Some Sunshine

Good morning, my friends. How are y'all doing this morning? It rained for a good part of the day yesterday. By afternoon, the clouds cleared off, and there was blue sky and sunshine. It was nice because Mike wanted to go out for dinner. After being cooped up inside for the past two days trying not to drown, we were both approaching a serious case of cabin fever. Then, when I awakened this morning, rain was coming down in buckets again. Possibly it was the last gasp of the atmospheric river that passed through because as I'm writing this, the sky is blue and the sun is shining. Let's hope it lasts. Unless another storm blows through, this should be our weather for the remainder of the week. (Proofreading now...the sky has clouded over again. Sigh.)

There were a few things to take care of yesterday morning. I gave the Bowflex some attention and then did a little cleaning. Quilting had to wait until after lunch. When I'd spent my hour's limit at it, I took it off the machine for a look. It's a little hard to see the quilting in the image below.

You can see it a little better from this angle.

You can see it even better from the back. I'm guesstimating I'm about halfway finished with this grid. The borders will be quilted separately.

From there, it seemed like a good idea to ready my next slow-stitching project. The sheep will probably be finished in a day or two, and so I traced July's block for A Year in the Garden.

It'll be next when the sheep are finished.

With that done, I could turn my attention to Autumn's Harvest Pumpkin. First, I trimmed it to the size I wanted. This pattern was intended for a pillow, but mine is going to end up a wall-hanging. It could also be a little table topper.

You might recall I purchased the leaf fabric below with this project in mind. The fat quarter to the right will be a stop border. The one on the left will be the binding.

So, I gave it a narrow stop border.

And then a wider outer border. That brought it to 23 x 20 inches.

I'd pulled several fabrics for the back, but settled on this one. It was the smallest piece, and I figured I'd save the others for a different project.

When I opened the fabric I'd pulled for the binding, I found some binding strips cut for a different project. I added up the lengths and found I had just exactly what I needed for the pumpkin project. It's almost like it was meant to be. When I cut these strips, I must have known that future me would appreciate them.

Okay, and that brought me to the end of my sewing day. I'll get back to quilting It Takes a Village today, and then I'll sandwich and quilt Autumn's Harvest Pumpkin. I'm hoping I can get it to binding stage by day's end.

With the drenching rain paused for the evening, I checked in on the Firefighter dahlia. As expected, it was bent over, heavy with raindrops. 

I shook the water off and propped it up. It still looks pretty good. There are two more buds on the plant. We haven't yet had our first frost, and so I can hold off a while before I cut it back. It seems a shame not to give those buds a chance to bloom.

Heading back upstairs, I found these Andromeda shoots glistening with raindrops. This picture doesn't really do justice to what I saw. They were sparkling like diamonds.

Okay, so there's not much on today's agenda. I need to finish creating a menu for next week, and then I need to make up a shopping list. We'll do our grocery shopping tomorrow. It'll be a short list since we did some shopping on Friday. I want to get in a walk on the treadmill, and then it'll be all sewing all the time. I'm hoping to make some good progress by the end of the day.

Prep Work

Good morning, my friends. We had another day of rain...some wind, but not as much as we expected. Mike tells me the storm came at us from the south. Since we're just over the crest of our hill on the north side of the mountain, we had a bit of shelter from the wind. Once again, Sadie gave an excellent demonstration on how to spend a wet and windy day. She is an expurrt at this.

My morning was spent in the usual way...with a little slow-stitching.

There were a couple of easy household chores to do, and I went for a walk on the treadmill. After lunch, I girded up my loins to sandwich It Takes A Village. Smitty was my helper cat. 

I had some scraps of batting I could piece together. There was one large piece, but I needed a little more width. I had a piece that would work if I gave it a little more length. That worked out fine.

I like to use the double overlock stitch, which happens to be stitch #10 on my Bernina 750QE. It gives me a nice flat seam.

And then I could sandwich my quilt. It's always a good feeling when that's done. Sandwiching is my least favorite part of quilting.

When I made this quilt, I hated every minute I spent on those paper-pieced blocks. It was one of those projects I wished I'd never started. As I've said many times, I really dislike paper-piecing. Still, I love how this quilt turned out. I had some good fabrics for finishing it off. It was worth the gnashing of teeth that went along with making the blocks.

Upstairs, I selected this yellow Bottom Line thread for the bobbin. There was already a partially wound bobbin, and that always seems as if the thread is telling me what to do. It's almost as if it's waving its arms and yelling "Pick me! Pick me!"

It's a 60 weight thread. (This is more for my reference than yours.)

Then I found a top thread approximately the same color. There's no information on this spool, but I suspect it's a 50 weight thread.

