Great Outdoors is Great Again

Good morning, my friends. It's a frosty and cold morning here at the Three Cats Ranch. Freezing fog was in the forecast, and that's exactly what we got. We still have patches of snow left from last week. Now, everything is coated with a slippery sheen. I don't know about you, but I'm staying inside today. The last thing I need is to slip and fall and break another bone.

Let's talk about yesterday, shall we? With Mike's help, the Great Outdoors quilt was snipped and washed. I'm really happy with how this turned out. I wasn't sure it was going to work, trying to cut out the frayed sections. It actually turned out better than I envisioned it. Here's how it looked when it came from being washed and dried. Try to imagine how soft and warm it was when I took it from the dryer.

Here's how it looks from the back.

While that was washing and drying, I stitched the names and places for the next two blocks for the Shop Hop 4.0 quilt. I've started stitching these sooner after completing my two-block assignment. It's nice having them all ready to go when that project comes up on my white board. 

I'd finished February's embroidered block for The Sewing Room, but it still needed borders. That was next on my list.

And then I made three more pieced blocks.

Here are all the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

So, next up, I knew I was going to need an alternative project while I quilt the Vintage Linen quilt. I can't quilt all day long without breaking myself, and so I need something else to work on when my one-hour of quilting time expires. Next up would be to sew the embroidered Kittens blocks into a finished quilt top. These are the blocks I have for that quilt.

So I went scrounging through my bin of cat fabrics. Oh my. I have a lot of cat fabric. And not just small pieces. I have several lengths of yardage I could use on both the front and back of a large quilt. Picking through the many choices, I liked this one best. It was the only one with actual kittens, as opposed to full grown cats.

There weren't a lot of colors in the embroidered blocks, and this fabric captures most all of them. The embroidered blocks are different sizes. They were originally printed on a panel. (Tries unsuccessfully to find a picture of the panel.) When they were cut apart, they couldn't be cut to the same size and still keep the main part of the design centered. Now that they're finished, I can go through and find the smallest, and then cut the rest to that size. And all of that to say I'm not sure how I want to set them. I'll figure something out.

As I was thinking about the Kittens, though, I remembered I need to start something for the next challenge quilt from The Endeavourers. The prompt this time around has me a little stumped: "Circus." I have a few ideas, and I think I've settled on a theme. Beyond that, I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. Nevertheless, I need to start on that next. The reveal will be May 1st.

From there, I decided to take a look at the Vintage Linen quilt. I decided to use a yellow thread. These were the two I liked best from my thread stash. The one on the right is a bright Aurifil 50 weight thread. I'll use that on top. On the bottom, that's an Essentials 40 weight thread. 

For the center panels, I'll stick with white. I already had white thread on the machine from my last project. On those, I'll do a hooking meander. I like this motif. It's easy to do, and it looks delicate to my eye. Also, I can weave it in and out of my grandmother's pretty embroidery without stitching over it.

So I started on the middle block. Here's how that looks from the back.

I'll stitch all the block centers before I switch to yellow thread for the rest. For the rest, I want to make those quilt blocks look like quilted flowers when viewing the quilt from the back. Paging through this book from Lori Kennedy...

I'm pretty well settled on this motif. I believe it will accomplish what I'm going for, but it has two things acting it its favor. It's easy enough that even I can do it. And it'll be easy to stitch in any direction. I find it difficult to stitch things upside-down or backwards, and so something like this will mean less maneuvering of this rather large quilt. (My wrist will thank me.)

And I was getting tired of sewing by then. I left it needle down in this position. Today's goal will be to finish all the block centers.

And you'll be happy to know that everything is right in Sadie's world again. We had our favorite quilt back, and we could snuggle down and watch television in peace.

Okay, so I have one housekeeping chore today. I'd say I'm going to do a workout, but I developed a sort of "catch" in my ankle yesterday for no reason whatsoever. Does that ever happen to you? It happens to me every couple of years. It feels as if a bone gets out of place...or something...who knows? Anyway, it's painful enough that it's hard to put weight on that foot. I didn't do any kind of workout yesterday, and I'll have to lay off any extra walking until it feels better. It's less painful if I keep my shoes on. I'll probably take an anti-inflammatory today and see if the pain decreases. I hope so, because it's kind of a bummer. 

Next I'm going to take the first stitches on the final three blocks for The Story of My Day quilt. Also, I still have another cup of coffee on my list, so I'll sit and sip on that a while before I do anything else. Have a good day and good week, Everybody.