A Day of Many Hours

Good morning, my friends. Often, a day gets away from me, and the time passes more quickly than I thought it would, leaving me with some of my goals unaccomplished at the end of the day. Yesterday was kind of the opposite. I kept thinking it was later than it was. It meant I was able to get a lot done. Don't be impressed. None of it was very exciting, but it's always good to have crossed off all the items on my list at the end of the day.

Starting with Tiny Treasure #58...this one took a long time to stitch, and yet...not so much time. It has stem stitch, stem fill, satin stitch, French knot, and buttonhole stitches.

When I had that finished, I suited up and hoed the garden. We picked up all the gutter guards protecting the corn from crows. I think we're safe with that now. There were signs of burrowing animals in the garden. They haven't done any damage to anything, but we put out gopher stakes, just the same. They make a vibration every few seconds, and the gophers don't like it. 

When I was finished with the garden, I filled the bird feeders. Opening one of our tube feeders, I was startled to find a bird inside! The holes are obviously large enough for a small bird to get in. He probably thought he'd hit the motherlode until he tried to fly away again. I'm glad it was a day for feeding them, because I'd hate to find a dead one. This one was saved...when I opened the lid, he flew off. 

Taking a walk around, I noticed again how pretty the Edda clematis is. I think it's close to being bloomed out now.

Not to worry...the Red Cardinal clematis is ready to take over clematis duty.

Back inside, I had a couple of housekeeping chores to do, and then I was able to make my way to the sewing room. Sewing the binding onto "The Story of My Day" was my first priority. Smitty was there to make sure I didn't get distracted.

That didn't take too long.

And then I had time to fuse the applique for the Salmon block.

It's ready for top-stitching now, but I'll make the "Mountain" block first. I spent a few minutes looking at the instructions for this. I thought the quilt block in the background was going to be a major hassle, but it's actually pretty darned easy. I'm glad to see that because the borders for this quilt are made the same way.

My only gripe about this block is using grays and blacks for the mountains. Really? Because I've seen the mountains in Alaska, and they look blue to my eyes. Here's an image from Homer.

So, I'll probably change the colors in this block. My quilt, my rules. And it was too late in the day to start on that. I cut the pieces for the quilt block, and I'm hoping to have some time to piece this together today. 

There are only a few pieces for the applique. Potentially, I could make it to the top-stitching today.

Okay, as for the rest of the day...it's a grocery shopping day. Our list is mercifully short, and it's our only stop in town. I have a couple of easy housekeeping chores on my list, but it's also a day for making dinner earlier in the day. And if I can find both apricots and cherries at the grocery store, I'm going to bake our annual serving of Apricot-Cherry Upside Down Mini Cakes. If you've been following for a long time, then you know I've been making these every year since time began.

All right, so next up, I'll stitch Tiny Treasure #59. I'm closing in on a finish for this go-round. There's just one more after today. We'll do our grocery shopping and the rest of it. When I'm able to get to my sewing, I'll start clipping and stitching the binding for The Story of My Day. It awaits my arrival downstairs.

We're experiencing the kind of weather our weatherman calls "Junuary," meaning we want it to be warmer, but it's sometimes cold and drizzly. We've had a mixture of very warm days and some chilly gray days. I'm hoping we'll have good weather for Monday because Matthew and I are meeting up for a walk. If the weather won't cooperate, we might decide to do something else...an indoor activity. 

That's all I have for now. I hope Friday treats you well.