Fast Finish

Good morning, my friends. It's a gray, foggy, and rainy day. I wish we could send this moisture to Los Angeles. It's the one day of rain we're expecting. We should be back to sunshine and blue skies by tomorrow.

My day was pretty easy yesterday. I took a walk on the treadmill, and then I went to work baking some Carrot-Apple Muffins with Citrus Glaze. I swear there were a dozen when I took them out of the oven. Mike snagged one before I could get a picture.

In all honesty, I snagged one right after I took that picture. It was tasty with my afternoon cup of espresso.

Probably there was a nap in the mix there, but eventually I made my way to the sewing room. Smitty was there waiting. 

He's understandably concerned about this "bear" quilt in his sewing room.

He was hoping we were going to sew on the binding, and it's not surprising that he'd want to have all those bears bound up. They rifle through everything looking for food, and that is Smitty's exclusive domain.

So, no problem, Buddy. We went straight to work sewing on that quilt binding. I'm happy for an opportunity to use this striped fabric. I can't remember where, when, or why I purchased it. It has a pinky-peachy stripe like the inner border of the quilt along with a very pale green. As you might guess, it's been hard to find a way to use it. It was just right for this quilt. I've been told the binding fabric should be made from something used in the quilt, but I ignore that. My quilt, my rules.

And then I took up a comfortable seat and stitched and stitched and stitched until I'd stitched all four corners.

Just a little bit farther, and my quilt was finished.

Laying it in front of our living room window, I was able to get a better shot of the quilting on the back. I love this design. So simple, and so pretty.

Okay. And so we'll return to our regularly-scheduled programming now. I'm ready to get back to my list of WIPs. Today I'll begin sewing together the final four Scrappy Plus blocks. As I've said ad nauseum, I'm going to love this quilt, but the blocks are a PITA to sew together. I'm glad I'm on the home stretch.

It will probably take at least two days to make the final four. 

That will open up a slot on my WIPs dance card. I have in mind to make something scrappy using my greens and blues. Those bins are stuffed to the gills, and so I'd like to try to pare them down some. I've been looking at a quilt I've seen in one of the Facebook groups I follow called a "Duckworth Quilt." If you're on Facebook, you can find several pdf's and word documents that discuss how to do it in the Scrap Quilt Enthusiasts files. It's a private group, and so you'd have to join the group to see it. You can also see many examples on Pinterest. I've printed out the pages and I'll start working on that soon.

Next up on the list will be to make another row for the Light Frame quilt. It's fun watching the pattern  emerge with each addition.

There is a little bit of housework to do today, and I'll get in a Bowflex workout. Also I'm going to start some split pea soup in my slow cooker this morning. I'll use the ham bone and some of the leftover ham from our New Year's Day ham dinner. Split pea soup was the biggest reason for buying the larger bone-in ham. Aside from that, it'll be a mostly sewing day.

Before anything else, though, I'll get back to my slow-stitching. I'm closing in on a finish for the Bicycles and Lace. It'll be good to work on something else when it's done.