But, drat. It broke again about six inches on. So I changed out my needle to see if that would help. Nope...same thing. And so I rethreaded the machine and felt on the spool for any burrs. (I keep an emery board close by to sand off any rough spots.) When I started up again...same thing. Here, I might have said a bad word. 

So then, I put a line of Sewer's Aid down the spool and massaged it into the thread, wiping the excess from my fingers onto the eye of the needle.

After that...smooth sailing. Sewer's Aid is great. It's a silicon thread lubricant. It won't stain your thread or your fabric. I can't even begin to count the number of times it's saved my bacon, especially with metallic threads.

When it was finished, I took it off the machine to have a look at the back. It's pretty hard to see the quilting.

After that, I folded it up and headed downstairs to the sewing room with it. The kitties were napping in the living room. Sadie is still purrtecting Smitty. Yesterday, she was wary of anyone sneaking up on him from behind. 

It's getting chilly outside as our cold winter weather approaches. They're spending more time inside sleeping these days. Also yesterday, I tackled this top boozy shelf in my pantry. 

When we were finished, we'd dispensed with about half of the bottles. The ones on the right are large bottles of things we actually use. The left two-thirds are things I'm often using in cooking. There were two open boxes of Bisquick and I was able to combine those to make more room for the cereal boxes. I'd hoped to have fewer bottles at the end, but at least they're set back farther on the shelf so I don't have to worry about dying in a boozy crash of broken glass.

Today, I'll work on the shelf below. It's mostly condiments, and probably most everything will still be there when I'm finished. The two containers on the right hold different kinds of bread flour. I might decide to move the two containers of oats to where the pasta, rice, and other grains are. It sort of makes sense, right? Mainly, I'm going to be organizing and dusting things off.

We tried something new for dinner last night. These are Thai-style Pork Meatballs with Coconut Lime Sauce. This was pretty easy. I used to avoid meatballs because they seemed like too much trouble. Now, I dig in with both hands to mix them up, and then rolling them into tasty little balls is easy enough. Also, I no longer fry them. I roast them in the oven, which is far easier and less messy. These were served over soba noodles and then the coconut lime sauce was ladled over. There's enough for another meal.

Generally, I make the meatballs up ahead of time and place them on a rimmed baking sheet. Then, they're ready to go into the oven when I'm ready to make dinner. So, I riffed off a recipe I found online some time ago. This is how I did it.

Okay, so I should have some time for sewing later this afternoon. I need to square up the quilt, sew the binding strips together, and then sew them to the quilt. I'll be spending the next couple of days slow-stitching that binding. 

Also, I'm very close to finishing off the current block for Grandpa's Bridges. I don't have a picture of where I left off, but here's where I started yesterday morning.

There is just a little more to do, and I expect to finish it off today.

My wrist will thank me for spending some time slow-stitching for the next few days. It's still bothering me, and I'm keeping it splinted. Now that I've finished the quilting, it should start to feel better. Today will be dedicated to the quilt binding, but my next project will be to sew the Phenology piece into a little quilt. I have some fabrics picked out to give it a border, and I have some ideas about how I want to finish it off.

So, it's time for breakfast, and I think I'll have some time to work on my embroidery before I need to leave today. It's a busy day ahead for me. Time to get going.