Next Steps

Good morning, my friends. When we chatted yesterday, I thought we might get a decent day of weather. Before I could even finish my slow-stitching, it was raining again, and it rained most of the day. Today is looking more promising. I'm wanting to get outside and cut back the dahlias. It's time for them to move to the garage. (My dahlias are planted in pots.) It's looking as if today's weather might be more cooperative.

And, well, rainy days are good sewing days. Of course, nothing could happen until I finished off January's block for A Year in the Garden. 

There's still a long way to go on this project. I might have chosen a brighter background fabric. These blocks are rather small. The backgrounds are cut to 7 x 8 inches, and they will be cut smaller when I'm ready to sew them into a finished quilt top. I'm using a background fabric that was cut from the edges of another finished quilt, and you know how smug using up something like that can make you feel.

Before I could do any sewing, I wanted to finish off my pantry shelves. And...DONE! That's a job I've been dreading for months, and it's good to have it finished. There wasn't a lot to do here except to organize things a little better and dust things off. Also, I cleaned up that corner. The wooden crate was one I purchased with our first CSA share. I used it to pick up our CSA veggies. Now, it works as a handy crate for stowing our reusable grocery sacks. 

Maybe you already know this, but those flimsy plastic grocery sacks that blow all over the landscape have been banned in Oregon. Stores will still pack your groceries into paper bags, but they cost a nickel each. Besides, reusable bags save trees. So enjoy this last picture of my pantry. You may never see it again. Unless I do some canning. Then, of course, you'll see it. There's a linen closet I want to tackle next, but I'll hold off on that. It's a good rainy day project, and with our wet winters, it's good to pace yourself.

After that, I was able to finish off the quilt top for Ruth's Legacy. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the bottom row of blocks was an inch too short, and so I needed to take out the sashing between two of the blocks and make it an inch wider. Fortunately, I had my helper cat to assist in this purrocess. Ripping out misery loves company.

And then he stood by to make sure I cut it propurrly this time.

And then I went to work sewing the blocks together.

I considered a narrow stop border before adding the final floral border, but then decided against it. Without the border, the blocks appear to float, and I like that. It finishes up at 66 x 71 inches.

Okay, and so with my slow-stitching piece finished, I needed something new for this morning's stitching session. In yesterday's post, I mentioned I was going to be tracing the next blocks for the Girls' Getaway quilt. But then, I remembered I needed to do November's block for Joy in the Ordinary. So I traced that out, and I'll start stitching on it this morning.

That won't take more than a day or two, and so I've also traced out the blocks I'll need for the Girls' Getaway quilt. These are small...about 4 x 4 inches each. They'll end up as the centers for pieced blocks. So, here they all are. Today, I'll get to work coloring them, and then they'll be ready for stitching.

If I can get those finished, I'll start in on November's cat for Cats in Pajamas. He's going to wear what remains of the floral fabric from Ruth's Legacy. I haven't decided yet what color cat he will be.

After that, I'll be starting on the newest prompt for The Endeavourers art quilt group. There is only one prompt left (until we choose more). The final prompt is "Mosaic." I'm going to try a new mosaic technique working from this original photograph. Just a peek for you.

Originally, I'd selected something else, but I changed my mind. This one is better suited to the technique I'll be teaching myself from this book:

So there's plenty to keep me busy. I've been dragging my feet returning to my exercise routine. I was doing pretty well, and then something interrupted my momentum. I forget where I fell off the wagon, but I'm determined to get back to it today. With that extra hour in my day from falling back to standard time, there are no excuses. But first...slow-stitching. Priorities, people.