Some Progress

Good morning, my friends. Our window guy is coming today. It's been over a year since he's been here. With all the dust stirred up when Mike mowed our overgrown field recently, the windows can use some work. Our "window guy," Scott has been washing our windows since 1990. He's kind of like family. Still...I'd like to be dressed and showered when he gets here. It'll be nice to have clean windows.

Yesterday's slow-stitching had me finishing up the 11th of 12 blocks for Grandpa's Bridges.

There's just one more to go. Here are all the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

I hadn't used up all my stitching time and so I started stitching the names and places for the next go-round of the Shop Hop quilt blocks. There's one more of these to do.

When I made my way into the sewing room, I found Smitty ready to help. But first...a little catnip, please.

Sadie was on standby in case Smitty was too baked to do any sewing.

My first goal was to finish two more blocks for the Shop Hop 4.0 quilt. This fabric came from Quilting B Fabric Shop in Dawson Creek, B.C., Canada. I selected it because we'd seen an elk on the previous day's drive.

The next one was from Sew 'n Bee Cozy in Seward, Alaska. I chose this fabric for...what else? The mosquitos!

I'll set this aside for now. There are four more blocks to finish it off. Here are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

It seemed too early to stop, and yet to late to start anything new. So I decided to start reading the instructions for this new project. I'm kind of excited to get started on this.

Removing it from its envelope, I realized it is a book rather than the loose sheets I was expecting. The instructions are very good. There are 16 blocks. If I'm to finish it before I die, it makes sense to make these two blocks per go-round. The first one in the book is this next one: The Canoe block.

It's a pieced block with applique over the top. I decided to cut the pieces for the pieced block.

There was still time in the day, and so I sewed together the component parts.

And heck...I might as well sew the whole thing together.

And then, I added borders all around as well as the background for the applique at the bottom.

While I was finishing it off, Matthew called, and we chatted for a while. It was a nice way to end my sewing day. I'll get to work on the applique today. 

Before dinner, I took a walk to the far side of the field. A few days ago I couldn't see any changing color on this tree. Yesterday, I noticed a few red leaves.

We planted this tree for its bright red fall color. It's a treat when we get to see it all aflame. Often, we get a big windstorm in October that blows all the fall color away.

Also, the plums are purpling nicely. Matthew will be joining us for dinner a week from this Saturday. There's a good chance the plums will be ready by then. An Original Plum Torte would be a very nice dessert.

Okay, so that's all I have for you today. It's going to be a busy morning with Scott arriving soon. We need breakfast and to get our ADL's taken care of. (ADL: It's a term we used in mental health meaning, "activities of daily living." When you can no longer manage your ADL's, it's a bad sign. Just sayin'.) I'm always trying to stay out of Scott's way while he's here doing the windows, and so I'll stick with laundry and sewing today. Sounds like a good way to spend the day. What are you up to today?