Both Sides Now

Good morning, my friends, and welcome to Thursday. There's not much on my agenda this morning. Just one housekeeping chore. The weather was looking promising a little while ago. Now, it's clouded over again. If the sun comes back, I might get out for a walk. There are lots of blooming things in the neighborhood just now.

There was plenty of time for sewing yesterday. I quilted the second side of the border for Jericho Walls.

With just two sides to go, I believe I'll finish this today. I've been taking it slow to avoid making my wrist and elbow hurt. If I can finish the final two sides today, it won't matter if my wrist and elbow flare up a little because the quilting will be finished. So I've left it needle down. You can expect the quilting to be finished by tomorrow. 

It's kind of a good news, bad news sort of thing because finishing the quilting will mean machine-sewing on the binding. As I'm sure you can appreciate, machine-sewing a binding on a quilt this large is a pain. On the other hand, sitting for hours sewing it by hand can be very relaxing. And when you're finished, you have a finished quilt! This was my Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt for 2022, and so it's been in the works for some time.

Earlier, I stitched the 9th block for Grandpa's Bridges this far. I might have kept going, but I needed to get myself around and do some other things.

No worries because I finished the last of it while we watched the news last night. Now the Sticky Fabri-Solvy has been washed out, and it's nicely pressed, and Ta-Da! There it is. Number nine...number nine...number nine...is finished. (You have to be old to get that "number nine" reference. Which of my friends will claim to be old enough?)

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

Knowing I'd be finishing that, I wanted to trace the next three blocks for "S" is for Sew. 

These are small blocks, and so they won't take long. 

There are only nine blocks in this small quilt, and so when these are finished, I'll be 2/3 of the way there.

Sadie's contribution was to look adorably comfortable.

Okay, and then I went to work on the left side border for The Story of My Day. It started with these pieces. I cut all the largest pieces from the fabric I had left. Even though I started with the full amount of yardage listed in the pattern, I ran out of the background fabric. Fortunately, it's a flat off-white Kona solid. I was pretty sure I had something else that would work. You can see the color is just slightly different, but for this quilt, it hardly matters. There are pops of color throughout, and so I'm going to be satisfied with that slight color difference.

The largest pieces will include appliqued "windmills." I'll do them as I go in order to reduce the pain.

And I'll top-stitch them as I go too. I'll use the same color thread I'm using for piecing. It will be easier to top-stitch as I go than it will be to do them all at once.

Then I added the next pieces to what I had. It was getting late in the day by then, and time to stop. I'll start today making one large and one small windmill to add to the large space on the right of the image below.

And then, I'll just keep going until I have a finished quilt top. Finishing up the quilting for Jericho Walls will mean this project gets my undivided attention.

For dinner last night, I tried something new. This is Spiced Salmon with Sugar Snap Peas and Red Onion. We really liked this. The combination of the red onions and the sugar snap peas was very tasty.

The salmon is rubbed with a spice combination (I used garam masala), and then it's browned in a skillet. The salmon is moved to a plate, and then the vegetables are sauteed until they're softened. After that, the salmon is added back to the skillet and finished off in a 400° oven. (Make sure your skillet is oven proof.) The recipe recommends using a nonstick skillet. None of my nonstick skillets are oven proof, and so I used a regular skillet sprayed with cooking spray. I had no problem with anything sticking. So, I've linked to the recipe back there. It's from the New York Times, but I've given you a gift link. If you have trouble opening it, feel free to email me, and I'll be happy to send it to you in a different way.

Okay, so that's all I have for you today. I'll be taking the first stitches on "S" is for Sew this morning. But first, breakfast. Using fingers that are trembling from hunger is no way to start a new embroidery project. And thanks to those of you who responded so favorably to my new "Soapbox" section. I don't have anything to rant about this morning, but I'll have something for you by tomorrow. 

41 Years Ago Today

Good morning, my friends. It's a red letter day at the Three Cats Ranch. Please join me in wishing a very happy 41st birthday to this handsome young man.

Matthew is my youngest, but don't let his age fool you into thinking I'm old. See, I have a strategy for staying young. When I reached the age of 50, I started counting backwards. At this point, I'm just 30, and so it's something of a miracle to have a child older than I am. Yeah. That's my story. 

A couple of years ago, his birthday was the inspiration for the "Feelings" quilt. That was a good day.

We had grocery shopping to do yesterday, but our list was relatively short. We happened to hit our senior discount day, and so the store was full of old people. Despite being with a group of questionable shopping cart drivers, we were in and out well before lunch time. That left plenty of time in the day for sewing.

I've started rounding the borders for Jericho Walls. I'm doing a loopity loop design (technical quilting term), first with large loops, and then going over it again with smaller loops. It creates a secondary diamond shape in the middle. It's easy to stitch...always appreciated.

After stitching across this long border...twice...I decided one border per day was my limit. So far so good getting through this large quilting project without making my wrist and elbow hurt. There's no rush, and so I'm taking my time. I left it needle down at the second corner.

Today I'll stitch across the second side. At this rate, I should have it to binding stage by the weekend.

Moving into the sewing room, I had lots of kitty help. Smitty volunteered to trace the next blocks for Raggedy & Friends.

Sadie was more interested in helping make the scrappy inner border for The Story of My Day.

We started with the final two blocks for the Raggedy & Friends project.

Now it has its own two bins...a smaller one for the embroidered block I'm working on, and a larger one to contain the entirety of the project. (This is how I store all my projects.)

