A Raggedy Flimsy

Good morning, my friends. It's another sunny day here at the Three Cats Ranch. We've had our typical spring weather with a little bit of everything during the day. A few days ago, we even had some hail. No snow, thank goodness, although we do sometimes get snow in April. 

When I left you yesterday, I was on my way to fill the birdfeeders. Along my way, I saw a few little things going on in the garden. For one thing, I'm seeing colors on the Lavender Whisper peony. I'll admit I'm anxious to see this one bloom.

The plum tree is gaining more flowers, mostly at the top so far.

The stargazer lily is poking its head above ground. Sometimes we get to see its flowers. Sometimes the critters eat the flowers before they have a chance to open. Still, it keeps trying.

I brushed away some of the dead leaves to reveal the greenery of the echinacea making an appearance. We won't see any flowers from this until fall. The bees love it.

Also, the lilac is showing signs of flowering soon. 

In my wanderings, I caught Smitty surveilling his happy hunting grounds behind the garage.

Sadie was enjoying a zen moment in the shade of the cypress tree. Black cats to not spend a lot of time in the sun.

Speaking of Sadie, it's Tortoiseshell Cat Appreciation Day. Feel free to celebrate Sadie in whatever manner you feel is appropriate. She purrfers plenty of treats.

Back inside, I went to work sewing together the Raggedy & Friends blocks. The first row was finished. I sewed together the second row and then sewed the two rows together.

About that time, Sadie showed up to help.

Purrhaps I may be of assistance.

The remaining blocks were stacked up in order. Sadie held them in place for me while I sewed.

I knew that I'd need to add sashings to both the top and bottom of one row of blocks. I decided to do that with the smallest of them.

When the bottom row was finished, I could sew the bottom half together...

And then I sewed the top half and the bottom half together. 

The last thing I neeed to do was to add the yellow border...

And I had myself a finished flimsy. It's a big quilt at 81 x 66 inches. 

There was still time left in the day to piece together a back for it. Happily, this was a wide fabric at 45 inches, and so I just needed one seam to get the size I wanted.

I didn't want just a plain binding, and so I pulled this long-time resident of my stash and used it to cut binding strips. It'll zazz up the edges of the finished quilt a little bit.

Okay, so that brings me to today's sewing. I'm very close to finishing the current block for Home is Where My Flock Is. I expect I'll finish this today.

And that means I need to trace the ninth block for the Snowmen and Reindeer project.

When that's finished, I'm going to start sewing together the Kittens in Cups. I don't know if I can finish it in a single day, but I'm going to give it a righteous try.

Also today, I want to get in a walk on the treadmill, and I need to do a couple of easy housekeeping chores. Possibly, I'll get outside for a bit and plant the tarragon that's been waiting it's turn inside the greenhouse. Mike and I are going to repot the tomatoes tomorrow. Also, I have some lettuce seeds to plant. All of that lives in the greenhouse. We'll be planting a smallish vegetable garden this year as well, but we're still a couple of weeks early for that.

Okay, so it's a long list of to-do's. Time to get going on my day.