Two Down

Good morning, my friends. We're looking at a break in the rain for the next several days. We had rain off and on yesterday. There was enough dry weather for Mike and the other neighbor men to get out for some trenching and graveling a drainage area at the end of our driveway. It seems water runs downhill from our house into the neighbor's yard, and the deluge is eroding an embankment they want to preserve. After discussing it with the neighbors, it was decided to put a "French drain" at the end of our driveway. (Yeah...don't ask me. But if you're curious you can read all about it at that link I've given you.) It took several hours of his time yesterday. Mike was one of two "heavy equipment operators" (think tractor) needed to get the job done. I haven't actually seen it yet, and so I don't know what it looks like. Maybe I'll mosey on down there today and have a look.

So in other less industrial news, I'm making headway on the last bicycle for the Girls' Getaway quilt. There's probably still several days work in this, but I'm ready to move on to something else. I started this piece way back on December 17th, and so I've been working on it for nearly a full month. (It seems longer...probably because of the holidays.)

From there I donned my workout apparel and took a walk on the treadmill. When I came back upstairs, I found Smitty enjoying the view of his terrortory from his new geriatric kitty pole. He's taking to it little by little. I mentioned to Mike earlier, we'll probably need to move it to a new spot when the morning sunshine starts shining in this spring. Napping in the morning sunshine is pretty much his favorite thing to do. And please do not make any snide comments about his pawsterior. That is rude and hurtful.

After my shower, I headed into the sewing room and found him there ready to get to work.

Together, we sewed together the first of the remaining four Scrappy Plus blocks.

Sadie wanted to get in on the act after that. She loves this quilt. It's scrappy...just like her...and so she feels a kindred spirit with it.

But furrst...how exactly is this organized?

She helped me lay out and sew together the next block. When it was finished...DOH! Do you see it?

How about now? Oy. Sigh. Bummer. I hate it when I do something like this. There was supposed to be a dark orange triangle in that spot. I don't know how I missed that, but clearly I did.

[Insert ridiculously long period of time, including swearing, while I made this right.]

Let's just pretend that never happened, okay? Mum's the word.

Okay, now more than once someone has commented they think I've placed that dark blue in the wrong spot. Actually, no. I made it just as the pattern diagram showed it. When the first person asked, I checked the picture from the pattern, and it's shown the same way there. You can see for yourself in the image below. The quilt in the picture is more scrappy than mine, but it too has the dark blue in the same place.

And, nothing says I have to make it the same way as shown in the pattern, but I made the first blocks that way, and so I continued on for every one of them.

Okay, so I used a lot of my sewing time fixing that second block, and I'd kind of lost my motivation to sew by then. I decided to lay out the final two blocks for sewing today. When I laid them out, I found that I was short one square of the darkest gray fabric...

And one triangle, also in the darkest gray.

Hm...and I had an extra square and an extra triangle of white. Hm. Kinda makes you wonder if I substituted them somewhere along the way, doesn't it?

Well, if I did, it's going to stay that way. When I look at the blocks I've already made...

nothing really jumps out at me. You can see how the grays and white form diagonal lines, but I can't really see anything obviously out of place. In any case, even if I could find it, I'm not changing it. It's scrappy, and I'll fight anyone who tells me I have to change it. (Puts up dukes.) Anybody???? I thought not. Hmph. (Settles self down.)

Okay, so I cut the pieces I needed, and I'll finish sewing these two blocks together today.

When those are finished, I'll take a look at the Duckworth quilt project I mentioned in an earlier post. There are lots of examples on Pinterest. Mine will be done in blues and greens, which are currently the most overstuffed of my scrap bins. I'll be doing more scrap quilts in the coming months because, honestly, my scraps have become absolutely oppressive. It's time to find ways to pare them down some...as if that will ever happen.

Okay, so it's time to get on with my day. We've already had our blueberry oatmeal pancakes. Slow-stitching is next. Have a good day, Everybody! And, California, I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for some progress on those terrible fires. Please stay safe, my friends.