Ombre Sunset

Good morning, my friends. It was a busy day yesterday. All sewing, all the time, with a little bit of baking thrown in for good measure. What could be better than that? Well...maybe winning the lottery, but first one must actually play the lottery. 

Finishing off the stitching for the small Catmint piece was at the top of my list. This will still need borders, quilting, and binding. I have some cute fabrics to finish it off.

There was still a little time left in my slow-stitching morning, and so I started stitching the names and places for the next two Shop Hop blocks. Probably, I'll finish those today.

From there, I mixed up my bread dough and set it to rising. Mike was hogging all the exercise equipment, and so I finished the day's quilting assignment while I waited for him. 

The cornerstones and horizontal sashings are all quilted now. Also, I've quilted the first row of vertical sashings. I'll finish the remaining sashings today. I left it needle down in this position.

Tomorrow I'll quilt the inner border. The next day I'll quilt the outer border, and it will be ready for binding.

From there, I took a walk on the treadmill. The bread was ready to go into the oven by then. So, I got that started and then headed into the sewing room. Sadie was there and she meant business. With just one week to finish my challenge piece, there wasn't a minute to waste. Chop chop!

With Sadie looking so serious, Smitty wondered if it would be okay for him to retire to his office in HR right away.

Gratefully, he occupied his resting spot. You know you can't just work your cat's paws to the bone. They need some R&R occasionally.

It kinda looked like kitty R&R was the order of the day.

Oh well...not to worry. I was able to finish this quilt top without their help. My first task was to finish sewing together the four strip sets and then cross-cutting them into 36 sections each.

The sections were sewn into 36 little quilt blocks.

And then those were laid out to be sewn together.

When all the four pieces were sewn into a whole, I had nine quilt blocks.

And then those were sewn together, and I had myself a finished quilt top. I'm calling this piece "Ombre Sunset." 

And what do you guys think? Did I meet the "ombre" challenge? Remember, this is what I'm going for: 

"Ombre" describes the color shift in value or hue between two points. Usually, that looks like a smooth range between two colors, or a gradient of one color from light to dark. For this project, we can choose to do a shift of color across our project or through a block. And I'm not sure if I did that or not, but it is what it is.

For the back, I'm happy to be using this fabric. This is one of the oldest residents of my stash. I'm always glad when I can use up one of those old-timers.

Originally, I bought it to use in this quilt I called "Sunshine on my Shoulders." It was one of the first quilts I ever made.

Okay, and I'll use the orange on the left below...another long-time resident of my stash...for the binding. I bought that fabric a long time ago too...back when I thought I needed many yards of everything. I've scaled back the amount of yardage I buy these days unless I'm planning to use it for a quilt back.

Okay, and in all of that, the bread baked, and cooled. Here's how it looked coming from the oven. You can see those jammy bits. They kind of melt into tiny pockets of jam.

It was a very dense dough. It was probably more dense because I substituted wheat germ for wheat bran. (The Google told me I could do that.) The whole loaf contains just 3 tablespoons of butter and just 3 tablespoons of honey for sweetness. The jammy bits add some sweetness too, but the bread is a little disappointing. Here's how it looks inside.

The whole-wheat flour and wheat germ impart a slightly bitter flavor with so little added sweetener. We'll probably finish it, but I'm going to try another recipe this morning. There's a recipe for Oatmeal Blueberry Muffins on the back of the jammy bits package. I have everything I need to make it, and so I'll do that this morning.

Okay, now here's something if you enjoy history. I've been listening to this audio book. 

I was a terrible student of history when I was in high school and college, no doubt because of the boring way history is taught in schools. In any case, I've been catching up listening to these kinds of books in adulthood. This one was kind of fun because it talks about many characters we grew up seeing on television. The names seem fictional, but they were real people, who actually lived their lives in the wild west we saw in shows like Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and Gunsmoke. Matt Dillon was fictional character, modeled after one of the real people in this book, whose name escapes me. Nevertheless, Dodge City and the Long Branch Saloon were real. (Please tell me you're old enough to remember Matt Dillon, Festus, and Chester. Fun fact: Dennis Weaver, who played Chester, had a nephew who attended the same high school Mike and I did. I think he might have been in Mike's graduating class.) Other names included Billy the Kid, Jesse and Frank James, Johnny Ringo, Wild Bill Hickock, Buffalo Bill Cody, and more.

So I'm reaching the final hour of the book and hearing about the demise of these lawmen and outlaws. As I listened, I learned that Virgil Earp is buried at River View Cemetery, about an hour from where I live. I can't even begin to count the number of times I've driven past this cemetery. Here's an image I found online of his headstone.

(Image credit: "Virgil Earp - Headstone at River View Cemetery" 

by Condor796 is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.)

And here's a little closer look at the inscription.

(Image credit: "File:Grab von Virgil Earp auf dem River View Cemetery, Portland.JPG" by BernerAchim is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.)

It makes me want the weather to warm up some. I'd like to take a walk through the cemetery and see if I can find his grave. And FYI, he died in Nevada, but was transported to Portland to be buried near where his adult daughter lived. Cool.

Okay, so there's plenty to keep me busy today. It's another stay-at-home day, happily, and so I should be able to get my projects moved along. I'm hoping to finish off the Ombre Sunset. When that's done, I'll get back to the Shop Hop 3.0.