Plan B for "Better"

Good morning, my friends. Happy Labor Day and welcome to September! Time marches on, doesn't it? Fall will be here soon enough. Our landscape is already showing signs. 

It was a busy weekend for me. Matthew was here on Saturday and spent the day with us. It was good seeing him and hearing about all the things he's involved with. Then yesterday, I had some housework to do, and we also headed down to the neighbors' for an open house. We didn't stay long, but it still took a chunk out of the day.

Despite being busy, there was some time for sewing. I'm off to a good start on the Sweet Dreams baby quilt. I've outlined all the bear appliques.

It's easier to see from the back.

And then, I was ready to start the diagonal grid for the rest of the quilt. My plan was to take the grid to the edge of the quilt on all four sides. I'd planned to skip across the bear appliques, and continue the long grid lines on the other side. For this sort of thing, I absolutely love this "Line tamer" ruler. Since I was taking my lines out into the borders, how could I line up the ruler so the lines intersected with the block intersections?

Well...the ruler makes this so easy because I can line up the markings on the far side with the block intersections.

And then center it across the block. And that tells me where I should start stitching. Then, I just keep sliding the ruler across the quilt until I reach the other side.

Only...ignore everything I just said. It won't work on this quilt because the border is narrower than the blocks. It only works that way if the border and the blocks are the same width. Maybe you figured this out right away, but I had to stitch all the way across from edge to edge on the quilt before I realized it. Oh well. 

So, now I'll just take the diagonal grid to the edge of the border, and then ricochet around from there.

It's about 1/3 of the way finished now. As for my Plan B for "Better," I need to figure out something for the border, and for the area above the bear applique. I have ideas for both, and I'll tell you when I get there.

This being the first of the month, it's time to choose a goal for September's

My goal for September will be to finish quilting and binding the Sweet Dreams baby quilt above, and get it off in the mail to the newest resident of Planet Earth. Insofar as I know, he's not here yet, but he's expected to arrive any day now.

There was some happy mail over the weekend. First, the extra fabric I ordered to finish off the Cats in Pajamas has arrived. Look at the image below. My unwashed fabric is on the left. The fabric I ordered, which had been washed, is on the right. Honestly, I can't tell the difference. It feels just slightly different. The unwashed fabric feels a little more satin-y. Still, if you didn't know, I doubt you'd guess.

So that means I can add the final border to the Cats in Pajamas and finish it off.

 I'll also make a back for it from this fabric. Since posting this the first time, I was reminded it came from my quilting fairy godmother, Ila. Thank you, Ila.

And Ila always knows just exactly what I need. If a thought pops into my head that I need something, I open the mailbox and find a care package from her. You can see why she's my quilting fairy godmother. She knew I was working on a Sashiko piece and that I needed different shades of gray. And look at all these different shades that came with her care package that arrived a few days ago. Perfect. Thank you, Ila.

I'm making progress on my piece. Here's your peek.

So I'll continue on my merry way today. It's going to be a mostly sewing day. Cruelly, I gave myself the assignment of getting back to my treadmill and Bowflex workouts as of September 1st. And, as we've already noted, the day hath arriven. Bummer. So, I'll get going on that today, and try to keep it up until the next time we drive off into the great beyond.

If you've enjoyed the careful spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and questionable grammar in this post, you can thank this cat purrson who serves as my editor-in-chief.

After seeing all those cats in pajamas, he's thinking he'll put his on and take a nap. Oh, but silly me. Cats wear their pajamas all the time. If I could get away with it, I'd wear mine all the time too.

Okay, a starving man is waiting for his breakfast downstairs. I guess it's time for me to save a life. Enjoy what remains of your weekend, Everybody.