Rainy Day Sewing

Good morning, my friends. It was a soggy day yesterday. It rained the whole live-long day. It doesn't really matter to me. It's too cold to be outside anyway. We've had some beautiful weather this fall, and so we can hardly complain now that it's doing what we should have expected all along. It's definitely good sewing weather.

Since I'd missed my slow-stitching the day before, I spent a little extra time on that yesterday morning.

I stitched enough at the top to allow me to move my hoop lower and encompass the bottom portion.

Really, I need to stitch those leaves in the upper right to move it just a smidge lower. 

From there, I did a Bowflex workout, and then went to work on my quilting. Starting with these two pieced blocks at the right side of the quilt...

I worked my way leftward. This long and narrow block is probably finished now. I extended the spider web both above and below the embroidered one. The broomstick was mostly outlined, but I did a few little squiggly things in the interior.

I added another spider to this open area.

And a ghost up here. I'll probably add another one there for no other reason than I have room for one.

And then, I finished my quilting hour with these pieced blocks.

Now, I've left it needle down in the center of the clock. I have in mind to stitch radial lines and a circle around the clock face, marking the hour lines. As I look at this image, I'm thinking I should start down where the quill pen is at the 5:00 point. (The "5" is behind the quill.) If I start there, I can probably make my way around without cutting thread. 

When my hour was up, I headed down to the kitchen. I wanted to bake some muffins. They needed a "glaze" and so I went to work on the "Seasons" quilt blocks while I waited for those to cool. 

The day's effort was to make the "Summer's Sun" quilt block from Quilter's Cache. I started with the center of the sun. There is just one of these.

This is the second template. There will be four of these.

They'll be at all four sides of the center.

I had three finished when I needed to stop for the day.

This is the amount of kitty help I got yesterday.

Sadie was nowhere to be found. She hates paper-piecing more than I do.

But I had muffins to glaze. When they were all finished, they looked like this. These are Cranberry-Orange Muffins. There is orange zest in the muffins and in the glaze, and they have a very nice orange flavor to offset the tartness of the cranberries.

This was a new recipe to me. I've linked to it back there. If you can't open it for some reason, feel free to email me, and I'll be happy to send it to you.

If I'm remembering right, I have one housekeeping chore on today's list, and I want to get in a walk on the treadmill. The rest of the day will go much as yesterday. I'll quilt for an hour, and then get back to work on the "Seasons" quilt. I should be able to easily finish the Summer's Sun block, and then I'll move along to fall's Maple Leaf block. Right now, though...slow-stitching. It's my favorite way to kick off the day.