A Good Day for Slow Stitching

Good morning my friends. Our truck came home yesterday. Unfortunately, it has to go back again today. The air conditioner is working again, but not cooling very well. Probably it needs more refrigerant added, and we're hopeful that will fix it for good. If not, then I don't know. We're told it was an electrical issue, which would explain why it came on at times for a few minutes, then shut off again. Possibly some critter had chewed the electrical harness, but I'm no expert. It's a common occurrence here. Critters. Can't live with 'em, can't seem to live without them, despite the hard work of two hunter cats.

Okay, so what's going on sewing-wise? Well, I finished the second section for Block 6 of the Raggedy & Friends project. I'll set this one aside until its turn comes up on my list of WIP's, and then I'll sew the block together.

With that finished, I took a walk around the yard and filled the bird feeders. Pretty much anything that blooms has bloomed out this late in the season. The dahlias are still going strong, though. This is the newest flower on the Fuzzy Wuzzy dahlia.

There are several flowers coming on Checkers.

This one has yet to bloom, and until yesterday, I hadn't seen even a single bud. Last week, I noticed the leaves had a yellow cast to them, and so I gave it some fertilizer. Now...maybe...I think this might be the first tiny bud forming.

It's the "Firefighter" dahlia. When it blooms, it looks like this. Fingers crossed we'll see some flowers from it this year.

The quilting is finished on the Stitchin' Wisdom quilt. Yesterday, I finished off the outer border.

In the corners, I did a stylized heart. I've done this before. It was a little more tricky doing it in this larger space. The cornerstone is about 3-1/2 inches.

And that finished it off.

It's hard to see the quilting on this, even from the back.

When I spread it out on my table to square it up, Sadie gave it the all impurrtant snuggleability test. There's no point finishing off the binding if it fails this crucial test. She gave it five stars.

So I went ahead and sewed on the binding.

And then I sandwiched the Sweet Dreams quilt. It'll be next under my quilting needle. I'll do a diagonal grid on this, but I'll skip over the bears. For those, I'll just outline the appliques.

When it was sandwiched, Sadie checked it for snuggleability too. It's a baby quilt, and so snuggleability is extremely impurrtant.

Okay, and that was enough sewing for one day. I took the Stitchin' Wisdom quilt upstairs and clipped the binding. Now it's draped over Smitty's favorite napping chair. He's been keeping an eye on it ever since.

Today I'll get started on the Sashiko piece. Also, I'll do some work on the quilt binding. I wouldn't expect to finish it in a single day, but sometimes I just keep going, and going, and going, Energizer bunny-style. As I mentioned, we're taking the truck back. We'll drop it off and then do our grocery shopping. We're hopeful that will be enough time. It'll be my fourth trip into town in four days, and we'll also have to go into town tomorrow. Oy. That's too many days away from home in a row for this homebody. And that's what will make this a good day for slow-stitching. Sometimes I need it just to settle myself down.

Okay, so off I go. I have a little time to work on the Sashiko piece before I hit the shower. Despite all the running around, slow-stitching is going to save the day.