A Little Time for Sewing

Good morning, my friends. It's been a couple of days of this's and thats's. I've been keeping up with my slow-stitching each day. On Tuesday, I stitched far enough to decide to move my hoop up.

When I started stitching on Wednesday, I was at this section. I stitched the lower part of the hoop so that I could squeeze those little bits at the top inside the circle for stitching.

For Tuesday's trip into town everything took longer than I thought it would. Happily, I was there early for my haircut and color, and we got started right away. As for the rest of the day, I had a couple of errands to run, and the rest of the world seemed indifferent to my time pressures. What's up with that, anyway? 

When I got home, I did a few things in the kitchen, including blanching and freezing some green beans. I'd hoped our bean plants would produce enough green beans for pressure canning. We got enough for a couple of side dishes, but never enough to make it worthwhile hauling out all the canning equipment. I'll keep harvesting them until our departure date, and we'll enjoy some fresh green beans on the road. 

Late in the afternoon, I made my way into the sewing room to paw through my stash looking for fabrics appropriate to use in the next block for “Where the Cows Come Home.” The block I'm working on now is called "Amber Waves of Grain." I didn't end up using all these fabrics, but it gave me a place to start.

That was all I had time for on Tuesday. 

With Wednesday being a stay-at-home day, there was more to do. There was one housekeeping chore, and I made and froze a lasagna for our travels. There was some time spent in the garden harvesting more green beans, a couple of zucchini, a couple of cucumbers and more corn. The only thing I’ve done with the corn so far was to test out my new tool. Since I’d frozen what I cut off the ears, yesterday’s harvest was the first we’d actually eaten. We had it as a side to our Bulgogi Sloppy Joes with Scallion Salsa, and mmm, mmm, mmm. Sweet garden corn makes all the work worthwhile.

There was some time for sewing in the afternoon, and so I could get a start on my quilt block. This is the block I'm making as pictured in the book. The pattern is for wool applique. Mine is from cotton scraps.

The first step was to create a background.

I've appreciated the instructions in this book, telling me where to start, taking it step by step, and explaining how to do everything like I'm five years old. For one thing, the book suggests creating the barns on a pressing sheet, and then moving them to the background. That has been a big help. In this case, it suggested starting with the loft door, and told me how to place the pieces. The template was under my pressing sheet and I used it as a placement guide.

With that finished, I could create the rest of the barn.

Then, I peeled it up off the pressing sheet and fused it to the background.

The last step of the day was to add the bales of straw.

I love seeing fields that look like that in our travels. Here's one I took as we traveled near Vernal, Utah, a few years ago.

Sadie showed up about that time to let me know it was time for her dinner. That seemed like a good place to stop.

The applique still needs top-stitching, and I'm hoping to have time to do that today. Also today, I'm getting a pedicure. There's one other errand I want to run in town, and I have a few things I'd like to finish in preparation for our trip. If there's time, I'll get back to my sewing. If the day ends up being nothing but trip preparation, I'll take another day off from blogging tomorrow, but I should be back on Saturday to catch up. Until then, stay out of trouble, my friends.