Lots of Sewing

Good morning, my friends. There was plenty of time for sewing yesterday. We mopped the floor in the morning, and I checked in on the garden. While there, I harvested two more zucchini and three more pickling cucumbers. The cucumbers need to pick up the pace a little. I only have about half what I need for a batch of pickles. As for the zucchini...I will do battle with them today.

With the morning stuff done, I could get busy with the quilt binding. I've turned two corners on the Kittens quilt, and I'm very close to the third corner.

There was time for lunch and a nap after that. Also, I got a head start on dinner by making some Asian coleslaw. Banh Mi was on last night's menu, and the Asian coleslaw was a good side for that. I've linked to the recipe there. I make the dressing from the recipe, but I use bagged coleslaw mix for the rest.

By early afternoon, I was ready to start on thread painting the lemurs. I started with the black thread. Pretty quickly, I decided to switch to a smoky monofilament in the bobbin. The clear monofilament was leaving little sparkles wherever I changed directions. A little dot of black Sharpie ink took care of that.

Also, the eye pieces were small, and they were coming loose as I maneuvered the quilt around. So I rethreaded the machine with gold thread and stitched all the eyes first. After that, I could return to the black thread.

When all the black was done, I switched to the darkest of the three gray threads and stitched the darkest of the grays. In a few places I wanted a darker gray than the fabric I'd used, and so I stitched in those spots too, darkening the color just a bit. 

After spending two hours on this, I'd had enough. When I stopped for the day, I had the machine threaded with the medium gray thread, and I'll start on the medium grays today. Here's where I left it yesterday. It doesn't look so different from when I showed it to you in yesterday's post. The thread work is mainly for texture, and a few of the details.

So, today is going to be a busy kitchen day. My morning will be spent in the kitchen. I'm making some Zucchini Garden Pepper Relish. It will lay waste to a lot of the zucchini, but there is still plenty more to deal with. Once the veggies are chopped up for that, they are salted and left to drain for a full hour. 

During that waiting time, I’m going to use at least one more zucchini to make a Blueberry Zucchini Cake with Lemon Buttercream. The lemon buttercream frosting is to die for in this recipe. I’ve given you the link. Just know that I only make half the recipe, and I bake it in an 8 x 8 baking dish. Also, we’ve eaten the last of our current batch of Granola Cups, and so I’ll bake some more of those. As long as we keep eating them, I’ll keep baking them. 

Despite my busy kitchen day, I should still have some time for sewing. I'll continue on with both projects today. I'm hoping to finish the lemur grays and maybe get a start on the tans. Probably I'll stitch the white parts last. Also, I'll continue on with my quilt binding. For sure I'll turn the third corner today. If I'm feeling really energetic, I might get it all finished.

Okay, then. Lots of kitchen tasks ahead. Time to get moving.

Tall and Taller

Good morning, my friends. It was another hot day yesterday. Happily, our air quality has improved significantly. We were rated at "Unheathy" just a few days ago. Now, we're rated as "Very Good." And that's the way we like it. 

Since I had no excuse for not hoeing the garden, that was my first stop after slow-stitching in the morning. Getting outside, the first thing I noticed was how the morning sunshine was making our maple tree glow.

We're not sure why the leaves have turned that color so early in summer. It has looked like that for several weeks. We've also seen similar trees around town looking just the same. It gets plenty of water, and so I guess it's just getting a jumpstart on fall...before summer even started.

There were two new sunflowers. The one in the image below has more spiky petals than the others that have bloomed. Also, you can see how tall those giants are. They’re at least a foot above the fence line.

Hee’s another new one. It seems to have a lot of petals. 

It’s taller than its neighbors, but not as tall as the ones by the fence.

Also, I was happy to see some California poppies blooming in the bee garden. Just a few days ago, I was saying I was hoping to get some of these going. And there they are!

I was able to harvest another dozen (or so) pickling cucumbers and another four tomatoes. I need to weigh the cucumbers because I think I’m close to having enough for pickles. For now, I’m focusing on the zucchini relish I’ll be making tomorrow. 

As I was filling the hummingbird feeder, I noticed the Red Cardinal clematis is blooming for the second time.

Back inside, I went to work on the Kittens quilt binding. I’ve turned the first corner, and I’m inches from turning the second corner. It’s not a large quilt…63 x 53 inches…and so I don’t expect it will take more than a couple of days to finish it off.

From there, I headed into the sewing room to sew together August’s yellow Inverted Star.

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

With that finished, I could turn my attention back to the Lemurs. Sadie was holding them down. They were pretty excited to see me. We’ve been spending so much time together, and then I abandoned them. Sadie has things well in hand, er, paw.

Okay, so I had to decide how large to make this. It ended up at 17 x 23 inches.

With input from the Retired Resident Engineer, I gulped hard and fused it to the background.

Then, I found a scrap of batting large enough and spray basted it to the batting.

