Good morning, my friends, and welcome to Monday. I hope y'all are getting your minds right for the traveling we're about to do. We leave two weeks from tomorrow. Yesterday, I started making my list. I expect to be adding items as I think of them, but I'm off to a good start for now.
Tomorrow is a grocery shopping day, and my thoughts have turned to what we can bring with us when we cross the border. Also, we'll cross the border into Canada one day, but then we'll cross back into the USA just about six days later when we reach Alaska. So, it gets a little bit complicated. And just now that reminded me to add an insulated bag to the list. I'm going to put everything fresh into the insulated bag on the morning we cross into Canada. If they want to inspect any of our fresh items, I'll have them in the truck with us. My biggest fear is that they'll want to look inside the camper, and that would freak out the furry critters inside.
As long as we're talking about Alaska, I wanted to let you know that the Northern Wilderness pattern arrived. I won't start on this until after our trip, but I'm happy to have found the pattern without having to spend a fortune. You can find it right here.
If you've been following along, then you know I got wind of a shop hop going on right now in Alaska. I really love the quilt that will come from the blocks that are collected. Here's the shop hop quilt.
You can see it has a different border and the blocks are set differently. I kind of like the version I've received. So that will give me something to look forward to when we're back home again.
Yesterday started with slow-stitching, as usual. I spent a little extra time yesterday finishing off the bottom section.
And then I was able to move my hoop to encompass the flowers at the top. I expect I'll finish this by tomorrow.
And that means I'll need to make up the next block for Le Jardin. I only just started on this project. Here's the one block I have so far:
Okay, and then it was time to check on things outside. I'd hoped the peonies would bloom for Mother's Day, but nothing doing. I haven't checked this morning. We had rain for a good part of the day yesterday, and so I don't suppose they were inclined to open overnight. I'll check on them again this morning, but I'm not expecting anything.
On the other hand, there were enough chive blossoms to motivate me to get a start on the chive blossom vinegar.
Usually I'll pick off those green stems, but I decided to leave them this time. They'll add a more intense chivey flavor to the vinegar. The color comes from the flowers.
So that will sit in my dark pantry for two weeks, and then I'll strain out the solids and freeze it for use later in the year. It is shelf stable, but the color fades over time. I'm hoping to give a gift of this to one of my friends in Southern California, and I'm hoping the freezing will preserve the color.
Okay, and then I was so close to finishing the Girls' Getaway quilt top that I decided to work on that first. I sewed together the blocks for the top border...
And then, the bottom border. And that gave me a finished quilt top. Yay!
I don't have a good backing fabric for this, and so I'll be on the hunt while I'm visiting quilt shops in Canada and Alaska. Surely I'll find something. If you're interested, I've added this full set of patterns to my Used Pattern Yard Sale there in my right side bar. There's some other stuff there too, so take a look.
Then, I went to work finishing the quilting for the Joyful Journey blocks. This first one didn't have any bees, but I used the same looping meander to connect the snowflakes, and I left some tracks on the ice where he's ice skating.
This next one had only a couple of bees. I gave the bird some feathers, and then connected the bee flights with the same looping meander.
Finally, this last block with lots of bees.
It seemed too late in the day to spend much more time on this, but I wanted to try out the ideas I had for quilting the rest. I did a dot-to-dot pattern in the star cornerstone. That was easy enough.
And then I did a leafy motif the length of this first sashing.
It's a little easier to see on the quilt back.
And I was satisfied with that, so I stopped there. Today's goal will be to quilt all the vertical sashings and cornerstones. Tomorrow, I'll work on the horizontal sashings. Then, Wednesday, I'll be on the outer border. It's looking like a good bet I'll be able to finish this quilt before we go.
My focus will be on quilting the Joyful Journey today, but if there's time in the sewing room, I'll start quilting the Kitchen Herbs quilt. This is a small quilt, so possibly I can have two finishes before we go.
Okay, so there's plenty to keep me busy today. How about you? What are you doing to stay out of trouble?
5 comments:
John Muir, the famous naturalist, wrote in his journal that you should never go to Alaska as a young man because you'll never be satisfied with any other place as long as you live. And there's a lot of truth to that. ~ Tom Bodett
Always fun to see all your lovely handwork. I may have to buy some chives to plant this year. Would be fun to try that vinegar.
Wow! Love that North Wilderness pattern! Are you going to stop there in Fairbanks at the shop? Looks huge. May have to order one myself but just the pattern and not the kit.
Your chives are so pretty!
I haven’t stayed out of trouble already today. It’s supposed to be our last cooler day of the week so set out degrassing the asparagus bed, day lilies and lantana beds along the fence and elephant ears and salvia beds. They all got a good layer of straw. My knee was really hurting by the time I finished and pretty tired, filthy and done. Will find out on the 28th about getting a knee replacement 😳😬!
What am I doing to stay out of trouble, you ask so innocently.
I'm writing to my siblings about my life. On of the titles "A day in the life of Geezer land". Even still, I sem to get into trouble. Sigh.
You have a lot going on in and out of the sewing room. Just 2 weeks left before your trip? That will go fast. Girl's Getaway turned out really fun and the quilting on Joyful Journey blocks is looking good.
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