From there, I went to work cutting strips 1-3/4 inches wide to make the final two inner borders for The Story of My Day. When I had this many cut, I decided to start sewing them together.

Although I was certain I'd need more, I already had way more length than I needed. That was all well and good because I can use those scraps in the pieced borders to come. For now, I finished the day with all four inner borders attached.

Next, I'll start sewing together the four outer borders. My experience making the quilt blocks tells me that these will be a little bit of a puzzle to sew together. Here's the diagram from the pattern.

Here's a picture of the finished quilt.

You'll note I'm also including the windmills. There are two sizes of these. Yesterday, I copied the templates, and I'll use these to trace the fusible. If memory serves there were something like 12 large ones and 9 small ones. (I forget.) 

In any case, these four borders are going to take a while to sew together. And since it's time for goal-setting, I'm committing to sew The Story of My Day into a finished quilt top as my goal for

So I have a busy agenda for today. I want to take a walk on the treadmill, and I have one housekeeping chore to do. Since all the blocks for Raggedy & Friends are traced now, I can move on to my other embroidery projects. First, I'll want to create an embroidery block for April's "Sewing Room" project. These are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

I'm coming down the home stretch with the ninth block for Grandpa's Bridges. It will probably be finished in the next day or two. That means I'll want to trace the next three blocks for "S" is for Sew. These are the blocks I have for that quilt so far.

Finally, I'll want to make up April's block for Kittens in Cups. April's color is teal. I'll be making another kitten with a tail, and so I'll strive to make this one look like Smitty. (January's block was supposed to be Smitty's block, but that was before I realized the second block had a tail. And Smitty's tail is so lavishly long and beautiful, it needs a place of honor on the quilt. Besides, Sadie's tail is already represented. Smitty's tail needs equal time. These are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

Okay, so obviously, I won't get all that done today. It's just a preview of coming quilting attractions. Right now, I'm thinking breakfast sounds good, and then I'll get on with my busy day.

It seems a good time to tell you that I've considered a new way to get in my political digs in a way that allows those who disagree to opt out ahead of time. We're in unprecedented times, my friends. Since blogging is my way of writing a letter to friends, I've always included whatever happens to be on my mind on a given day. Like many of you, I wake up each morning wondering what the next travesty will be. Realizing that some would like to avoid controversy, I'm going to give a visual warning to anyone who wants to opt out. (And no hard feelings.) When the mood strikes on any given post, I'll keep it for the end of the day's writing. If I'm about to say something to which others might disagree or take offense, I'll warn you when I'm going to get on my soapbox with this visual:

Today I have just one thing to say: Thank you, Wisconsin friends. You've given many of us reason to hope.

Don't Be Fooled

Good morning, my friends, and welcome to April Fool's Day. Be very careful today, my friends. There are pranksters around every corner. I, myself, am guarding against any pranksters at the grocery store who will try to make me believe grocery prices have come down. Yeah, and eggs are 10 cents a piece. And I didn't just fall off the turnip truck, so there's that. Okay then. Having established all of that, it's probably safe to go grocery shopping. I'm no fool. (Looks over her shoulder to see if anyone is laughing and pointing.)

It was a typical spring day here yesterday with both rain and sunshine. We ended up going out for dinner last night. We can become so reclusive at times that we fear becoming domestically feral. It's good to get out into the world on occasion. My day started by filling the bird feeders. These days, I'm getting out during the rain breaks. While I was out, I noticed more blooming things. I believe this is one of the new ones we planted in 2023. It's known as Emerald Kiss. It doesn't show well in the image below, but it has a slight green tinge to it.

We have lots of the traditional yellows now, and more colors are coming.

The heather has been blooming for some time.

And the lilac is forming flowers.

When I looked at this one a few days ago, I knew it was a hyacinth, but I wasn't sure what kind. Turns out it's a grape hyacinth.

And the flowering plums are in full bloom now.

Back inside, I finished quilting all the blocks for Jericho Walls. When I'd finished all the blocks and setting triangles, I took it off the machine and spread it out on the floor. It's almost impossible to see the quilting in this light.

Here's a little closer look. That green in the lower left was the last block quilted.

I was curious to see how the quilting looked from the back. With this busy backing fabric, it's almost impossible to see the quilting, even standing right next to it.

Okay, so now just the border is left. I quilted an ellipse at the corner and left it needle down here. Probably, I'll end up doing these one side at a time. If I think my wrist can take it, I might get two rows done. We'll all just have to wait until tomorrow to see, although I'll admit that I'll know before you do.

From there, I traced out two more blocks for the Raggedy & Friends quilt. I'll finish the last two of these today, and then I'll be ready to make up a sewing kit to take along when we head for Alaska.

This was Sadie's contribution. She took a nap beside me.

And then I went back to work on the borders for The Story of My Day. It seemed advisable to start sewing together the scraps I'd cut and see how much length I had. As it turns out, I had about three times as much as I needed. I cut the two borders from the full length. The rest will go back into one of my scrap bins. I'll use it in a scrap quilt eventually.

And then I sewed them to the quilt top...

And to the left side. I wish I'd started with the wider border for the bottom and the right. If I'd cut the strips wider from the get-go, I could have trimmed them narrower. Duh. Oh well. I'll start working on those today. I still have lots of scraps.

Heading upstairs, I found Smitty preparing himself for a good sunbath. It's a good time of year to be a cat.

Okay, so we're going to do our grocery shopping today. I'm going to put on my tin foil hat as an extra precaution against pranksters. That wouldn't be weird, right? Y'all be careful out there today.