The Day that Got Away

Good morning, my friends. It was so late in the day when I got myself up and around that I skipped over doing any slow-stitching. It's almost unheard of. Instead, I took a walk on the treadmill. I know...who woulda' thought? I'll get back to my slow-stitching this morning.

It was well after lunch time when I was able to get any sewing done. I'm just working away at the blocks on the Great Outdoors quilt. It takes about an hour to prepare the blocks, sew them into a single row, and then sew the row to the rest of the quilt. When I had the second row done, it looked like this:

It's easier for me to see whether it's working out when I can see more than one row. Adding the third row, it looked like this:

Here's how it's looking from the back:

I went ahead and prepared the blocks for the fourth row and laid them out in order. I'll start here today, sewing the row together and then sewing it to the rest. Usually I pick everything up off the floor when I quit for the day. I left these as you see them here since they were all in order and oriented properly. When I get back to the sewing room today, I fully expect to see some suggestions from the kitties about alternative arrangements for these blocks.

As I've been working at this, I've noticed a few places where the fabric has a little snag...no doubt from kitty claws getting stuck there. Also, one of the four-patches (so far) had about an inch-long spot where the fabric was starting to fray. I'm not doing anything with those seams, and so it will probably develop a hole there eventually. I considered stitching over that section with a satin stitch, but decided to leave it alone. When (and if) a hole develops, I'll put some applique or else just a patch in that spot. I believe I still have scraps left from when I made the quilt originally. Three rows remain, and so I expect I'll get this to snipping stage by the end of the day. Probably I'll get started on the snipping, but there's no way I'll finish it today. Maybe tomorrow. 

Instead, I'll get a start on the quilting for the Vintage Linen quilt. As a reminder, here's how that quilt looks.

I've been giving this some thought. Probably, I'll use a yellow thread. As for quilting, I'd like to quilt around those pentagon shapes using a motif that will appear as flower petals on the back...as if I'm quilting a big flower with the embroidered center as the flower center. I can do some pebbling or else some stippling in the center. Last night I spent some time perusing border motifs I've saved to Pinterest. I've found a couple of motifs I like, but I'll need to try stitching them first to see if I'm even capable enough to do them. You should know right here and now that my ability to actually stitch a motif is probably the biggest factor in the selection. Sometimes (but not usually) I can surprise myself.

Also today, I'd like to finish the slow-stitching I started a few days ago.

When it's finished it'll need borders added, and then I'll make three more pieced blocks to finish off February's assignment.

It's going to be an NBS day for me. I feel like being lazy. No workouts for me, and no housework. All sewing, all the time. Sounds like a good way to spend the day, doesn't it? I'm starting to think every Saturday should be an NBS day. Who's with me?