Nearing a Finish

Good morning, my friends, and thank goodness it's Friday! I'm getting my hair cut today, and there's just one other item on my list of to-do's. Aside from that, it'll be a mostly sewing day. We're going to see some nice weather over the next couple of days...always appreciated when I need to drive into town for any reason.

When I left you yesterday, Smitty was just settling in for a morning nap.

I was heading downstairs to take the first stitches on the next three blocks for "S" is for Sewing. These are kind of fun to stitch.

As I sat stitching, I noticed the bird feeders were empty...again. Such piggy birds. Outside, I noticed the Riot Daffodil has bloomed. This is one of my favorites.

And it's easy to find the bird feeder now. The squirrels have worn a path. I saw them collecting rocks so they could build some cairns. You wouldn't want to get lost, you know.

Back inside, I made good on my threat to quilt the last two border sides. It's such a big quilt, I can't get a good picture of it. I asked Mike to hold it up, but his wingspan isn't wide enough. I ended up taking this picture of it from the side. Hard to see the quilting. You'll have to take my word for it. It's ready for binding now.

The area in front of our living room windows is the best light for seeing the quilting. Flipping it over, I still can't see the quilting on this busy back. You can see it where I've joined the yardage together with a black strip, but that quilt block fabric hides everything. Even on close examination it's hard to see.

So it's folded up waiting the next step in my sewing room. I'm going to have to do some cleaning up to make way for squaring it up. Right now, I have scraps of fabric spread from A to Izzard. These are being used to make borders for The Story of My Day. All those off-white strips in the middle are left over from when I made the quilt blocks. I'm approaching the finish of the left side border, and so I'll probably pick it all up then to make some room for Jericho Walls.

Smitty was Johnny-on-the-spot for sewing yesterday. After a good morning nap, he was raring to go.

Sadie is working under the table for the time being. It avoids income tax on her earnings, doncha know.

Getting to work on the border, I had help from Big Foot. (And you thought Big Foot was brown, didn't you?)

First, I needed a large and a small windmill for the next large section.

And then I made another smaller section with a small windmill.

Since I'm doing the blanket top-stitching as I go along, I'm having to switch feet on my sewing machine from the quarter-inch foot for piecing with the larger foot that accommodates the side-to-side movement of the needle for the blanket stitches. It means trying to do this somewhat efficiently by doing as much top-stitching as possible before going back to piecing things together. (I hope that makes sense.) When I finished yesterday, I had this much of the border finished. You can see it framed in green on the left side of the image below. There's just one more section (and one more windmill) to complete, and then I can sew it to the rest of the quilt.

Back upstairs, Smitty rewarded his day of hard work with an excellent afternoon sunbath.

Okay, so I mentioned I'm getting a haircut today. It's also a baking day. I'll be baking a Carrot-Walnut Loaf Cake for our morning snacking pleasure. Don't let that word "cake" fool you. It's really more of a quick bread. Later this afternoon, I should have some time to get back to my sewing.

And now, my friends, I should tell you that I won't be blogging tomorrow. Allow me to get on my soapbox to tell you why.

Mike and I are going to do something we've never done before. And I suppose that could be surprising given that we grew up in the 60's when protests over the war in Vietnam were commonplace. Mike would have been a young teen. I was 11 when my dad deployed to Vietnam for the first time, and so it was a confusing time for me. I believed then (and I still do) that my dad's service was honorable, even if the war was not. So the protests puzzled my youthful innocence. And all of that to say that this will be the first time either of us has participated in an organized protest. 

We'll be taking our MAX light rail train to Waterfront Park in downtown Portland. There are at least five protests happening within an hour's drive of us tomorrow. By riding MAX, we can avoid having a car parked downtown.
 

"Hands Off!" protests are occurring all over the country tomorrow. This map was taken from a post by Robert Reich. I can highly recommend his post for the wealth of information it provides. 

If you're wondering about protests in your area, I'm linking to a list of protests happening all over the country. They're listed in alphabetical order by state. Look for your state, and you might find something nearby. Also, I cannot recommend highly enough the helpful information provided by the 50501 Movement. I'm following 50501 Oregon, and I have no doubt there is a group for your state too.

As I mentioned after attending Senator Jeff Merkley's town hall back in February, just being there helped me to feel less isolated and alone with my personal concerns about how things are going in government. Being in a large crowd of like-minded people was reassuring in and of itself. At the time, Mike and I agreed that we want to do more of this when the opportunity presented itself, and so we are. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervous about this. We've given ourselves permission to leave if we feel unsafe. Peaceful protest is still legal in this country, and so we're hoping it will be that...peaceful. 

Of course, I'll be back on Sunday to tell you how it went. Probably I'll have some pictures. For now, back to my slow-stitching and some breakfast. Tomorrow we'll rouse the rabble.