Headrest Final Steps

Good morning, my friends. We're back to sunshine this morning. We're expecting temps in the 70's today, and even a day in the 80's by this weekend. It's going to be good weather for making quilt sandwiches. That won't start until tomorrow. I've been anticipating it long enough that I'm ready to get started. As I've mentioned, my goal is to do four per day until they're finished. If there's time for other sewing, I'll work on finishing off the small quilts I made while we were traveling last time.

Yesterday, I took the first stitches on Block 7 for Le Jardin. It was mostly satin stitch and French knots, and so it doesn't look like much.

In the sewing room, I still had one headrest to quilt. Having done this once already, this one went faster.

With both of them quilted, I needed to mark a line all the way around where the stitching would be. This was in preparation for squaring up the edges and finishing the back.

To make sure everything was centered and even, Smitty manned the calculator and rulers. (He's very good at math.)

It seemed a good idea to stitch all around the outer edge. The quilting went all the way to either side, and I worried when I cut that, the stitching would come loose. A stitch all the way around would help to tack it down until I could sew the final seams.

When the stitching was finished, I made the "tabs." This is where the Velcro will go. I needed a minimum of 2-1/2 inches to accommodate the width of the Velcro. I made these by cutting two 7-inch strips, folding them in half, sewing around three sides, and then turning them to the right side.

And just to satisfy myself, I measured what I had with the Velcro. This will work nicely.

Next, I pinned it to the top of the headrest. From there, I was ready to trim all around the outside.

So, I first laid the back under the top, as I would if I were sandwiching any quilt.

Then, I trimmed both top and bottom together to ensure an exact fit.

From there, I moved the bottom to the top...face down...and then stitched all around, except for

 a few inches at the bottom.

And then, I could turn it right side out and finish sewing the bottom edge. And voila! It is finished, except for the Velcro.

Here's how it looks from the back.

They're both to this point now, and I'll be able to sew on the Velcro today. Velcro can be tough, but I think I know how to do it. I'll use a heavy duty needle and some 40 weight thread. Hopefully, it'll all go smoothly.

We took them down to the RV just to see how well they would fit. They ended up a little longer than expected, but we can simply move the Velcro a little lower on the back of the chair and it will be fine. While we were out, I noticed the Poet's daffodil has bloomed. It's always the last of the daffodils to show itself.

So my highest priority today is to finish sewing the Velcro to the headrests. It's a PT day, and that will pretty well take up the whole afternoon. We're going to mop the floor this morning...oy...and then I'll be able to get back to my sewing. I should have time to finish the Velcro before I need to leave for PT. 

I'm in a good stopping place with my sewing projects for taking several days to sandwich the next ones for quilting. Usually, I start with the largest quilt first, but one of the quilts is taking cuts in front of everything else, both for sandwiching and for quilting. A friend has spoken up for the Merry, Merry Snowmen. Ordinarily, it would have six quilts ahead of it in line for quilting, but I'll start with this one.

As I've mentioned to a few of you, each time I set aside time for sandwiching quilts, I have more than the time before. Over the next year or so, I'm going to try to do some quilting every day and finish off this backlog of finished flimsies. I'd like to go into my next sandwiching operation with fewer quilts. And since my wrists and hands have the final say on how much time I can spend quilting, I'll limit my sessions to a certain number of blocks, or else a full hour. 

When I'm not quilting, I have several small projects to finish off. These were some I made while we were traveling last time:

Hawksbill Honu:

Vintage Valentine:

Tulip Time

and Bunny Bait.

Also, since we've been home, I stitched up this Cozy Quilt:

The others are ready for sandwiching and quilting. As small quilts, I'll do them on my domestic machine. Cozy Quilt still needs to be turned into a little quilt top. So, you can see there's plenty to keep me busy when I'm not sandwiching or quilting. 

So, off I go. It's a busy day ahead, and I really want to finish off those headrests today. Before I can do anything else, though, the day commences with slow stitching.

Head Rest Headway

Good morning, my friends. The sky has turned a little gloomy both yesterday and today. It works for me because it's a grocery shopping day. We were just there last week, and so our list is relatively short. Also today, I need to feed our hungry birds. I know they're hungry because they can empty our feeders in two days. Also, it's that time of year when I need to remind myself to water the flower pots. I'll check on those while I'm out and water them as needed.

As for yesterday's comings and goings...there was no coming nor going. We stayed home all day. It was a good day for sewing. First, as expected, I finished off October's block for A Year in the Garden.

There are just two more blocks before I can add this to the list of large quilts to be sewn into flimsies. (That list happens to be empty just now.)

After that I did my PT exercises and a little bit of housework. After lunch, I was ready to move along with the head rests I'm making for the RV. When I arrived in the sewing room, Smitty was Johnny on the spot to help out.

With his help, I drew in all the lines as I wanted to stitch them. I'm making both head rests at the same time, and so I drew lines on both.

Sadie held the second one down while I stitched on the first.

I'll admit to approaching this with a bit of trepidation. Could I really draw all those lines and keep them straight and evenly spaced? And if I could draw the lines, could I really stitch those circles nicely rounded? And could I really stitch all those straight lines and keep them parallel? As it turns out...Yes! Yes, I could! Yay me! It's working!