The next step was to track down the threads I’ll want to use. I was a little light on grays, but I managed to find the three shades I’ll need. There are two colors of a light tan, a gold for the eyes, and, of course, black and white.

Next, I set up the machine for thread painting. For an applique piece like this, I like to use a microtex sharp needle so that it won’t poke large holes in the applique. This one is an 80/12 size. It has to be large enough to accommodate the threads I’m using, ranging in the 40-50 weight range. I’ll be using a clear monofilament in the bobbin. My machine has a stitch regulator, and I like it for this kind of thread work.

Also, I have the original image pinned up beside me for reference. It’s set up and ready to go. 

The only other thing I did was to make a little swatch for testing my tension. For this, I used the same batting, the same background fabric, and a little bit of applique. Using the same layers gives me an accurate test. And where should I start? I decided to start with the black thread. Tension looks good on the top. It looks good on the bottom too, but I won’t add the quilt back until the thread work is finished.

From there, I needed to sleep on it. Overnight, I’ve worked up my courage, and I’ll be ready to get started on this today. Probably I’ll need both emotional support cats. They’ll decide together whether to work in tandem or whether this can be shift work. Of course, there’s embroidery every morning, but I’ll also be spending some more time on the quilt binding today. There’s plenty of sewing on the day’s agenda.

Before I can get started on all of that, though, we’re going to mop the floor. It might be the only thing I hate worse than grocery shopping. I’ll mop myself out the door, and then go check on the garden. It’s time to water the flowers too. But first…we must fortify ourselves with Sunday morning pancakes. We’ll need our strength if we’re to succeed on our mopping mission. Cover us…we’re going in.

Back to Basics

Good morning, my friends. Yesterday ended up being a less hectic day than expected. We left for the grocery store a little later than I’d hoped. Originally, I’d planned to start some chili and bake some cornbread when we got home. But then, we decided while doing our shopping we’d just get a pizza from Papa Murphy’s on the way home. Pizza. It saves lives.

Before we left, I had time to take the first stitches on December’s block for A Year in the Garden. Mainly, I was just using the leftover bits from the last time I worked on it.

Mike had gone back to bed, and so I spent some time in the garden. There, I harvested four more zucchini. Zucchini relish has been added to next week’s agenda. The zucchini are starting to pile up.

I’m loving the color the zinnias are adding. 

There are about a dozen different varieties of sunflowers this year, and two of them are giants. These have grown above our 8-foot fence now. I keep hoping they’ll bloom soon.

So, we did our grocery shopping, and it was well into the noon hour before we got home. We had lunch, and then I took some time to square up the Kittens quilt for binding.

I was happy to find a good brown in my stash for the binding. It’s sewn on, and I can start the hand-stitching today.

There was still time left in the day, and so I did all the cutting for August’s yellow Inverted Star block.

Smitty helped me sort through my yellows, and then he helped me square up the resulting half square triangles.

There was just enough time left in the day to lay out the pieces. This is where I’ll start today. These need to be sewn together, and then I’ll give it a solid yellow border.

With those things caught up, I can return to the lemurs. 

I’ll need to make their background. When they are fused to their background, I’ll add some batting and do the thread work through the top layer and the batting only. I won’t add the back until the thread work is finished. When the back is added, I’ll quilt it lightly and it will be ready for binding. 

Also on today’s agenda, I want to hoe the garden. It’s gone a few days longer than I’d hoped, but it actually doesn’t look too bad. Either way, I enjoy being out there a few times a week, and there is always something new to surprise me.

So, off I go. There’s much to do, and I’m ready to get to it. In closing, Smitty and Sadie would like to wish you a

Last of the Lemurs

Good morning, my friends. Our air quality was a little better yesterday. By afternoon, our sky was looking more blue than the sick yellow of the past few days. It’s looking even better this morning. As is my usual routine in the morning, I checked in on the garden. There were a couple of zucchini to harvest, and the weeds are still manageable. After that, I filled the bird feeders and then headed back inside for my slow-stitching.

Block 7 for “Home is Where My Flock Is” is finished now.

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

And this was my goal for August’s

so I’ll link up there when the party starts at the end of the month.

This morning, I’ll take the first stitches on the final block for “A Year in the Garden.”

There were a few things I needed to do, but I had some time before lunch to work on the Lemurs. When my timer went off, I had it this far. There were only about ten pieces to go. It was tempting to keep going, but I decied to take a break.

After lunch, I had one small housekeeping chore to do, but then I headed back to the sewing room Sadie was my emotional support cat.

After another hour or so, I had all the pieces in place. The whole thing was peeled up off the teflon pressing sheet. Surprisingly, there were no gaps. I noticed a few as I was making it, and I’d already filled in those spots. For its picture, I laid it on that background fabric. Nothing is fused.

Asking for a consult from the Retired Resident Engineer, we had differing opinions about how it should be finished off. We could both live with something like what I’ve pictured below.

