Smitty's Bad Day

Good morning, my friends. I'll just start right out by saying there's nothing to worry about with Smitty. I'll say more about that in a minute. With a vet visit in our immediate future, it seemed appropriate that I took the first stitches on the Pieces of the Heart stitchery yesterday morning. I’m just getting started on the body of the cat.

When I’d used up all my stitching time, we crated up the cat and headed to the vet. He was not happy about that at all.

Our vet has expanded into the building adjacent to theirs. Now there is a special cat area, which Smitty thought was well deserved.

No woofies. Thank you. 

We're still awaiting the lab results of his stool sample to see if he has parasites, but his blood work was all normal. We're told he has a slight decrease in kidney function, but that it's common in a cat his age. Depending on the results of the remaining lab work, the worst that will happen is that we'll start him on a diet lower in protein so that his kidneys won't have to work as hard. Sadie is considered a geriatric cat as well, although she's a few years younger than Smitty. The change in diet will probably be good for her too.

Okay, so that eased our minds, and it looks like we'll have our Smitty for a while. Back home, I had some cooking to do. We’re celebrating Erik’s October 9th birthday tonight. When we’re celebrating somebody’s birthday, I let them choose the dessert. Erik chose creme brulee, and so I did those first. It’s a scary process, but we got ‘er done. I’m starting to think the opportunity to light a blow torch and brulee them is part of the draw when you have three adult men in the house.

We’re keeping it simple. Mike is grilling some steaks. I’ll make some cottage fried potatoes. Yesterday, I made a 7-Layer Salad. It’s one of Erik’s favorites.

Okay, and that was the end of the day’s to-do’s. It was nearly 2:00 by then. Since I haven’t worked on the  Northern Wilderness blocks for a few days, I decided to head to the downstairs sewing room. 

My iron gave up the ghost recently. It was a Black & Decker iron, made from white plastic. It was a wedding gift when we married 51+ years ago. It gave its all in the service of ironing over the years. I had Mike take a look at it, although I didn’t expect he could fix it. It wouldn’t stay on for more than a few seconds. Also, it was making a sort of buzzing sound. That was all Mike needed to hear: Trash.

All right then. I went online and looked for another Black & Decker iron. If the previous one lasted more than 51 years, I figure the next one will outlive me. The only full-sized irons I could find on Amazon were of the metal variety. It’s a little heavier than my old iron, but it works well, and it’ll be fine. Spiffy, huh? So shiny!

It was surprising how inexpensive a new iron was. That got me wondering…unless you use it for sewing, do people actually iron any more? Except for sewing, I probably haven’t ironed any of my clothing in decades. The last time I remember ironing an article of clothing was the shirt for the tuxedo Matthew wore to his senior prom in 2002. So…maybe the low demand for irons has kept the price down. Something to ponder…or not. Probably I already have enough pondering irons in the fire. (Ha! Did you see what I did there?)

Okay well Sadie was tired of all this iron nonsense.

Purrhaps we could get on with the sewing, if you don’t mind. Wait, what? Are you doing papurr-piecing today?

Well, she hates paper-piecing as much as I do, and so she suddenly remembered a photoshoot with Purrboy magazine that was scheduled in just a few minutes. She was shooting her centerfold shot. She asked for my opinion of her purrsitioning just before leaving. Not bad…a little more streeeeeetch, maybe.

So then I went along my not-so-merry way with the paper-piecing. This is for the Orca block on the Northern Wilderness project. The quilt block for this one is “Storm at Sea.” I’ve never actually made this block before. I made the center.

And then the sides.

And then I just needed to add the corners and sew it together. Ta-da!

It was a slow process and that took the whole of my sewing day. Probably today I’ll have time to sew the rest of the background pieces and add the applique. There are only about six applique pieces.

So this morning I’m making a marinade for our steaks. Later this afternoon I’ll chop up the potatoes. Aside from that there’s a little tidying up to be done. Hopefully, there will be some time for sewing this afternoon. I’ve yet to make October’s block for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. It makes sense to make a block for both October and November at the same time. (There won’t be a new color in November.) There’s been no more progress on the quilting for Cats in Pajamas. It’s such a large quilt, working on it tires me out. Next week should be less busy. I’m looking forward to having some good uninterrupted sewing time.

All right then. Dinner preparations await. It’s going to be a good weekend. I hope y’all have a good weekend ahead of you too.

Get the Flock Out

Good morning, my friends. It was a tiring day yesterday. We had our Egg McMuffins for breakfast, and then we had a huge list to get through at the grocery store. It was nearly noon by the time we got home. And, of course, we still had to put everything away. Yikes. I'm glad that's done. Smitty is going to the vet this morning, but I'm hopeful it won't take as long.

When I'm tired, machine sewing sounds like too much work, and so I focused on my slow stitching, finishing off the center block for Meg's Flock. Sadie was in her happy place and she helped me with my stitching.

