Four Projects

Good morning, my friends. It was a very busy morning yesterday. Since I hadn’t checked the garden the day before, I really needed to do that. One of the zucchinis had gotten away from me. It wasn’t a true giant yet, but another day going undiscovered and it might have been truly humongous. There were two or three more normal sized ones that I added to the pile already in the fridge. Also, I found another half dozen pickling cucumbers. I’m still a pound short of the four pounds I need for a batch of pickles. 

The bird feeders were empty, and so I filled those. Then, I went to work getting some chili started in our slow cooker and baking some cornbread to go with it. It meant an easy dinner last night. By the time I had everything done, it was lunch time.

Not to worry, though. There’s no getting me off the couch in the morning until I’ve done my slow-stitching. This piece will be finished today. There are just a few more flower petals to stitch, and that will be the twelfth of 12 blocks.

Okay, and so I needed to decide what project would replace it. There are 24 projects on my list of long-term embroidery patterns. As usual, I asked Mr. Random to help me choose what I’d stitch next.

Mr. Random selected #20, which happens to be…

And I couldn’t remember that project, so I went looking for it. One of you gifted me with this project. I’m sorry I can’t remember who it was, but if it was you, then thank you. There are 12 blocks for this project…one for each month of the year. January’s block will be first. Makes sense, right?

Okay, but I needed to do some other things before I could get too involved with that. There was quilting to be done. Girls’ Getaway will be next under my needle. I’ll use white thread throughout, both top and bottom. I’ve had good luck with these So Fine threads, but my spool of white is nearly used up.

Thinking ahead, I purchased another cone.

As a reminder, this is what the whole quilt looks like. I’ll be starting with the embroidered blocks in the middle.

The bicycle block is closest to the middle, and so I started there. It has a pretty embroidered border at the top, and so I started with a looping design that crossed into the sashing.

That was pretty easy. Here’s a peek at the back.

For the rest of the block, I outlined the embroidered bicycles, and I extended the road they were riding to reach the full width of the block.

It still needed more quilting, and so I decided to do a feather winding in and out of the open areas. When I was halfway across, I ran out of bobbin thread. (I was starting with just a partially wound bobbin.)

So I wound a new bobbin, and then left it needle down at that spot. It seemed like a good place to stop for the day.

The new embroidery project had me curious. Sadie came to see what I was up to. She thinks this cat is purrposterous. 

Smitty was similarly unimpurressed.

There was just enough of this off-white in my stash to cut the backgrounds for all 12 blocks. And then I traced January’s block. Probably, I’ll start on this tomorrow…or maybe today if I don’t use all my stitching time on my current project.

I spent some time studying the pattern and choosing floss colors. I didn’t have all the DMC colors listed in the pattern, but I had enough that were close, so I can use my floss stash for this. (I might have to buy something down the road.) The colors shown below are for January’s block. I don’t know yet if there will be other colors in the blocks to come. We’ll all find out together.

There was no more time to spend on that if I wanted to make any progress on the Lemurs. I had about an hour to work on it. Most of the medium gray sections are stitched now, although there are still a few left. You can see some of the stitching on the back of the head of the right-most lemur. I’m hoping to get on to the lightest of the grays today.

Today should be less hectic than yesterday. I’ll check the garden again, and then I’ll need to water the flowers. There’s nothing else on my list of to-do’s, and so it’s going to be a mostly sewing day. I’m hoping to finish up the bicycle block, and then I’ll move down to the tent block below and to the left. Also, I want to get more done on the Lemurs. There’s still quite a bit to do with the thread work, so I don’t expect to finish it today. Tomorrow wouldn’t be out of the question, but it will still need quilting and binding.

So, I’m ready for a more relaxed day today. How about you? How are you spending your hump day?