Between Birthdays

Good morning, my friends. We awakened to bright red skies this morning. 

Here's a shot standing in a little different location. Rain's gotta be on the way, doncha think?

And today is Mike's birthday, which means yesterday was a day between birthdays. We've already had our traditional breakfast of Eggs Benedict this morning. He gets it on his birthday and on Father's Day.

And this birthday business...oh my. One day you're teenagers meeting for the first time on the day he graduates high school. Then, you barely turn around and you're both old people. Now, how did that happen? It's something to ponder.

Backing up to yesterday, I took the first stitches on the second of three blocks for "S" is for Sew. I should be able to finish this one this morning, and there will probably be time to work on the third.

If I want to avoid a stitching emergency, I need to make up May's block for A Year in the Garden today.

Our grocery shopping trip was uneventful. Our list was relatively short, and so we were in and out pretty quickly. On the way home, I got a picture of the many California poppies blooming along the roadsides right now. If you've been reading for a while, you might remember when we visited the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve some years back.

Back home and with everything put away, I joined Smitty in the sewing room. He was skulking around. One can never be too careful when there are bears around.

The bears were waiting patiently for their bottom half to be completed.

When that was finished, I could sew it to the top half.

And then it just needed borders and my quilt top was finished.

Finishing this quilt top was my goal for May's

and so I'll link up there when the party starts.

So, I find myself with two fabrics I can use for the back, and not enough of either one. 

As I sit here, I believe I'll just sew them together in a half-and-half formation, and that should work just fine. Probably I'll use the same bear fabric from the top for the binding. Possibly there's something I like better in my stash, but I'll have to take a look before deciding.

So it was a pretty easy-going day. We sat outside for a while before dinner, and we were entertained by this Red Admiral butterfly who spent a good 10-15 minutes on our lilac bush.

He wasn't particularly cooperative for his picture...it's the way with butterflies...but I managed to get a few good shots out of the dozen or so that I snapped.

So I'm making Chicken Marsala for Mike's birthday dinner, and I'll make a Lemon Meringue Tart for Two today to enjoy for dessert. Think of it as a birthday cake. There should still be some time for sewing. Of course, there's always slow-stitching. It's probably a good idea to make up May's block for A Year in the Garden. These are the blocks I have for that quilt so far.

And then I'll want to finish up May's assignment for The Sewing Room. The embroidered block is finished.

But it needs borders, and then I need to make three more pieced blocks. These are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

Finally, I'll want to make a cat in a green teacup for this months' Rainbow Scrap Challenge. This cat will be one of the tailless ones like those on top in the image below. We'll see if I can get it made without uttering any four-letter words.

And that's probably a full day of sewing right there. It might even be two full days of sewing. For now, I'm optimistic I can get it done today.

Right now, I'll head downstairs for some slow-stitching. Probably I should feed the hungry birds. It's time to start another day.