Smitty helped me get my tension adjusted purroperly.

And then I stitched from one quilt corner to the other. 

After stitching across one block, I checked the tension on the back. That looks good to me.

Smitty and I were both feeling pretty smug at how easily we got that tension adjusted.

It always takes me a day to shift my brain into quilting mode, and so I left it needle down here. I'll get busy with that today. Probably, I won't finish the quilting today, but it's a small quilt. It shouldn't take too long.

Also on today's agenda is a Bowflex workout. There's a housekeeping chore, but nothing I can't put off until tomorrow if I want to. I've come to think of procrastination as the first step in any housekeeping chore. For the sake of my wrists and hands, I'll limit my quilting time to about one hour. If there's still time left in the day, I'll get busy making a little quilt top from Autumn's Harvest Pumpkin stitchery.

'Tis the season for displaying this. If I can get the top finished, I might let it skip to the front of the line and finish it off.

So that's my day. The big dark is upon us. It has rained almost non-stop for the past two days. Yesterday we even got a few snowflakes, although it's not nearly cold enough for any accumulation. We're expecting more rain today. It looks like we're going to see some clearing beginning tomorrow and through the coming week. For now...it's good sewing weather. If you're looking for me, I'll be in the sewing room.

Wet and Wild

Good morning, my friends. Yeesh. It rained the whole live-long day yesterday. By day's end, we'd accumulated a full inch. We're expecting more of the same today. We're told today's weather will bring us less rain, but more wind. Fingers crossed we don't lose power. This is typical weather in our area in October. We generally get a big wind storm around Columbus Day. Historically, a big wind storm did a lot of damage in Portland in 1962, and it's still referred to as the Columbus Day Storm. We've had a pretty fall this year, but the early October wind storms often blow the leaves off the trees before they've really had a chance to give us their full fall glory.

So it was a good day to stay in and sew. I took the first stitches on the 2nd block for Home is Where My Flock Is.

Downstairs, Sadie was giving a TED talk on how to spend a rainy day.

Any questions?

And since I didn't think I was going to be able to pry her from that spot, Smitty agreed to be my sewing cat for the day.

With his help, I finished sewing two borders onto the Grandpa's Bridges quilt top. That's a finished flimsy right there.

I haven't given a lot of thought to the quilt back, although I do have an idea for the binding. As for the back, I'm expecting to receive two more yards of that border fabric. I might be able to piece together something for the back. If not, backing day is coming up at one of our local quilt shops. I can get 25% off if I go in with my finished quilt top. It finishes at 78 x 63 inches. I'll need 5 yards for the back, and so that 25% discount is looking pretty good.

It was nearing dinner time when I finished the quilt top. Heading upstairs, I looked out to see this stunner.

Whoa. 

Okay, so I'll get back to my slow-stitching "flock" this morning. I can't really do any more with Grandpa's Bridges until I receive the extra fabric on Monday. However, I did put the pattern in my Used Pattern Yard Sale. If you have any interest in that, take a look. 

Next up on my white board assignments is to quilt It Takes A Village.

I haven't given a lot of thought to this yet, but I'll probably do a straight line grid. There's so much going on in this quilt, I'm afraid any elaborate quilting would just muddy it up. It's 51 x 51 inches, and so I'll probably do this on my quilting machine, rather than my domestic machine. If memory serves, the binding strips are yellow, and so I'm thinking a yellow thread for the quilting might be a good choice. Until it's sandwiched, and I'm sitting at the machine, I never really know what my hands are going to do.

There are a couple of easy housekeeping chores on the calendar today, and I want to get in a walk on the treadmill. I've been watching Ken Burns's documentary about the Civil War while I do my treadmill walking. I think I'm on the last episode, but I need to finish it up because his documentary about the Revolutionary War will begin on November 16th. I'm looking forward to that. 

So that's my day in a nutshell. Mainly, I'm going to stay inside to keep warm and dry. I have an idea I can get some kitty help with the warm and dry part.

Lotsa Blocks

Good morning, my friends. I thought the rain would hold off until tomorrow, but it looks as if it'll be joining us sooner than that. We're promised an "atmospheric river," meaning rain, rain, rain, and more rain. It's the Pacific Northwest. What can I say? 

It's still dark outside as I write this. I'm hopeful the Firefighter dahlia will have opened a little more from yesterday's showing.

If it has, I'll probably just cut the flower and bring it in. The other dahlias have been moved indoors now. This one still needs to be cut back and brought inside, but I'll probably have to wait until the rain passes in a few days. 

So, I finished up this go-round for the Tiny Treasures yesterday. Tiny Treasure #11 was all stem stitch and French knots.

