Slowing Down

Good morning, my friends. It was nice to have a day at home yesterday after such a busy week. It was on the cool side outdoors, and that made it a good day to stay inside and sew. 

My first priority was to get the binding sewn on the Merry, Merry Snowmen quilt. As you know, here at the Three Cats Ranch, a quilt cannot be considered complete until it has been fully inspected and appurroved by the Quilt Inspectorette-in-Chief. First, it must undergo the snuggleability test. Her expression had me a little worried, but she purrmitted me to continue with the next step in the purrocess.

You may purrceed. 

So, I squared it up and machine sewed the binding. This scared me a little. I came up about one binding strip short with my binding. Then, I went on the hunt for some matching fabric. I found only scraps of the fabric I'd used, but one piece was approximately fat quarter sized. It meant an extra seam or two, but I managed to stretch it all the way around.

After that, I spent the remainder of the afternoon clipping and sewing. Now I've turned the first corner.

And if you know how things worked here, then you know that means I'm barely started on it. It's draped over a chair downstairs and it awaits my return.

The only other quilting thing I did yesterday was to spend some time getting the next quilt ready to go under my needle. When I quilted the Amish Sampler recently, it had been on the bottom of the big pile of sandwiched quilts for so long that I decided to spread it out on my ironing board so that I could smooth and press the back. Using my iron to heat the fabric and batting, it was pliable and easy to adjust to get a nice, smooth, flat back. I've had problems quilting pleats into the backs, and so I was trying to avoid that. It worked like a charm on the Amish Sampler, and so I've decided to give all the quilts one last going over on the back before I start on the quilting.

So that was the first stop for the "Homestead" quilt yesterday. Homestead was my project for the 2023 Rainbow Scrap Challenge. The blocks were selected from those seen at the Discovery Quilt Trail located at the Homestead National Historical Park in Beatrice, Nebraska. You can read my post about our visit right here. It's next up for quilting. Spending some time ironing and smoothing the back made a big difference. Now it's draped over the machine, and I'll probably get started on this today. 

As I've said, I'm serious about getting this big pile of quilts quilted and finished in 2026. My goal is to do a little quilting on any day I have time for sewing (most days). For this quilt, I'll aim for a row of blocks per day. These are all traditional blocks, and so I'll probably do some kind of dot-to-dot motif. The sashings and borders will wait for the end, and I'll do something else there.

It should be another easy-going day today. I want to get in a walk on the treadmill, and I have one housekeeping chore to do. Aside from that, it will be all sewing all the time...both fast and slow. It's going to be a good day. I don't know about you, but when I'm expecting a good day ahead, I want to get started on it as soon as possible. And with that...I'm on my way. I hope you have a good day planned for yourself too.