Here's a little different angle to give you a better look.

And that took the whole of my sewing day. I haven't started on the second one yet. With the lines already drawn, it'll go faster. Probably, I spent at least an hour just drawing the lines yesterday. That'll be today's project, and then I can make the tabs I'll sew to the top where the velcro will be attached. It's confusing to try to describe in words, but I know exactly what I'm going to do. I'll show you the whole process as I go along.

It was nearing dinner time by then. I had in mind to try a new recipe for Chicken Piccata Pasta. This was pretty easy, and we liked it. (Mike likes anything with capers, and so I knew he'd like this.)

As a side, I served each of us a breadstick from Seattle Bakery. I'm really liking these. They're so easy. I spray a little olive oil spray over them, then sprinkle lightly with some garlic powder and Italian seasoning. Then, I can bake them in the toaster oven for four minutes, and voila! An easy and tasty side dish. These are available with the rest of the breads in our grocery store.

A couple of notes about the recipe: First, it calls for radiatori pasta. Our grocery store doesn't carry that shape. I used trottole, and that was a good choice. The recipe suggests fusilli, rotini, or rotelle as well. Second, it tells you to add a quarter cup of pasta water. I thought it thinned the sauce more than necessary, and so I'd hold off adding the pasta water in the future until I see how the rest of the ingredients go together. 

So that brings me to this morning. As I've mentioned, we have grocery shopping to do. Before we go, I'll take the first stitches on Block 7 for Le Jardin. 

Originally, I thought we'd set up the sawhorse and plywood tables in the garage today. With grocery shopping on the list, and PT tomorrow, we're going to wait until Thursday. The weather will be nice and warm that day, and we're expecting warm weather through the weekend at least. It'll be a good time to be out sandwiching quilts, and I'll be able to keep the garage door open. Probably, I'll get some kitty help. You can't beat that.

Okay...so off I go. Stitching awaits.

Something New

Good morning, my friends. It was another lovely day here at the Three Cats Ranch. Mike and I gratefully took the opportunity to get outside and spruce up the yard a little bit. There was a gangly three-quarters-dead azalea that needed to be taken out. We’ve talked about it for at least two years. Finally, I was inclined to cut out the dead stuff and see how it would do. As we discussed what should be cut and what shouldn’t, Mike went and got his tools and dug the thing up. (There’s more than one way to get a beast to his burden…or something like that.) While he was working on the dead azalea, I pulled weeds all around him. He’d sprayed most of them, but there were some that could not be sprayed because of their proximity to other things.

When all the sit-on-the-ground work was done, I took a walk around to see what’s up. I’d totally missed that the purple Clematis Roguchi is blooming. This was planted by the original owner of our home, and it’s been a reliable bloomer every year. I’m surprised it has survived the cold and ice all these years, but it just keeps coming back.

Also, I noticed some of the rhododendrons are showing their colors. This one is at one end of the herb garden..

And this one is at the other end of the herb garden.

Out front, the apple tree is in bloom.

And you might recall I’m trying begonias in this mostly-shady area. The begonias seem to like it here, and have produced more flowers since I planted them. It’s good to know since I have two pots in shady areas that have been hard to plant successfully.

The kitties joined us, and let me just say that kitties feel no compunction about helping out when we’re working outdoors. However, they are very good at warding off any marauding mice, squirrels, gophers, moles, voles, shrews…the list goes on.

Smitty meowed out orders as I weeded the peony bed. He sat on the wall above me where he had a good view of things.

Our work outside complete, it was time for some sewing. My first task was to make a back and cut binding strips for the Land & Sea quilt. As of now, I have 17 quilts for sandwiching. I’m hoping to get those tables set up tomorrow.

And then it was time to go to work on those head rests for the RV. We measured the space. They’ll end up 23 inches long and 18 inches wide. So I gave myself two extra inches in both dimensions and then cut four pieces…a front and back for each of the two head rests.

Next, I dug through all my batting scraps to find strips wide enough to piece together. I cut those about 1/2-inch smaller all around, and spray basted them to the top.

That’s as far as I got with that. My plan is to quilt them with just the top and the batting before adding the back. There will also be a tab at the top end where I’ll sew some velcro. The velcro will stick to the back of the chair, and then we can add the head rests that way. They’ll be machine washable that way. (Frankly, I can’t think of any other way to attach them.) I’ll get busy with the quilting today. I know what I’m going to do. I was inspired by an image I saw on Pinterest…this one…

I’m going to do something like that. I need a good circle template. I’m thinking the lid from my oatmeal carton will probably be the right size.

Okay, and the only other sewing I did yesterday was to make some progress on October’s block for A Year in the garden. Possibly, I’ll finish this up today.

Knowing that, I traced Block 7 for Le Jardin. Some of these blocks are supposed to have applique, but I’m doing them all in embroidery.

These are the blocks I have so far. I’m going to have to redo a couple of these borders. I was supposed to add more of the red cornerstones, and I didn’t do that. It won’t be hard to change them.

