Cut and Dyed

Good morning, my friends. We've seen a big shift in the weather since we chatted yesterday. We even got a little rain this morning. There have been a few lightning strikes, and we've heard some thunder. That sort of thing isn't good when the landscape is so crispy and dry, and so we're hoping it doesn't spark a fire somewhere. We're not too worried about it where we are, but no new fires would be a good way to end the summer.

A good portion of my day was spent running around. I got my hair cut and colored. I'm feeling a lot better about that. It's just the same old same old...no changes...just shorter and with more blonde streaks. I had a couple of errands to run, and then I could get back to my sewing. But first...

You might have noticed I've had a serious yen to make some kind of dessert with our ripening plums. The first thing I did when I got home was to bake a Magic Apple Plum Cobbler. It's a recipe from Smitten Kitchen.

If you're wondering what's "magic" about it, my guess would be that you simply toss everything into whatever cake pan you're using, and it pretty much bakes itself. Almost no stirring required. I used plums and apples from our tree. And if you follow along, then you'll know that our sad little apple tree has never thrived, although it does give us about a half dozen apples each year. I only needed two. And for this, I used four of our Italian prune plums. They're a small plum, and I had an extra so I threw that in too. We had that with a scoop of vanilla ice cream last night, and mmm, mmm, mmm. My taste buds seriously needed that.

While I was out picking the fruit, I noticed this guy sitting in his usual favorite spot beside our front patio. Now that I'm filling the bird feeders again, the squirrels are making their way back. If you were among the ones worrying that they'd all succumbed to cyanide poisoning, you can worry no more. They'd only left temporarily to find seedier pastures.

With that finished, I returned to my quilting. For this first border, I did a sort of upsy-downsy heart motif. I've done this before. Once I figured out that the two points of the heart needed to line up vertically, it became an easy motif for me, and I use it often.

Its easier to see it from the quilt back.

A while back, I gave up trying to make a smooth transition when I turned the corner. Now, I just do something simple there.

So, I should finish this today. I just barely started on a sort of half-heart feather, and left it needle down there. I have another idea about what to do in the corners. I should have no problem finishing this today, and then it will be ready for binding. Yay!

Also, I expect I'll finish my embroidery piece this morning, which will allow me to get started on the Sashiko piece. My first Sashiko attempt wasn't working very well, but I have a new idea. It's going to be very cool if I can pull it off.

We're still waiting for word on the air conditioner repair for our truck. Mike called toward the end of the day yesterday, and it wasn't finished. I heard him assuring the guy to take his time. We want the job done right, and I whole-heartedly agree. We'd planned to do some grocery shopping today, but we'll wait and see what's going on with the truck. If we need to, we can put that off until tomorrow. And if the truck is finished early enough, we can do both. So the day's agenda is kind of up in the air. We'll just hang out here until we get word about the truck. Works for me. There's plenty of sewing to do. And I hear my slow-stitching beckoning, so I guess I'll just get to it.