There was just a little left to do on this. Now it's trimmed to size. The smaller blocks are trimmed to 7-1/2 inches square. This one is 12-1/2 inches square.

Finishing this block was my goal for October's

So I'll link up there when the party starts. Here are the blocks I have for this quilt so far. Just five small blocks to go.

The only other sewing-related thing I did yesterday was to dig through my scraps looking for appropriate pieces for the Orca block. The two at the bottom will be for the paper-pieced quilt block. (It has white as well.)

The four across the top are for the applique. The two on the left will be for the water. The one second from the left is a pale blue fairy frost fabric, and it'll work well for the spray on the water. As a reminder, this is what the block looks like.

That was all I was up for yesterday. Today I'll take the first stitches on the second block for Pieces of the Heart. This will stitch up pretty fast. This was my emergency back-up project, traced and taken along on our trip, in case I ran out of other stitching. So, it's ready to go. All it needs is a needle and some floss.

For dinner last night, I tried this recipe for Egg Roll Noodle Bowl from A Taste of Home.

It was really easy, and it was good for a weeknight meal. It’s easy enough to do in the RV too. A couple of things about the recipe: First of all, the directions mention adding garlic, but then doesn’t include it in the list of ingredients. So, I added 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder. For the rest, I used a bag of shredded cabbage (think coleslaw), and I purchased julienned carrots at the grocery store. I used two cups of those. Some of the comments that accompanied the recipe suggested it was underseasoned, and we agreed with that. Mike added hoisin sauce to his, and I added sweet chili sauce (Mae Ploy) to mine. It was good that way. I’ll make it again. It’s biggest selling point is that it’s easy. Also, it’s a good vehicle for the Mae Ploy, which I would happily drink straight from the bottle.

There probably won’t be much time for sewing today either. We have to take Smitty to the vet, and then I’m going to make a salad and a dessert for when the kids come for dinner tomorrow night. It'll be a bad day for Smitty. He's not going to be a happy cat, but we're no happier about it than he is. At least he doesn't have to pay the bill, and he'll probably get kitty treats when he gets home. He has an early appointment, and so I must be on my way. Please keep your fingers crossed for Smitty that it's nothing more serious than needing to be wormed.

Stitching Fast and Slow

Good morning, my friends. Well, I skipped a day of blogging, and so I have a lot to show you. Happily, my dental appointment is behind me, and I'm good for another year. And, look ma! No cavities. Always a good outcome.

Backing up to Monday morning, I cut back the peonies to the ground. We'll look for them next spring. For now, I'm enjoying the last gasp of the flowers. This first one is the Firefighter dahlia. When we left on our trip mid-September, it had not a single bud on it. I was threatening to replace it. When we got home, there were three flowers and more buds. So here’s a handy gardening tip: If fertilizer, water, and TLC don’t work, try threats and intimidation.

There are still a few flowers on the echinacea, but these plants are looking pretty well bloomed out. I cut some of the taller stalks that fell over. I’ll let the bloomers stay until they die.

This is the Bumble Rumble dahlia…still blooming away.

This is the Checkers dahlia.

This is the Fuzzy Wuzzy dahlia. I’m going to have to cut these back and move them inside the garage soon. They’re still blooming to beat the band, so I guess we’ll just watch for the first freezing temperatures and let them carry on until then.

These are zinnias. I enjoyed the heck out of these.

Another zinnia. I might plant a whole row of zinnias next year. They brought me great gardening joy this year.

These next ones are all in the bee garden. My phone calls me this next one is Clarkia.

This is coreopsis. This is a new one to the bee garden this year.

The Black-eyed Susans are new too. I think I might have bought a separate packet of seeds for these and mixed it into the Northwest wildflower mix.

This is mallow…another newbie to the bee garden.

This is our old friend godetia. It is well-established in the bee garden.

If you’ve been following for a while, then you might remember that I have a large vegetable garden plot. When it started feeling like too much to care for, I made the vegetable portion of the garden smaller. Still, there’s a large fenced area, and just letting the unplanted portion go to weeds was dispiriting. 

About five years ago, I started throwing out pounds of wildflower seed to try to establish color there. This has been the most gratifying bee garden so far. Lots of new flowers have appeared, and the previous newbies are filling in more and more. There is still plenty of weedy tangle, but the flowers are nice, and the bees love them. It’s gotta be good for the vegetables, right?

Speaking of gratifying, Smitty is back in his happy place on the corner of our deck. It’s good to be home.

There’s been precious little time for sewing this week, but I grab a half hour here and there. I filled in my embroidery hoop…

And then moved to the next position.

And then I pretty well filled that in too.

So I moved my hoop to encompass the last of it. I’ve stitched even a little more since I took the picture below. I’m expecting to finish this today.

