Late Post

Good afternoon, my friends. I'm slow on the switch this morning, but I have a good excuse. A whole lot of water has passed under the bridge in the last 24 hours. Mike had his second cataract surgery yesterday afternoon. We got lunch afterward. Then this morning we were up at the butt crack of dawn to see the doctor for his post-op appointment. We got breakfast afterward. I started a load of clothes before we left home this morning, and the last load is washing as I'm writing. There are a couple of easy housekeeping chores on the day's calendar, but the rest of the afternoon should be mostly sewing. I'll fit those chores in between sewing efforts. Priorities, people.

So let's back up to yesterday morning after I left you. You might recall I'd stitched the 10th Snowmen and Reindeer block this far.

My wait for Mike was long enough that I nearly had the whole thing finished when it was time to stop.

I didn't have it with me for this morning's appointment, but it was my first stop when we arrived home, and now it's finished. Ta Da!

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

Knowing that one was close to being finished, my first stop in the sewing room yesterday was to trace out November's block for "A Year in the Garden." This is the 11th of 12 blocks for this quilt.

Here are the blocks I've stitched so far.

With that finished, I turned my attention to the background for "The Yoder Sisters" project.

It was too late in the day to start the applique, but I spent some time looking over the instructions. This will probably best be done by creating the sisters on a teflon pressing sheet before fusing them to the background, and so I left it ready for my return.

Instead, I wanted to get the Seasons quilt set up so that I could start on the quilting. As a reminder, the whole quilt looks like this. 

It was created from a set of four embroidery patterns from Kathy Schmitz. I believe they were intended to be small wall-hangings. I wanted to put them into a whole quilt, and so the design of the quilt is my own.

With so many colors in this quilt, I've spent some time thinking about what colors of thread I want to use. I haven't been happy with the quilts I've finished where the quilting thread has too much contrast with the background, and so I decided I'd use multiple colors of thread on top. In the bobbin, however, I'll stick with a black monofilament. If I'm remembering right, these are about a 60 weight thread. I already had a partially-wound bobbin.

For most of the top, I'll use this light tan Omni thread. 

This is a 40 weight thread, and so that makes getting the tension correct a little tricky. (It is ever thus with my machine.)

In other parts of the quilt top, I'll stick with a black Essential thread.

This is a 50 weight thread. Yeah...black. What else can I say? It's black.

Okay, so with the pieced blocks, I'll use a different color for each. This variegated yellow on this summer sun block.

This variegated thread for the autumn leaf block.

A variegated blue for this winter snowflake.

I wanted to use a green on spring's tulip block, but I didn't have a nice bright green. Instead, I'll stick with this pink.

Okay, and with my threads selected, I endeavored to get the tension right. It looks good on top.

But ugh...the bottom doesn't look so good. I needed to tighten my top thread tension.

And then, it looked pretty good. It's best to check often when using a monofilament in the bobbin (or anywhere, for that matter). 

So I left it needle-down and I'll start quilting the background for the fall harvest section today. I'll stick with that tan thread until I've used it in all the places I want to, and then I'll start somewhere else...probably with the pieced blocks next. And in keeping with my effort to catch up on my quilts-to-be-quilted pile, this will get first priority for my sewing days until it's finished.

It was a warm afternoon yesterday. When I went downstairs, I found Smitty trying desperately to cool his tummy furs. He had to stretch out to his full length.

When we arrived home this afternoon, I checked on the garden. The hydrangeas are beginning to color up.

This dahlia is the most watched thing in the garden right now. If I'm right, I think this is the Fuzzy Wuzzy dahlia.

When it blooms, it will look like this:

Checking in on the vegetable garden, I'm happy to find three beans plants in all of the bean pots. One has four plants, and one has five. I'm just going to leave all of them and let them grow. Think of it as insurance against critter calamities. And, honestly, doesn't this seem like a lot of effort just to grow lowly green beans?

The corn is about five inches tall now. I'll be glad when I can remove the stakes and string, but for now, it reminds us not to walk there. I think I can avoid hoeing for one more day. I'm breathing a little easier each day, but I'm still dealing with coughing spells. Probably best not to stir up too much dust.

Gazing into the "bee garden" section, I note the usual yellow and white propeller flowers. We expect to see this in areas allowed to grow wild.

Each year, I broadcast about a pound of wildflower seed. Today I noticed some lupine has appeared.

Here's another one over here.

And I'll finish up with this one photo Mike took with his astral camera when we were at the star party. Okay, so what is it? 

He’s not proud of this image, but it’s a picture of Jupiter and three of its moons. There was a fourth moon visible as well, but it was too far below the moon on the left, and he couldn't capture all four moons in a single frame. He’s still learning, and this is his first attempt. I think it’s kind of cool. 

Happily, we're meeting Erik and Mae for dinner out this evening. They recently purchased a beautiful used van they intend to use for camping and tail-gating parties at Oregon State football games. (We haven't seen it in person yet.) We're going to hand off our Blackstone grill to them to use when they go camping and tail-gating. We rarely use it, and so we'll let them have it with "borrowing privileges" if we have a need for a grill that doesn't require open flame. (During wildfire season, flame grilling is generally banned in most campgrounds.)

And that's all I have for you now. My last load of laundry is calling. The bird feeders are empty. Gazing out my window, I can see the birds out there tapping their little birdie feet and wondering why the service is so bad at this cheap motel. I'll deal with the laundry, and then take care of the birds. Then...finally...I can get back to my sewing. I'll start on the quilting first, and then try to get a start on the first Yoder sister. It's a busy life for someone who's retired, let me tell you.