Good morning, my friends. We had a relatively nice day of weather yesterday. Mike took the opportunity to check the suspension on the fifth wheel. The last time we used the fifth wheel was for our eclipse trip in the spring of 2024. On that trip, two leaf springs on the fifth wheel had to be replaced on the road. It's good that he checked it and found everything in order.
He brought the fifth wheel up from its usual space a couple of weeks ago, and he's been working away on it ever since. He's cleaned up all the mouse droppings. We haven't used the fifth wheel in over a year, and so the mice had set up housekeeping in pretty much every drawer, cabinet, and closet. I appreciate that retired engineer Mike is somewhat OCD about this kind of stuff. (I'm pretty sure being OCD goes hand-in-hand with engineering.) He does a much better job of cleaning up than I would. He's made a few repairs of things that gave up the ghost while it's been sitting. For example, there's a lamp that lights the stairs at the entry at night. The mice (or squirrels) had chewed through the wiring there. That's all fixed now. And so, all of that to say the fifth wheel is pretty much ready to go at this point. We just need to pack our food and clothes ("just" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there), and we can be on our way.
With the rain stopped temporarily, Smitty took his favorite seat on the deck outside. From this location, he can see pretty much everything in his domain.
But it was cold on his butt, and so he came inside and decided to keep watch from the warmth of his window perch.
Knowing my guard cat was on duty, I could sit comfortably and stitch Tiny Treasure #25. This one has satin stitch, back stitch, straight stitch, feather stitch, and basketweave stitch.
From there I did a workout on the Bowflex, and there were a couple of housekeeping chores to take care of. It took me longer than expected, and so it was late in the day before I could do any sewing.
My first task was to make the quilt block for the Moose background. I wish I knew the names of the blocks used in this project. That went together pretty easily. The flying geese portions were made differently than I usually do it, and so I completed one and checked its dimensions before completing the rest.
With that finished, I added some white all around for the applique.
The applique was pretty quick for this moose...just five pieces. The cutting took a while with all those little nooks and crannies.
It still needs top-stitching, but I'll make the Ravin block next and top-stitch both at the same time.
I took a look at this one yesterday. There are only four applique pieces, and so this one should go together pretty quickly too. The pattern has me making all the flying geese and half square triangles by cutting each piece individually. I'm going to study this one a little more closely and make those half square triangles two at a time. I expect I'll have both blocks finished by the end of the day.
Okay, so we've already had our Sunday morning pancakes today. My next stop will be to sit and stitch Tiny Treasure #26. My mid-arm machine isn't back from its spa treatment yet, and so I won't be able to do any large quilt quilting until it returns. As I sit here, I'm not sure what will be next in line after the Northern Wilderness blocks are finished. I guess we'll all find out together.
Rain has returned for the next several days, although it isn't the drenching downpour from last week. I'm hopeful you folks in Northwest Washington will be spared more flooding. Stay warm, safe, and dry, my friends, no matter where you happen to be.
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