Lotsa Blocks

Good morning, my friends. Although our yesterday started out dark and foggy, the wind came up, and the fog cleared off, and it turned into a pretty nice day. It was cold, though. A weather advisory came in the afternoon giving us a frost warning. The frost never materialized, but the weather has turned colder, for sure. It was bright outside, but it was too cold even for the kitties. We all ended up spending the day inside. I did my housework, and then ventured out just briefly to fill the bird feeders. The rest of the day was spent in the sewing room. 

It's been hard organizing this Fantastic Feline project, but I've been endeavoring to make blocks that are all the same size. I'd already decided to sew the blocks from this panel

into four-patches. There are 33 of these. Sadie helped me with the math. But she's no better at quilter's math than I am. We made the first one too small.

Here's the thing: I've taken math courses up to university-level calculus, and so you'd think quilter's math wouldn't be a problem. But it reminds me of when I took the first of three terms of statistics. I could not make sense of statistics. It was a required course, and so I ended up buying the workbook that accompanied the text book and learning it by rote. By that I mean, I'd look at the literal shape of the math problem, then look at where the numbers were placed, and then shuffled the numbers around until the answer was where it should be. At no point did I have any understanding of what I was doing. I was amused in graduate school when one of the required texts for my research courses was entitled, "Statistics Without Tears." Yeah, I needed that.

This add-a-half-inch for the seam allowance bamboozles me in the same way statistics did. It shouldn't be hard, but somehow my brain doesn't work that way. I have the hardest time wrapping my brain around the need to accommodate the seam allowances when I'm figuring out what size to cut things. Not to worry. We fixed it and made it work. When they were sewn into four-patches, there were eight blocks in all. Can you find the one we sewed wrong?

With one small block left over, I used the words from one of the panels to create this block:

From there, I turned my attention to the larger blocks from this panel:

I'd already cut them apart, and they were 6-1/2 inches, as marked on the panel. I trimmed them to six inches and then added a border all around.

When they were finished, I had five blocks that looked like this.

The only thing left to do was to trim these blocks to 7 inches.

Sadie helped me with that.

When I included the blocks I'd made the day before...

And counted them all up, I had 35 blocks. Oy. I supposed I could set them in seven rows of 5, but I was afraid it would look too long and narrow. I started wishing I hadn't cut that "many words" block into quarters. Originally, I'd planned to use it in the quilt cornerstones. Instead, I decided to sew it back together to make the 36th block.

So my next step will be to sash all the blocks and set them in six rows of six. I'll use this fabric from the pieced blocks for the sashing.

If there's time for sewing today, I'll start sewing these into a quilt top. I'm getting my hair cut today, and then I need to stop off at Erik and Mae's house to drop some things off and pick some things up. Also, I need to stop off at one of our specialty grocery stores. Mike loves their red currant jelly. I used to be able to find it in the regular grocery store, but they stopped stocking it long ago. With all that going on, I'm not sure how much time I'll have for sewing when I get home. Time will tell.

We had an evening visitor as we ate our minestrone last night. A few nights ago, Smitty was sitting looking out the window when he stood up, looking alarmed, and then ran upstairs. We looked out and didn't see anything. We thought at the time it was probably a deer. Fast forward to yesterday evening, and this is what we saw.

She doesn't look too threatening to us, but Smitty figures anything that big that walks on four legs is bound to be trouble.

And as long as I mentioned the minestrone, I should tell you I tried a new recipe for Slow-Cooker Minestrone from A Taste of Home last night. This was started in the slow-cooker a little before lunch time. Then, half an hour before we were ready to eat, I added three kinds of canned beans, a chopped-up small zucchini, and some ditalini pasta. It was a good day for soup, and this tasted good. It was easy too. I'll warn you...the recipe makes enough to feed a small army. The next time I make this, I'll probably make half as much and just freeze those half cans of beans for another time.

When I'm finished here, I'll head downstairs and try to finish up this last block for the Grandpa's Bridges quilt. I thought I might finish it yesterday, but there was more stitching there than I could finish in a single sitting. I'll get it done today.

When I get home this afternoon, my first priority will be to make up the next stitchery on my list. I'll be tracing blocks for the Tiny Treasures project.

I'm looking forward to getting started on these. There are 72 in all, and I'll stitch them 12 at a time.

With the threat of the first frost, I'm reminded I need to start preparing the garden for winter. The potted dahlias need to be cut down to the soil level and moved into the garage. Also, I need to cut the peonies to the ground. I have some daffodil bulbs to plant as well. There's not a lot to do to get the garden ready for winter, but time marches on. When the weather is suitable, we'll get to work on that.

Okay, so that's all I have for you today. I need to eat some breakfast and get on my way. Today will be busy, and we're getting our flu vaccines tomorrow. And since we know how to have a good time, we'll get some lunch and do our grocery shopping afterward. I expect the flu shot will make me sick for a day, as it always does. Hopefully, I'll still feel good enough for sewing.