Turn on those Sad Songs

Good morning, my friends. It was the worst possible morning in cat land. It was raining...hard...and Smitty was relegated to the sheltered part of his catio.

The whole of the catio has a roof, but with the rain coming down so hard, he must have felt as if he needed even more cover.

Sadie was completely disgusted. How could we present them with such a terrible day of weather?

My morning was spent finishing off Block 7 of the Raggedy & Friends project. I'll set this aside until I'm ready to piece together the block.

There were some cookie ingredients I wanted to use up, and so I spent a little time making these Chocolate-chunk Oatmeal Cookies with Pecans and Dried Cherries for Two. They were quick to make. We enjoyed those with our afternoon cup of espresso.

It seemed like a good day for a Bowflex workout, and then I got busy with my quilting. Before I started, I checked the quilt back to make sure I wasn't going to get any pleats.

I'm enjoying this dot-to-dot quilting. The designs evolve as I go, beginning with the spot where I put the needle down. It could be anywhere. I started this one at the center seam. My only rule is that I'm not stitching in the ditch anywhere. I can cross the seam lines, but I'm avoiding stitching in the seams. Here's where I started with this orange block.

I thought it needed a little more quilting around the outside, and so I added another line.

And then I finished off the door and the roof.

Here's how it looks from the back.

From there, I moved to the left for the purple block.

Here's how that looks from the back.

And then I finished off the right side of the row with this red block.

Here's how that looks from the back.

So now I've moved to the bottom row. I left it needle down right here.

This being the beginning of the month, it's time to set a goal for October's:

My goal for October will be to finish quilting and binding the Barnyard quilt currently under my quilting needle.

Let's check in on our despondent kitties. Smitty gave up and took an afternoon nap.

Sadie joined him.

Okay, so with my slow-stitching piece finished, I needed something new. I prepared the final block for the Grandpa's Bridges project. This will be the 12th of 12 blocks. These were all printed on Sticky Fabri-Solvy, and I took them along on a trip last year. When we returned from our trip, I put them into the regular rotation with my other embroidery projects. It's good to be starting on the last one.

But before I can do that, I need to stitch out the final names and places for the Shop Hop 4.0 quilt. I'll start stitching these this morning. They shouldn't take long.

I haven't looked at the calendar today, but undoubtedly, I have at least one housekeeping chore on the list. It's also a treadmill day, and so I'll get in a walk there. After that, it's sewing for the rest of the day. I'll get another row finished on the Barnyard quilt, and then I'll see what jumps out at me in the sewing room to finish off the day. If I'm going to link up at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this Saturday, I should probably get busy on October's kitten in a teacup.

What's going on in your sewing room today?