Good morning, my friends. Another one bites the dust. I'm happy to say the quilting is finished for the Homestead quilt. When I sat down at the machine yesterday, just the outer border remained. As I've said before, I try to learn something from every quilt. From this one, I learned that choosing a dark color thread on light fabrics probably isn't a good idea. As I quilted some of the blocks for this quilt, I thought the dark blue thread overwhelmed the design of the quilt block. Originally, I had in mind to do something traditional in the border...a feather. As I thought more about it, I worried it would be too much and too dense. Instead, I chose this motif called "Infinite Stacked Curls."
It was an easy design to do, and less dense than a feather would have been. So, I was happily quilting along. When I had this much left to do, I ran out of bobbin thread. Of course, I did.
And I was really "out" of bobbin thread, having wound the last of it already.
No worries. I used the same thread used on the quilt top. The colors were close enough anyone would be hard pressed to see the change. After a delay to unthread, wind a bobbin, and rethread the machine, I had myself a finished quilt. This was my Rainbow Scrap project for 2023. It's good to have it nearly done.
Here's a little peek at the back.
And, of course, it's not "finished" being finished until the binding is sewn on. I'll use that same blue used in the sashings. Today's goal will be to get the machine sewing done. I'll work on the hand-sewing over the next several days.
It seemed like a good time to take a walk outside. I noticed the annuals are making a comeback after being eaten by squirrels in the first hour after I planted them.
And wow...the peonies are outdoing themselves this year. These are just two of the five plants...Coral Sunset on the right, Joker on the left.
The Lavender Whisper is bloomed out for the season, but I'm still waiting for two more. The buds are showing their colors, and so I'm hoping these warm weather days will get them over the top.
Oh, and finally...some flowers on the cherry tomato. This one has taken its sweet time.
In my wanderings, I noticed the squirrel dining hall. They eat the birdseed and then leave their droppings. Messy critters.
I captured Sadie settling in for a morning sunbath. When you're a black cat, you purrfur to do your sunbathing in the shade. Besides, it's important to guard against skin cancers...especially basal cell catcinoma. (And Sadie would like you to know that she would make a better HHS secretary than you know who.)
Back inside, I went to work on the purple Stair Steps block. Three of five are complete now.
Smitty helped with that.
The next one will be pink. I'm hoping to get another one finished today, but getting the Homestead binding sewn on will take priority.
It was pretty with the sun shining through its petals.
Okay, and that brings me to this morning. I'll get to work on that quilt binding today, and I'll try to get another Stair Steps block made. I haven't checked today's calendar, but I don't remember having anything else going on. I'd say I'm going to get in a workout of some kind, but I'm still resting my knee. It's feeling quite a bit better this morning.
While I was finishing off the quilting, I had a Cherry Crisp in the oven. As I've mentioned, I had several jars of homemade sweet cherry pie filling I was trying to use up. This polished off the last jar. The pie filling was spread across the bottom, and then a nice crunchy topping added to the top. Then it baked for 30 minutes. We enjoyed that with a scoop of vanilla ice cream last night.
The Edda clematis is starting to open more. I'm expecting this to be covered in purple flowers within the next several days.
Finally, we looked out the window this morning to see that the poppy had popped! Yay!
Next up for quilting will be The Story of My Day. I'll probably do this one as a timed project since the design I'm planning is more of an all-over design. I'm thinking 30-45 minutes per session. I can set a timer and quilt until it goes off. It will probably take several days at that rate, which will give me time to finish the binding on Homestead.
Our weather has been lovely the past few days. We're told the rain will return on Monday, and so it's probably a good idea to get outside while the getting is good. Oh yes...I took a little walk around the vegetable garden yesterday and found that all the little seedlings have survived the transplanting process. Hopefully, nothing will eat them.
So with that, I'll get back to my slow-stitching. Time to get on with my day, and I'll leave you to your day. Make it a good one.
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