Morning Light

Good morning, my friends. It was nice to wake up to a glimmer of light this morning. It's been so dark in the morning here, I'll admit to being glad we're back to standard time. Of course, in tomorrow's post I'll be whining about how dark it is at 4:30 this afternoon. It's probably best if I just stay in my basement sewing room and hide the truth from myself.

Yesterday started with me taking the first stitches on the fourth block for Le Jardin. My first stitches on any piece are mainly selected so that I can clean off the little bits of floss left over from last time. I really love these blocks. 

I had some things to do around the house, and I managed to talk myself into doing a Bowflex workout. When I finally made my way to the sewing room after lunch, Smitty was waiting for me. He thought we were going to trace some embroidery designs.

But then I talked him into helping me make two more blocks for the Stair Steps project. These are time-consuming to make because there is so much cutting. I cut just enough patches to make a single block, and then I sew that one together. This one has a blue row running diagonally from the upper left to the lower right.

Of course all that cutting inevitably leaves some extras I don't use. Smitty helped by using his tail as a pointer to select the patch I'd use next.

And with his help, I was able to sew together a second block for the day. This one has a yellow stripe.

This was Sadie's contribution.

So that's three blocks down, and two to go. I'm hoping I can finish off the last two today. After that, I'll be ready to make another row of blocks for the Gumballs project. These are the blocks I have for that quilt so far.

There's not much on today's agenda. I want to take a walk on the treadmill, and I need to make up a shopping list for tomorrow's grocery shopping trip. The first Tuesday of the month is always senior discount day at our regular grocery store. Senior discount day didn't used to be much of a draw because the savings was minimal. Last month, we saved nearly $10 because of the senior discount. So...that's nothing to sneeze at. Of course, with everything so expensive these days, it makes sense that a percentage of a lot ends up being more than expected. Ya' gotta do your grocery shopping sometime. Might as well try to snag a few extra pennies while we're at it. And all of that to say there isn't much standing between me and my sewing today. No excuses. I should be able to finish those blocks.

So, okay. The sky has brightened considerably since I've been sitting here. It's looking like it'll be a rainy day. Rain? In the Pacific Northwest? No way! Good sewing weather, though. I'm not complaining.