Sewturday Sewing

Good morning, my friends. It's the last Sunday of April. Now, how did that happen? There I was worried about someone playing an April Fool's Day prank on me. I was being so careful. And then...they slipped nearly the whole month past me, and I barely noticed. 

It was supposed to be an all-sewing day yesterday, and it was...mostly. I broke my no exercising on Sewturday rule, though. I'd missed several days during the week, and so it seemed I must do penance. After that, I wandered around outside for a bit, filling the bird feeders and checking on the flowers. The kitties kept me company.

The rhododendrons are gearing up to be the stars of the garden soon. I expect we'll have lots of flowers by next week. They usually bloom one bush at a time. If my counter is working, we have five different colors. This peachy one by the catio is always the first to open.

Just down the sidewalk from that one is this pinky-purply job. It's first flower has opened. Can you believe that rhododendrons are considered an invasive species in Ireland?

Moving on, we're seeing more color from the azaleas. While I've been watching for these flowers to open...

These opened and I barely noticed.

Here are some more. Whereas the rhododendrons tend to bloom one at a time, the azaleas prefer to party all together.

I'm seeing more and more flower buds on the chives. I expect I'll be making vinegar sometime this week.

Ooooh...and several of the peonies appear on the brink of bursting into flower.

There are buds on the apple tree.

The hydrangeas are beginning to show their first flowers.

Back inside, I went to work in the sewing room. I refolded and pressed the backing fabric I'd selected for the Lightframe quilt. As it turns out, I had about 3-1/4 yards of this. When I had it all pieced together, there was just one small strip about 20 x 3 inches left of it. Also, I used what remained of the green from the front to cut binding strips. I was feeling pretty smug about using almost all of those two large pieces.

And now Lightframe will go to the quilts-to-be-sandwiched pile. 

With that one finished, I spent a little time deciding how to fill in the empty slot on my WIP's dance card. Somewhere (probably Pinterest), I saw this pattern recently. I wanted to do something scrappy, and I kind of like this one. I'll use reds, pinks, purples, and maybe some grays in mine.

From there, I went to work making the final two "Double X" blocks for the Girls' Getaway quilt. This turned out to be easier than expected, although it was time-consuming. I cut pieces for both blocks first.

Sadie wanted to be right in my face for helping yesterday. Also, she wanted you to admire her tortie-colored ears.

With the cutting done, the next step was to make 12 half square triangles for each block, and then trim them to 2 inches.

And then I started with the block centers...

And worked my way out until they were finished.

Virtually all the pieced blocks will go around the outside edge of the quilt, and some, these two included, have required a spacer strip to bring them to the right size.

Okay, and there are still a few places where I'll be adding more fabric when I sew them together, but these are all the pieced and embroidered blocks I have for this quilt.

Now those will take their place in the quilt-tops-to-finish section of my white board. And that opened up a second slot on my WIP's dance card. It took me a while, but I decided on this quilt called Stair Steps...

From this book.

If I'm going to make scrap quilts, I like to do the ones that include lots of color placed more or less randomly. I like how Stair Steps has one similar color in each diagonal row of blocks. I'll have to piece them strategically as I go. The blocks are large at 16 inches each. I may decide to make a smaller quilt by making fewer blocks.

Okay, so I have a lot on my plate today. I'll be spending some time in the kitchen this morning. First I'll get dinner started in the slow cooker, and I'm going to bake some muffins today. I was supposed to bake muffins on Friday, but then we ended up getting something from the grocery store bakery, giving me a two-day reprieve. Also, there's some housekeeping to do. There should still be plenty of time for sewing. When I make my way to the sewing room, I'll make up two more blocks for the Shop Hop 4.0 quilt. These are the blocks I have so far.

When I've made the next two, I'll have run out of fabrics to finish it off. Obviously, I'm going to have to do some shopping while we're traveling to Alaska. I'm told there aren't a lot of quilt shops along the way, but we'll just see if I can't sniff out enough to finish my quilt. If not, there are always local shops, and several that I've never included in any of my quilts. One way or another, I'll get the 16 blocks I need to finish this off.

All right. There's a hungry husband downstairs. (Sounds like a good name for a TV dinner, doesn't it?) I guess I'll go get his Sunday started with some blueberry oatmeal pancakes. After that...slow stitching. A day without slow-stitching is like...well, I can't even imagine. I just do it. Take no chances, my friends.