Quilting Marathon

Good morning, my friends. It was a productive day sewing-wise...grocery-wise too, if you want to get right down to it. Before we left to do our grocery shopping, I had some time to take the first stitches on the second block for Le Jardin. 

Later in the afternoon, I did a little more stitching at the top so that I could move my hoop down to capture the bottom portion.

We had a short grocery list, and so we were in and out of the store pretty quickly. We had a couple of errands to run in town, but we were still home before lunch time. After lunch and a short nap, I went to work finishing off the quilting for the Joyful Journey. 

I used the same motif in the outer border that I used in the sashings. With that leafy fabric, the choice of a leaf motif seemed obvious.

It's probably a little easier to see it from the back.

I still had time left in my day, and so I cleared my work table by first sandwiching this small Kitchen Herbs quilt for quilting.

With that out of the way, I could square up Joyful Journey and ready it for binding.

The binding strips are cut, and so I'll get those sewn on today.

As for my when-to-take-the-sewing-machine-in quandary, I'm going to see how much I can get done today. I was planning to quilt the smaller Kitchen Herbs piece on my domestic machine, and then I'll also need to sew on its binding. If I can finish that today, then the machine will go into the shop tomorrow. If not, then I can make time to take it in next Tuesday. It's all good. I love it when I can solve such a complicated puzzle without setting the house on fire. And if that doesn't seem too complicated to you, then just be happy you're young and still have some functioning brain cells.

So it was late in the day by then. I didn't want to do any more sewing, and it was too early to start dinner. I decided to take a walk outside. The heavy rains of the day before didn't do the flowers any good.

I worried the peonies might have been damaged, but there they were, all straight and tall and unbloomed. There are skillions of buds on these. Wouldn't you think just one could do me a favor and open? I've been such a loyal friend, checking on them daily, even when it rains.

But no. Look at this. It's looked like this for about two weeks. Open. Open. Open.

Okay. Whatever. It didn't open while I was standing there, and so I went to check on the plum tree. As I looked for plums, I noticed I'd intruded into the home of this ladybug. Thank you for your service, Ma'am.

And sure enough. There are some eensy-weensy plums coming. There's one in the middle of the image below, and you can see another one off to the left. Yay! We should have plums by September.

Continuing on, I noticed more flowers on the dark purple rhododendron.

Here's another one over here.

And have you noticed the dearth of cats in my posts recently? The warmer, drier weather has allowed them more time outside. When they come in, they're tired. I caught Sadie ready to drop off in one of our chairs.

Smitty was on the couch. I'd say they're lazy, but they've been working hard outside, eradicating the field of small furry mammals.

Later, I caught Smitty on his catio ready to nod off after his dinner.

Today I'm getting my hair cut. It seems a little too soon, and I don't really need it just yet. On the other hand, it's my last chance before we get back from Alaska, and I can't go that long without at least a trim. Also, I'm picking up some medicine at the pharmacy. And since I neglected to add some chicken thighs to my grocery list yesterday, I'll do penance by getting some today. So that's three stops for today's outing. There should still be plenty of time for sewing this afternoon. 

So off I go. I believe I can fit in a little slow stitching before I need to leave.