This was Tiny Treasure #12. Stem stitch, lazy daisy, fishbone stitch and French knots.

From there, I cut them to the 2-1/2 inch size I wanted. Here are the 12 Tiny Treasures I have so far. Yes, the one in the upper right is rotated 90 degrees to the left.

Now, I'll set these aside until it's turn comes around again.

From there, I was ready to turn to Grandpa's Bridges. Sadie was napping in the sewing room, and I rudely disturbed her slumber by using the sewing room for...you know...sewing. 

She moved to the sanctuary of her kitty bed just to the left.

Smitty volunteered to be my helper cat for the day.

With this help and advice, I sewed together the first block. It's looking good so far.

And then I sewed together the first row.

And then, the second.

And then I just kept going until I had all the blocks sewn together.

Today, I'll give it two more borders, and then I'll have a finished quilt top. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the back yet. I have some potential fabrics to use, but I'll need to see how big it ends up before I can decide.

This morning I'll get started stitching Block 2 for Home is Where My Flock Is.

These blocks are fairly small, and so it shouldn't take long.

On today's agenda, I have a couple of easy housekeeping chores. We need to go into town for a short grocery shopping trip...just enough to get us through the weekend. With the rain, it's going to be a mostly sewing day. And when the rain starts at this time of year, I find myself grateful for more sewing time. On the other hand, by January, we'll be yearning for some sunshine. 

Okay, so off I go. I realize we're still into fall, but has your winter weather arrived? With several days of rain ahead, we're definitely getting into the cold-weather spirit.

Seeing Red

Good morning, my friends. After writing yesterday's post, I proceeded to waste my morning hours messing with ChatGPT. This is the sort of thing that interests me not at all, but I was trying to create an AI image. It took me quite a while to understand the ins and outs of this. At one point I realized I was wasting my whole morning, and I decided to indulge in that luxury for a single morning. Since I needed to leave the house at 11:45 a.m., it didn't seem as if there was enough time to do anything productive.

Before moving into to time-wasting mode, I stitched Tiny Treasure #9. This one includes lazy daisies, French knots, satin stitch, straight stitch, running stitch, and stem stitch. (Seems like a lot of stitches for a tiny motif.)

I didn't get home from my appointment until after 2:00 p.m. Of course, I needed a nap by then. When I woke up, it seemed too late to start anything else. Stitching another Tiny Treasure was about all I was good for. This is Tiny Treasure #10. It was supposed to be done with a "leaf blanket stitch," but I couldn't make that work. I used a fishbone stitch instead. Also, stem stitch (for the stem) and backstitch for the words.

It was nearing dinner time by then. There was a new recipe to try out. We had this Cream of Turkey & Wild Rice Soup. It's a recipe from Eating Well, which was the publication that replaced Cooking Light. Mine would have been more accurately named "Cream of Chicken & Rice Soup." Instead of wild rice, I used this blend. It contains wild rice, but includes some other rice grains as well.

Also, I used a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store in place of the turkey. This was really good. It's a thick soup...more like a stew...and we liked it. There's enough left over for another meal. It has carrots, celery, shallot, mushrooms, and the "cream" part comes from low-fat sour cream. The recipe, as written, serves four with 378 calories per serving. Not bad. We each had a slice of Texas Toast on the side.

When I looked outside this morning, I noticed the tree at the far end of our field is completely red now. It's beginning to shed its leaves.

On the other side of the house...this beauty. Wow.

There's no color editing on this. It really is that red.

Looking across to where the dahlia pots are, I noticed the Firefighter dahlia is nearly opened all the way. It's looking like we'll get sunshine today, and so I'm hoping it'll finish its journey by this afternoon. When it's completely open, it should show some red in the center.

So that was my lazy day. Today will be more productive. I'm going to take a walk on the treadmill and do some laundry. Except for that, I'll spend the day sewing. I'm ready to get back to Grandpa's Bridges and start sewing the blocks together. Here's where I left it on Tuesday.

As an update, I'm pretty sure I got scammed by the website that sold the brown fabric I ordered on Tuesday. I've opened a dispute with Paypal, and now it's just a matter of waiting for some time to pass. I'll keep you updated as I know more. Fortunately, it isn't a lot of money, and I feel confident Paypal will refund it. I suppose I should count myself lucky this is the first time I've encountered a bogus merchant on the internet. I'll be more careful from here on.

There are two Tiny Treasures left to stitch for this go-round. I might finish those off today if they don't take too much time. When those are finished, I'll be ready to start stitching the second block for Home is Where my Flock Is.

And if today is to be more productive than yesterday, I'd better get started. Off I go.