A Day Off

Good morning, my friends. It was good to take a day off yesterday. We hung out at the RV all day. Our friends and our sightseeing excursions have kept us busy while we've been in Escondido. It's all been a lot of fun, and the weather has been lovely. Nevertheless, a stay-at-home day was a nice little break. 

The kitties were all about it. They know just what to do on a day off:

I had a yen for a dessert yesterday, and so I baked this cherry pie for two. The cherry pie filling was homemade with cherries from our neighbor's tree. They have tart cherries. Our two trees are both sweet cherries. I've made filling from both. This one happens to be made with tart cherries.

When we're traveling, I always use the refrigerated Pillsbury pie crusts. They're easy and convenient, but they don't always look terrifically appetizing after they're baked. I tried brushing this one with a little milk before baking it, and it browned the best of any I've done. So, for now, I guess milk is the secret.

While that was baking, I got busy setting up my sewing machine and other supplies for a day of sewing. Smitty kept watch for invading forces.

And then, I proceeded to sew together Block 9 of the Raggedy & Friends project. That was pretty quick.

Then, I sewed Block 10 together:

When I laid out Block 10, I realized I was missing the aqua piece at the bottom. When I did the cutting for these kits, I checked and double-checked and triple-checked everything I did, and so I was surprised to have a piece missing. Then, I checked the pattern and found yet another mistake. This was a free pattern, and so I shouldn't whine about it. On the other hand, I like to whine about stuff like this, and so I'll whine anyway. There has been a mistake in almost every block. It's annoying. And, yes, it's a free pattern, but my fabric and my time isn't free. Happily, I have along a full yard of some fabric for another project, and I used this turtle fabric to fill in the missing spot.

Mostly I've used solids in this project, but there are a few prints here and there, so this will be fine.

When I was finished harrumphing, I sewed together Block 11:

And that was enough sewing for a single day. Here are the other blocks I have for this quilt:

There's just one to go, but I need to finish the last embroidered section before I can sew it together. When that's finished, I'll return to the Gumballs project.

There will probably be more time for sewing over the next week, and so it'll be good to make some progress on these projects I brought from home.

Smitty has been caressing me with his tail as I've been writing. Smitty is an excellent blogging and sewing assistant. Everyone should be so lucky to have such a multi-talented cat.

We don't have any plans for the day...yet. We've talked about heading out for more avocados, but nothing is set in stone yet. For now, I'm going to eat some breakfast and continue on with the final embroidered section for the Raggedy project. The sky is cloudy, and I don't know if there's rain in the forecast. If it stays dry, I'll probably get out for another walk today.

I'm reading about the cold weather gripping much of the country. If you're in the cold parts, please stay warm, safe, and dry today.