Joyful June

Good morning, my friends, and welcome to June. Today is the 24th anniversary of the founding of the Three Cats Ranch. We moved into our home on June 1, 2002, bringing with us this crew for whom the place is named. If you've been reading a long time, you'll remember George and Gracie. You won't remember Krissy, the tortie bringing up the rear. She was a memorable kitty, and she lived to be 19. She lived with us longer than either of our boys. 

And the best part about June...summer will be here before the month is over. We're expecting some summery weather today and for the remainder of the week. We're looking forward to it.

Okay, so I got a late start yesterday. I'm usually up during the 5:00 a.m. hour. Yesterday, I slept in until 7:00, and I'd already lopped two hours off my day before I even got out of bed. Then, Tiny Treasure #54 took quite a long time to stitch. This one has stem stitch, stem fill, satin stitch, and lazy daisy.

We had a floor to mop, and I had some other things I needed to do: Hoe the garden, fill the bird feeders, pull some weeds. And so it was quite late in the day before I could get to my quilting. 

The quilting is going fine, but it was giving me some trouble yesterday. I had one incident of thread breakage. A few minutes later, I ran out of bobbin thread. While the bobbin was winding, I cleaned and oiled the machine. With all that going on, my enthusiasm for quilting waned pretty quickly.

Nevertheless, I think I can finish off this interior portion today. The section to the right of the red line in the image below is all that's left. I'll do the border separately. It'll be done kind of the same way, but a little less random.

Also, it was getting late in the day, and I wanted to finish this top-stitching. Everything took longer than I thought it would yesterday, and this piece was no exception. It took about an hour to top-stitch the tree alone, but eventually I had it finished.

When I turned around, some bright eyes were watching me.

Here are the two blocks I have for this quilt so far.

So I'll continue on with my quilting today. When I make my way to the sewing room, I'll start working on the next two blocks for the Northern Wilderness project. I'll be doing the salmon block...

And the mountains block.

While I was doing that, Mike was building fencing around our bean pots. Honestly, in at least 20 years of gardens at this place, we've never had so much trouble with the beans. We're hopeful this will discourage the crows from pulling up the seedlings. Just before I sat down here, I checked the new bean seeds I'm sprouting on the window sill. They're wrapped up in wet paper towels, but nothing is happening yet. I expect it will be another couple of days before I can replant. In the meantime, I think one or two were spared from the current crop.

Looking ahead, the two Northern Wilderness blocks will complete the WIP's section of my white board. Next, I'll be moving to something in the "Quilter's Choice" section. "Quilter's Choice" projects are when I let myself take a break from my "meat and potatoes" projects. This one will fall under the heading of "fast finish," indicating a small quilt I can finish with...say...a week's time. 

I've had this pattern in my sewing room for years, and years. Finally, it's time has come. I suppose I was inspired by the Amish Sampler quilt I finished recently. And I could swear this pattern was free when I discovered it. Maybe not. In any case, it can be purchased right here.

Also, I'll be making June's inverted star block for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. June's color was simply "pastel." My project isn't going to lend itself well to pastel colors given the white background. I'll probably do something in grays or else a multi-color. I'll have to pick through my scraps and figure out what's available....lavender, maybe. These are the blocks I have so far.

Finally, it's time to choose a project for June's

While it's tempting to choose finishing off "The Story of My Day," I'll do something a little more challenging and have finishing off the "Seasons" quilt as my goal for June. It's next on my list of quilts to quilt, and so it seems the obvious choice. I finished this quilt top way back in December of 2024. Finally, it's time has come.

Okay, and so I'm already short an hour in my day due to my laziness at sleeping in until 6:00 this morning. I know...so, so lazy. It's time for me to get a move on. Enjoy this first day of June, my friends. The weather only gets better from here.