Okay, and making progress on my quilts-to-be-quilted pile is still my first sewing priority. Quilting has commenced on the Cats in Pajamas. As a reminder, this is what it looks like. I’d planned to do one row at a time, but I’m working with the vertical rows.  

It was hard to decide what to do with this. And what color thread should I use? I was leaning toward white both top and bottom. When I pulled the cover off my machine and found it already threaded with those colors, I was satisfied that the quilting gods had spoken loudly and clearly.

Speaking of gods…His Worship was there to advise me on the design.

We finally settled on this design by Angela Walters. There’s a little bit of chit-chat at the beginning of her video. She’ll start sewing about a minute in, and you can see her design.

I’m doing it block by block. I liked the wavy lines part of this design, but I didn’t like how she filled it in. I decided to do a sort of loop de loop design in mine. And how could I do anything without my cat? He helped me adjust my tension.

And then I went to work. Here’s the first block. I’m doing them all the same. So far, I’ve done two of four vertical rows.

Here’s how that’s looking from the back. The quilt is large at 72 x 72 inches, and I feel a little as if I’m losing a wrestling match with it. I have some other ideas about what to do with the sashings, spacer blocks, and the outer border. That probably won’t happen before the weekend.

I’m kind of excited to show you what I’m going to do next. Matthew is an engineer by education and experience. He’s also a musician, and a deejay. He does some gigs on the side, and he’s adopted the zebra as his symbol. Without saying more than I should, I’ll tell you that in addition to being smart and talented, he’s also very funny. (I’m his mom…I have to brag on him a little, doncha know.) Since he was a little boy he’s had a delightfully offbeat sense of humor, and I used to tell him he was the zebra with the horizontal stripes. So, I’m happy to see that he’s embraced that part of himself.

A few days ago he texted the head of a zebra he’d created using AI. (I think he’s trying to create a logo.) I looked at it and said, “I can make a quilt from that.” Well, that got an enthusiastic response, and so that’s what I’ll be working on next. He's requested queen sized.

I have some figuring to do. It’s similar to a pixelated design. Already I’ve decided to cut the pieces to 4 inches (3-1/2 finished). To make it queen size, I'll add two rows of the background colors to each side, following the pattern of colors already there. Cool, huh?

So, I haven’t made any more progress on Northern Wilderness. I’m hoping to get back into the sewing room today, but it’s also a grocery shopping day. It's a terribly long list. Like I said, it’s a busy week. We still have to take Smitty to the vet tomorrow. He seems fine. We’re not expecting any sort of dire news about him, but he’s 14. He’s just like the rest of us. At his age, anything could happen. And then the kids are coming for dinner on Friday. I’m looking forward to that, and we’re keeping it simple, but I have some cooking to do ahead of time. 

Okay then. I guess I’ll get to it. Mike has gone back to bed for a while. We'll preward our grocery shopping trip with a trip to McDonald's for our beloved Egg McMuffins. ("Preward." Did you see what I did there?)

Have a good day, Everybody! 

Branching Out

Good morning, my friends. We're approaching what passes for normal here. The laundry was finished yesterday, and I weeded my weedy herb garden. While I was out, I realized it's time to cut the peonies back for the season. That'll be on today's agenda. Also, I think I've managed to grab all the strays from the camper that I neglected to unpack in my first effort. No matter how hard I try, no matter how many cupboards, drawers, and cabinets I open, I still manage to leave behind a few things. 

So that left me plenty of time for an afternoon of sewing. Before we left on our trip, I was working my way through my list of WIPs. Yesterday's effort was to make the final two blocks for the Northern Wilderness project. First up...this "Trees" block. This is the picture from the book.

Sadie was there to help with the piecing.

This block is a new one to me. It’s called "Evergreen Tree" or else "Pine Tree," depending on which resource you're looking at. It was a little tricky. First, I needed to make the bottom "trunk" section. And, drat. I didn't get it centered just right.  That's going to go into the "Oh well" category.

From there, I added the upper parts of the trees. Getting all those HST's pointing in the right direction was a little challenging, but we got 'er done.

From there, I needed corners to make it square.

And then it just needed the background pieces, and it was ready for applique.

Smitty is better at applique than Sadie, and so he took over from there.

It took all afternoon, but by day's end, it was ready for top-stitching.

I'll set that aside for now to make the second block. The final block will be the Orca. Here's the picture from the book.

Annoyingly, the quilt block is paper-pieced, and you know I hate paper-piecing. For this one block, I can probably set aside my disdain for the technique in the service of finishing all the blocks I need for the quilt. I'm hoping I can finish it up today.

Okay, and when I started on my sewing, I completely forgot to start quilting the Cats in Pajamas.

I'll get started on that this morning. There's one housekeeping chore on my list in addition to cutting back the peonies. There should still be plenty of time for sewing today.

Probably I won't post tomorrow because I have an early dental appointment. Let's plan to chat again on Wednesday. Have a good day, Everyone!