A Good Start

Good morning, my friends. I'm writing fast again this morning. I was writing fast yesterday in anticipation of Scott, the window guy, coming. It was past 10:00 a.m. when he texted and asked to reschedule for today. He said he was "having a morning." Frankly, I know the feeling. No problem. So today's the day. Hopefully he'll have a better morning.

Expecting him to show, I hurried and did my slow-stitching before getting myself around and dressed. I finished another name and place for the Shop Hop 4.0 quilt. Now I'm ready for the next go-round of these blocks.

Also, I started and nearly finished the 6th Sewing Room block. I might have finished it, but I was a little worried about the time. I'll finish it this morning.

When that's finished, I'll get a start of the first block for "Home is Where my Flock Is." It's traced and awaiting my hoop and needle.

My task for the day was to tackle the laundry. I had three loads. When I had that sorted and started, I could make my way to the sewing room. Sadie was my helper cat for the day. Knowing a bad man was coming to wash our windows, she decided to help from the safety of her Clubhouse. Smitty likes to call this the "He Man Woman Hater's Clubhouse." Sadie thinks that is purrposterous.

Okay, so the background was made for the Canoe block of the Northern Wilderness project. I started on the applique with the two water pieces. Easy enough.

But then...look at that. The next piece is positioned in such a way that proper placement is essential to avoid throwing off the rest of the design.

I decided to make the canoe and the Eskimo as a separate piece on my Teflon pressing sheet. I could see the placement diagram if I placed it under the pressing sheet. In that way I could ensure everything was where it should be.

When it was finished, it looked like this:

Some of you have asked me how this works. The applique can be "fused" to the Teflon pressing sheet, and then peeled up, leaving the fusible in place.

It can be peeled up in one piece.

And then moved to the block where I could fuse it down permanently. Ta-Da! Now this one is ready for top-stitching.

I'm making this quilt two blocks per go-round. Next up is the Dragonfly block.

These were the pieces I needed for the background block.

When all the component parts were made, it looked like this:

When the background was finished, it looked like this.

When I went to do the applique, I realized I'd made the background block wrong. If you look at the image from the book above, you can see that I rotated the four corners 180° from how they were supposed to be. Oh well. It works as it is. I'm not changing it. Don't tell anyone, okay?

Now both blocks are ready for top-stitching, and that will be my sewing goal for the day. 

With those finished, it will bring me to the "Quilter's Choice" section of my Whiteboard. For this turn, I'll work on the "Sashiko" art quilt piece. I've been kind of stuck on this because I'm waiting for an order of embroidery floss to arrive from an Etsy shop. These are precisely the colors I need for my project.

They're coming from Ontario, Canada, and they are taking positively FOREVER to arrive. I ordered them ten days ago. They didn't even ship until four days later, and now the tracking info shows me they've been "in transit" from the same location for the past six days. If they come on time, they should be here on the 22nd, but I'm not holding my breath until then. Either way, I have some things I can do with my art quilt project between now and then, and so I'll work on that. Sorry...no pictures...and no peeking.

All right. That's all I have for you this morning. Hopefully I can report clean windows tomorrow.