Some Progress

Good morning, my friends. Another week comes to a close. There's still time left for sewing before we head north. From past experience, I know the next couple of weeks are going to fly by. We're each checking off our respective pre-trip activities. Mike spent quite a bit of time with our alarm system and smoke alarms yesterday. He was making sure everything worked and putting in fresh batteries. In the process, he discovered the smoke detector in our bedroom was no longer functional. No problem. He ordered another from Amazon, and it was delivered within about two hours. I'm not sure we could get it any faster if we drove to the store ourselves. I know we're supposed to be mad at Amazon, but they make it hard not to shop there.

My most recent pre-trip preparation involved setting up our mail forwarding service. Check. Also, the kitties are scheduled for their visits with the vet. They'll need Certificates of Veterinary Inspection to cross from Canada to Alaska. Already their vaccines are up-to-date. We just need one more certificate. Think of it as a passport for kitties. Also, I've arranged to take my sewing machine in for annual maintenance, and they're willing to hold onto the machine until we return later this summer. Nice.

So my first stop yesterday was to finish stitching the ninth and final block for "S" is for Sew.

These are all the blocks I have for this project.

Now it will go onto the list of Small Quilts to Finish. Probably I won't get to this until later this year.

In the meantime, I satisfied Mike's most recent request for biscotti. This is Honey-Lavender Biscotti, 

I ended up using a lot of flour for these. The dough is sticky and hard to work with. I've given you a link to the recipe back there. Interestingly, I first found it in the Italian Classics cookbook from America's Test Kitchens, and yet this link would claim it came from "What's Cooking America." Its website claims that What's Cooking America is "America's most trusted culinary resource since 1997." Hm. I've never heard of it before this moment in time. Well...anyway...it's a difficult dough to work with, so try it if you dare. You've been warned.

While the biscotti was baking I did my housework, finishing everything at about the same time. From there, I took a walk outside. The lithodora is filling in nicely. 

And look at these teaser flowers. This poppy is nearly the size of a tennis ball. I don't expect these to bloom before we go.

But these peonies are the most watched things in the garden right now. This one is about the size of a golf ball. Wouldn't you think anything this big oughta bloom?!? 

Okay, so nothing much new was going on outside. Back inside, I went to work making May's kitten in a green teacup. May's kitten is a ginger cat. The face went together pretty well.

And then I just needed a teacup. This is the third time I've made this block. I made just a couple of errors, but it was easier than the previous two. 

Here are the five blocks I have for this quilt so far.

So, I've assigned myself one housekeeping chore today, and I'm going to try to get in a walk on the treadmill. For whatever reason, I've been dealing with a muscle spasm between my shoulder blades for the past several days. Tylenol helps ease the pain, but I'm needing to take it every 4-6 hours to maintain relief. And, all of that to say I'm avoiding the Bowflex for the time being. Besides, I'm going to start quilting the Joyful Journey quilt today, and so I'll be babying my wrists and shoulders. The embroidery takes up almost all the room on these blocks, and so I won't do much quilting there. I'll do some sort of leafy motif in the sashings and borders. It shouldn't take too long.

Since I need to limit my time at the quilting machine, I'll also start sewing together the pieces for the Girls' Getaway quilt. This is where I left it. All the pieces are made, but I'll need to add some sashings.

Smitty read the instructions to me as I worked.

I selected this fabric for the sashings and binding.

And then I cut all the sashing strips.

And then I needed to make one more block to sew the whole thing together.

Only, when I opened up the embroidered sections, I found I'd already made that block. Doh!

And I actually liked the original one better. So I sewed two of the embroidered sections together before I quit for the day.

Today's sewing will start with quilting a row or two of blocks on Joyful Journey, and then I'll get back to sewing the center of Girls' Getaway together. 

As I was wrapping up in the sewing room yesterday afternoon, Mike brought his latest 3D printing project to show me. It's a kitty toy. Kitty treats can go into that slot at the bottom. The kitties can skitter it around the floor and, hopefully, score some treats while they play. 

And you know how cats are with kitty toys. Sometimes they love them. Sometimes they completely ignore them. Sadie was playing with this one this morning. I think she's already figured out there are treats inside.

Okay, so that's about all I know for the day. Happily, it's another day at home, and there's plenty of time for sewing. There's a hungry man downstairs. I guess I'll go make him some breakfast and get the day started.