Machine Sewing

Good morning, my friends. Well, I can't lie...it was good to sit down at the machine yesterday and do some real sewing. I had a lot going on yesterday, and so I didn't have much time in the sewing room. Still, it was good to be doing something that required a needle and thread rather than a ruler and a rotary cutter.

When I finished yesterday's post, I happened to glance out the window to see the raindrops on the tree outside sparkling like diamonds in the sunshine. Just seeing the sunshine was a huge mood-booster after so many days of darkness and drenching rain. This picture doesn't really do justice to the scene. As I'm writing this, I'm thinking I'll use a starburst filter on my DSLR if I get another chance at this.

My first stop was to sit and stitch. Smitty held me down until I finished Block 5 for Le Jardin.

This block is called "Beehive." It still needed borders.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I had a baking project on my agenda for the day. These are Cranberry Ecstasy Bars. It's still whole as you see it here, but I cut it into 16 little bars. This is one of my favorite Christmas baking projects. The original recipe is baked in a 9 x 13 baking dish. I'm making just half and baking it in an 8 x 8 baking dish.

They aren't hard to make, but they take a little time since they're assembled in three stages, including spending an hour in the fridge after they're frosted.

While I waited for that to come out of the oven, I headed outside to fill the birdfeeders. Along the way, I noticed our heather is beginning to bloom. We planted this to give us a little color in the winter. Within a few days, this will be a solid patch of lavender flowers.

When I was finally able to make my way to the sewing room, I added borders to the Beehive block.

That's Block 5 of 9 for this project. Here are all the blocks I have so far.

As I packed it back into its box, I said good-bye, and see you next spring. It's the last time I'll work on this until next March.

But now I had nothing left to stitch, and so I traced the next 12 Tiny Treasures. I'm working with long scrappy strips of that background fabric, and so I've been drawing a grid of 2-1/2 inch squares and then centering the designs within.

And it's pretty hard to see anything in the image above, and so I'm showing you the pictures from the book. These are the 12 I'll be stitching next.

There are a few housekeeping chores on today's agenda. If I'm feeling really energetic, I might get in a Bowflex workout. When I'm able to get into the sewing room today, I'll get started making two more blocks for the Northern Wilderness project. This time around, I'll be making the Moose block...

and the Raven block.

The pattern book gives me the cutting instructions for the background blocks, but no real instruction on how to sew them together. These two look pretty straightforward. It usually takes me a couple of days to finish these, and so I'm probably set until about mid-week. After that, I'll be back to wanting to quilt something. The Painted Ladies are up next. Sadly, I've had no word on my mid-arm machine. I'm hoping to have it back this week or next. If not...then I won't see it again until March. Fingers crossed.

Okay, so it's time to get on with my day. It looks like we'll have a single nice day of weather before we get another atmospheric river dumping more rain on us. I'm reading that floodwaters are beginning to recede for our friends and neighbors to the north. I hope y'all are doing okay. Stay safe, okay?