Three Projects

Good morning, my friends. It's still fairly dark and foggy out as I'm writing. It's anyone's guess what the weather holds for us today, but it doesn't matter much either. I'll be spending most of my day inside. We'll venture out for our grocery shopping tomorrow. The weekend will be busy. The kids are coming up for dinner to celebrate Erik's 45th birthday. Can you believe I have a child that old when I'm clearly so youthful?

It was a good sewing day yesterday. And I even made good on my promise to take a walk on the treadmill. Today will be a mop-the-floor day, and I'll need to make up a grocery shopping list. There will still be plenty of time for sewing. I'm looking forward to starting the applique on the "Beach Bums" project. Yesterday, I made the background.

As a reminder, this is the picture from the pattern. 

Before I started on the background, I read through the instructions. The fabrics were described as "gradient" fabrics, with the bottom three being three values of gray. Then water and sky above. I didn't have any gradient fabrics, and so I went with what was closest. The sky was pretty obvious. The water seemed pretty good. And the ladies are sitting on a wall. Why not make it a rock wall?

Today I'll start on the applique. Each lady has quite a few overlapping pieces. The pattern suggested assembling them on an applique pressing sheet before moving them to the background, and that's what I'll do. Don't you love the "tramp stamp" on the right-most lady? Too cute. I think this is going to be fun.

Before that, I made October's cat for the Cats in Pajamas quilt. Probably my fabrics are too busy for this one. I briefly considered using different pajamas. Probably I should have used a different color for the eyes. But it is what it is, and I'm not going to change it. This is a firehouse cat, if you must know, and he's wearing camper pajamas.

Wait...cats can be firehouse cats??? I've always wanted to be a firehouse cat!

Here are the ten cats I have for this quilt so far. He fits right in there.

The day started with me taking the first stitches on September's block for "Joy in the Ordinary." I should have no problem finishing the stitching on this today. 

When that one is finished, I'll start on October's block.

When the stitching is finished, both will need borders added to finish them off.

So things are moving along in the sewing room. I feel myself settling in for the cooler weather. There's always plenty going on in the sewing room, and I'll be stepping up my workout routine. Gotta stay in shape for that Alaska hiking in our futures.

As I mentioned above, there are some domestic chores to take care of this morning, and then I'll get back to my sewing. I'm looking forward to making those ladies. A few of you in Florida have marked yourselves safe from the hurricane on Facebook. I hope the rest of you came through okay as well. It looked like quite night from where we sat watching it on television.