Okay, and so that’s about all I have to tell you about yesterday and today. I’ll get busy with the head rest quilting, and I’ll do some slow-stitching. I want to get in my PT exercises today, and I have a couple of easy housekeeping chores to do. Mainly, it’s going to be a sewing day. I’d like to get well-along on those head rests before I start the arduous task of sandwiching 17 quilts for quilting. Yeesh. It makes me tired just thinking about it. My plan is to do 4 each day. I work from the largest to the smallest, and so on Day 4, I should be able to finish five small ones. 

It’s my least favorite part of quilting, but I’m going to love having all those quilts for quilting. It’s like having a full gas tank. And I’m old enough to remember when gasoline was rationed in the mid-70’s. Remember those odd-even days? If not, then be thankful you missed out on the fun back then. 

Another Bridge

Good morning, my friends. Saturday turned out to be another lovely day to get out and enjoy the weather. We had some errands to run in town, and we wanted to cross over the pedestrian bridge in Sherwood again. And we did a few other things not on the day's agenda. First...the bridge. We crossed it more mindfully this time. Mike, engineer and handyman that he is, was good company for this mindful excursion. He was appreciative of the materials and workmanship. So let's have another more mindful journey, shall we? Or don't. You don't have to come if you don't want to, but you'll miss out.

Of course I took pictures of the few blooming things we saw along the way. These are ubiquitous in this part of the world. They're wild asters...about the size of a dime.

Also, some purple clover.

Approaching the bridge, one first walks up this long ramp. You can see some bicycle skid marks. One assumes these were folks slowing on the downhill as they approached the end of the ramp.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the bridge allows pedestrians, bicyclists, and the like, to cross busy State Hwy 99W. It's one of the main drags leading to the Oregon coast, and so it's a very busy road. On one side is the Sherwood YMCA.

On the other side, Sherwood's brand new high school. Sherwood is a community of about 20,000 people, and so a new high school in such a small community is kind of a big deal. That's an Astroturf practice field in the foreground. There's another football field outside the frame and to the left.

And here is that busy intersection. With such heavy traffic, forcing pedestrians to cross the road here is dangerous, and it also holds up traffic unnecessarily. All those cars idling...lots of pollution too.

Okay, so let's pay attention as we walk across this time. And behave yourselves.

Okay here we go.

Looking up, it looks like this. Where it crosses the roadway there is fencing.

Mike was impressed with all this hardware. The portions that weren't painted were all stainless steel. It will not rust, and it will stay beautifully shiny for years. Despite the cost involved, this project came in below budget and ahead of schedule. Good on you, Sherwood.

And there was artwork every ten yards or so. I'm sorry about the shadows in these images. They couldn't be avoided. This first one is a goldfinch.

This is a scene from the historic part of Sherwood.

Hydrangeas.

This appears to be a country road, and I'm thinking those are cherry trees.

This is a trillium...my favorite wildflower.

Just some unidentified pastoral scene.

I almost missed these next two.

Okay, so that was fun. We turned around and walked back to the car. From there, we decided to stop off at a local nursery. It's time for me to choose my petunia baskets. This is usually a task we save for my birthday (in ten days) and/or Mother's Day. Since we were right there, we decided to stop in. They have hundreds to choose from and it’s hard to decide.

We selected this one. I like those bright red petunias, and I like the speckled ones too.

Mike likes the purple ones. They have a nice fragrance.

Now we're back home, and they're hanging on either side of the greenhouse window. The far ones attract hummingbirds, and it nearly drives the kitties crazy when they're in their catio.

It seemed like a good time to take a little walk around. Now that we were home, we let the kitties out. I caught Sadie taking a luxurious dust bath.

So let's see what's blooming, shall we? The lilac is making more flowers.

The Andromeda is putting on its best show of the season.

The azaleas are starting to open.

This is lithodora. I really need to weed around this. It has weeds growing up from beneath.

Here's another azalea.

The blueberries are starting to bloom. We're expecting sunshine all week next week, so it's a good time for them to bloom.

Check out this peony. I'm thinking another week, and we might have a real flower here.

These are wild strawberries. I dug some up with the heel of my hiking boot some years back. Now, they make a nice ground cover. They produce a small strawberry. The squirrels and the birds love them.

Also, we transplanted these potted marguerite daisies we bought when we went grocery shopping. I've tried different things in this particular barrel. I've had no luck getting any perennials started here, so I've decided to treat it as an annual.

In the greenhouse, the lettuce is sprouting. There is more than I'm showing here, but it's hard to see in these images. I planted five seeds in each container, and there are at least four in each one.

So, it was another day of almost no sewing. The only sewing I did was to make a little more progress on October's block for A Year in the Garden.

Today, I'm going to get outside and do some weeding. After that, I should have plenty of time for sewing. I want to get a start on my head rests. Mike and I have discussed how long and how wide they should be, and I have a plan in my head about how to do this. I'll take pictures as I go, and I'll report back on my progress.

I'm hopeful y'all are getting some nice spring weather wherever you are. That sunshine is good for the soul.