Moving Along

Good morning, my friends. More than expected was accomplished in the sewing room yesterday. I was home from my pedicure just after noon, and that left me with the remainder of the day for sewing. Of course, I couldn't leave in the morning without spending some time with my slow-stitching. This is Tiny Treasure #15.

One per day seems to be my limit for the time being.

When I got home, I went to work quilting the sashing for the Whimsical Garden. This is the motif I found on Pinterest. It looked easy enough for even a quilting simpleton like me.

Usually, I try a new motif on a practice piece, but I went straight to the quilt for this. And that looked okay to me.

So I continued on, quilting all the horizontal sashing. I left it needle down at the corner. Today's assignment is to quilt the vertical sashing.

Tomorrow, I'll be ready to quilt the outer border, and then it will be ready for binding.

From there, I moved to the basement sewing room to start quilting the Sewing Room banner. I was able to dig out some cut off strips of batting left from other projects. I keep these smaller bits of batting in a laundry bag behind my sewing chair. It required one seam to sew two pieces together. Also, this long narrow quilt could be sandwiched on my ironing board. That was handy.

There we go...ready to go under the needle.

With the lavender border and a lavender binding, I decided on a lavender cotton thread. There was a bobbin partially wound in this color too. Always a bonus.

And then I just did some straight line quilting. I outlined the embroidered blocks. Then I outlined the block borders. And then I outlined the entire perimeter of the inner border.

From there, I could square it up for binding.

It was late in the day by then, but there was still enough time to machine sew the binding.

And now it's ready for hand-sewing. Here's a look at the back.

As I was tidying up, Sadie showed up. 

How can this quilt be comfurrtable for kitties with all those pins and needles on it? Purrhaps I should subject it to the snuggleability test before you continue.

She was skeptical, but it passed the test.

You may purrceed with the paw-sewing.

Okay, and that seemed like a good place to stop for the day.

Last week for dinner, I made a German Winter Stew. It left me with a half head of both green and red cabbage hanging out in my vegetable crisper. And so when this recipe for Noodle Okonomiyaki (Cabbage and Egg Pancakes) dropped into my email inbox, I knew I had to make it. I'm stealing the image that came with the recipe since theirs is prettier than mine.

We liked this. It's a little scary because one is required to flip the "pancake" onto a plate or the lid of a skillet, and then slide it back into the skillet to cook on the second side. My method made three large pancakes. I was able to accomplish that flip all three times without throwing everything onto the walls of the kitchen. (Polishes fingernails on shirt.) Really. It's easier than it sounds. 

So all of that to say it was good, and we liked it. The recipe suggests drizzling with mayonnaise or Thai Sweet Chili Sauce. I see something like this as a vehicle for the Thai Sweet Chili Sauce. I absolutely love the stuff. Any time I can use it on something like this simply means I won't have to drink it straight from the bottle. Mike prefers bottled peanut sauce. No information on whether he's ever drunk it straight from the bottle. However, I am suspicious.

Okay, so today will be mostly slow-stitching. I'll stitch the next Tiny Treasure, and I'll also be hand-stitching the quilt binding. Possibly I can finish it today. Also, I'll be quilting the vertical sashing on the Whimsical Garden. If there's still sewing time left in the day, I'll start sewing together the small "'S' is for Sew" project. This fell off my radar screen at some point. (Read that: I didn't move it to the next section of my white board when the embroidery was finished, and then I forgot all about it .)

I pulled some fabrics from my stash, but I'm not sure if I'll use any of them. I haven't really given much thought to how to sew into a quilt top, but I'll figure out something. If I'm remembering right, I might be able to combine it with one of the panels hanging out in my panels to-do pile.

All right. It's a busy day ahead. I need to make up a grocery list too. Sigh. Tomorrow is a grocery shopping day, and the list will be long since I'm cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year. And that reminds me...I might post later in the day tomorrow. Mike has plans in the evening, and so we're going to head out early for Egg McMuffin, and then to do our shopping. It's a terrible way to start the day, but it'll be good to get it out of the way early.

So that's it from me today. Carry on.