I’ll give it an asymmetrical border, on just two sides, and then keep the background and outer border the same. There was a strip of green from a binding I’d done at some point, and I can use that for the narrow border. Mike thought the lemurs needed to be “front and center.” We were in agreement about that, but I thought they needed a place to sit, rather than floating in space. I think we negotiated a settlement by doing it this way.

After that, I cleaned up the substantial mess I'd made in the sewing room. It's nice to have the chaos cleared away. And that was enough time in the sewing room, but there was still a lot of time left in the day. I decided to get a head start on the dessert I'd planned for today. This is Caramel Frosted Zucchini Pecan Bars. 

It's more cake-like than bar-like. Think of it as a fluffy zucchini bread with caramel frosting, and you've got it. It's very easy to make, and it's a great way to use up zucchini. You can find the recipe right here. The recipe will suggest lining the pan with parchment, but I found that to be unnecessary. I just sprayed mine with no-stick, and we had no problem getting it out of the pan for our dessert last night.

After I had the sewing room cleaned up, I brought the Kittens quilt over to my work space a laid it there. I'll have to figure out what I'm going to use for a binding, and I'm hoping to get it sewn on today. (I'd like to get going on the hand-stitching.) When I laid it down, Sadie claimed it immediately. It is a kitten quilt, right? Isn't she a kitten?

Probably, I’ll take a break from the lemurs for a day or two. Since I’m still focusing on getting the backlog of finished quilts quilted, I want to keep going with the Kittens and bring it to a finish. Also, I want to make August's yellow Inverted Star block. When I've caught up with other things a little bit, I'll get back to the Lemurs. I want to take a little more time to think about them before I commit to any particular background design. Once they’re fused to a background, there’s no going back. When I’ve settled on a background, I can get on with the thread work.

Today is a grocery shopping day. Also, I want to get some chili started in the slow cooker, and I’m going to bakc some cornbread to go with that. So between grocery shopping and that, it’ll probably be mid-afternoon before I can get any more sewing done. If I can decide on a binding for the Kittens, there should be plenty of time to get it sewn on, and maybe get a start on the hand-stitching.

Okay then. That’s all I have for you today. It’s good to be breathing a little easier. Probably by tomorrow, I’ll be able to whack down the weeds in the garden. As for today, it’s still going to be mostly hanging out inside and staying cool. I hope you’re keeping cool at your end.

Lambs and Lemurs

Good morning, my friends. Our air quality continued to suck yesterday. According to our local newspaper, Portland has the worst air quality on the planet right now.

It was worse yesterday than the day before. The day before had the air quality index rating of "unhealthy to sensitive people." Yesterday's air quality index gave us a rating of just plain "unhealthy." To everyone. We're expecting another day of bad air today. With a shift of the wind, hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

Checking the garden, I decided hoeing could wait for the air quality to improve. Instead, I spent most of my day on sewing projects. I've stitched the sheep to a near finish.

It should be easy to finish it off today. Knowing I'd need something else to stitch, I traced the final block for "A Year in the Garden."

Here are the blocks I have for this quilt so far:

After that, I went back to work on the lemurs. Setting a timer for one hour, I had it this far when it was time to stop.

There was one area that was bothering me. First, I thought I should have used a darker gray on the tail where I've circled below. Also, the tan piece within that circle was a mistake. I meant to use the other side of that fabric for a lighter tan.

Here's the original photograph for comparison.

I thought I'd just leave it like that, but when Mike looked at it, he noticed the too-dark tan piece right away. And as long as I was unhappy with that lighter gray, I decided to attempt a fix when I returned. Smitty was my emotional support cat while I worked on that.

Returning from my break, I carefully pulled up those two pieces and replaced them with more suitable colors. By day's end, I had it this far.

There's still a fair amount to do to finish them off. If I have as much time to work on them today, I might be able to get them over the finish line. Of course, there's still much to do before I can call it a true finish. 

So that's where things stand. There isn't much on today's to-do list, and we're avoiding doing much outdoors. Hopefully things will improve air-quality-wise, but I'll admit to relishing the extra sewing time. Another day like yesterday would be just fine by me. I'd love to finish the lemurs. Tomorrow will be a grocery shopping day, and that will cut into my sewing time significantly. I'll enjoy these slow days while they last.

There’s one easy housekeeping chore on today’s list, and I need to make up a shopping list for tomorrow’s grocery shopping expedition. It looks as if I have enough zucchini for some zucchini relish, and so I’ll add whatever I need for that. A few more cucumbers have been harvested, but I’m far short of what I’ll need for a batch of pickles. The garden has been producing at a rate I can keep up with…for now. We have a trip planned for mid-September. (I’ll say more about it as the time grows near.) Hopefully, we can get a good harvest before then.

Okay, so it’s time to get on with my day, and I’ll leave you to get on with yours. Make it a good one, okay?