What's New?

Good morning, my friends. It's a crisp, cold, bright, sunny day here. We're expecting this weather for at least the next couple of days. Last night I received a notification that snow would begin to fall in our area around 7:30 p.m. and that it would be "heavy at times." Well...there's no new snow, and I think the threat is gone for now. It's a good thing because I need to get my hair cut tomorrow, and I want to pick up a few things at the grocery store while I'm out...just enough to get us through the weekend. As always, I'm hoping there will be eggs. Yes, they're expensive. I buy them anyway. I worry more about them just not being available than I do about the price.

So yesterday was a day to focus on new projects...or maybe some old projects at a new stage of completion. I took the first stitches on one of three blocks for The Story of My Day. Mainly, I was using up the bits of floss leftover from last time.

When these three blocks are finished, it'll open up a spot on my embroidery dance card. Mr. Random was invited to choose what my next project will be. He chose this one called "S" is for Sew. I don't actually remember purchasing this pattern, but I found it in my Dropbox. It's a designer new to me: Wooden Spool Designs. This is the picture from the website.

The blocks are small...just about 3 x 4 inches when complete, and so it will be a small quilt when it's finished. I'll do the blocks three per go-round, and so it should be a relatively quick finish. Also, I selected some fabric to use as the background.

Moving on, it was time to get busy with my quilting. My goal was to quilt all the centers with white thread. I like the colors on this first one.

I can remember using some of these dresser scarves in my bedroom when I was a teenager.

Not all of them are familiar. This next one was embroidered on the corners of a small tablecloth. If I'm remembering correctly, there was a rather big stain on one part of the tablecloth, which is probably why I don't remember seeing this during visits to my grandparent's farm. Neverthless, I'm an apple lover and this is one of my favorite blocks in the quilt.

I tried not to stitch over the embroidery, but some of them were too densely stitched to avoid it.

This next one is another I can recall being used somewhere in my childhood home(s).

I really like this next one. The flowers seem so realistic. Do they look like lilacs to you?

This next one was to let me know these were all stitched by imperfect human hands.

Look at those thread tails showing through the background in the image below. This is why I always back my stitcheries with iron-on stablizer or else with muslin. 

These were dresser scarves, and so they couldn't be backed with anything. And my grandmother's embroidery was as pretty on the back as it was on the front. Still...those dastardly thread tails. I have a tiny crochet hook I can use to reach through the fabric and pull those through to be clipped. I tried to do it with these, but they are so stiffly starched, I couldn't move them. And I worried about damaging this vintage fabric, so I'll just leave them be. My mother was the one who starched these as stiff as boards. Personally, I've never used starch for anything in my entire life.

And, finally...the last one. I was ready to stop by then.

When I switched to yellow thread for the remainder of the quilting, I decided to use this yellow Bottom Line thread in the bobbin instead of my original choice. This is an "M" class bobbin, and it's more than halfway filled with thread, which works out to be a lot of thread. There isn't much left on the spool, but I still think I have enough to finish off the quilt. And, if I don't, I have another yellow that will match. I doubt anyone will notice if I change horses in the middle of the stream.

So I threaded the machine with yellow thread and then stitched just a little bit of my selected motif so that I could check my tension. Everything was looking good, and so I left it needle down right here. This is where I'll start today. I'm actually not sure how much I can get done on this, so I'll just set a timer for one hour and stitch as much as I can in that time. So far, my wrist is tolerating this just fine.

Okay, and then I made a final decision about my "Circus" art quilt. I had a lot of ideas about this prompt, but finally settled on this image. And once I selected it, I remembered at least two fabrics that will work perfectly for the project. Just a peek for you...

Any guesses?

Okay, so I've had my breakfast already. Today I have one housekeeping chore, and I want to bake some more muffins for our pre-breakfast snack. (I never thought this pre-breakfast snack would become a permanent "thing" when I started it, but now it has.) I'm going to get back to my slow-stitching, and then I'll get on with the rest of my day. 

Bundle up, my friends. It's going to be chilly for the next couple of days. And let me just close by saying that today would have been our daughter Holly's 42nd birthday. After so many years, I don't often think of Holly any more, but I always know when it's her birthday. Happy Birthday, baby girl. I'll never stop wishing we'd had more time together.