No Sewing Day

Good morning, my friends. It was an unplanned day of no sewing. There was time for sewing, but I think I just needed a day off from it. Every time I thought about walking to the machine, I didn’t. I'll get back to it today. The only sewing I did yesterday was to make a little more progress on the cat for the Pieces of the Heart project.

We had grocery shopping to do. We also stopped off at the local feed store where they had whiskey barrel planters on sale. When we first moved to the Three Cats Ranch, I purchased five actual whiskey barrels to use as planters. (They might have been wine barrels.) Nearly 25 years on, they’ve fairly well rotted away. We replaced two of them a few years ago. The remaining three need to be replaced. The cherry tomato is planted in one, and so we’ll wait until its season is over. The other two can be replaced now. While we were there, we saw the biggest hibiscus I've ever seen!

I really wanted to buy it and bring it home, but I couldn't think of a good place to plant it. It would need full sun, and can it survive the winters here? Would the deer eat it? When I thought of the deer, I walked away. (Sigh.) Now I'm wishing we'd brought it home. It had another five flowers coming. Even if it lived its whole life inside our house, I would have gotten the $15's price worth of enjoyment from it. 

After lunch and naps, I had in mind to bake some Blueberry Zucchini Bread. It was a new recipe to me. We’re pausing with our morning granola cups for the time being, which meant I had some blueberries left over that I wanted to use. Also…zucchini. Honestly, the zucchini is starting to scare me. It’s filling about 3/4 of my vegetable crisper now. I have a lot of it included in dishes for the coming week’s menu, but there’s still an overabundance. In any case, I decided to try this new recipe. When it came from the oven, it looked like this:

We had to wait at least an hour to cut into it. In the meantime, I went to check on the garden. The plums are beginning to turn purple. This is the time of year when I start gnashing my teeth about the plums. Generally, we take a trip in the fall, and this year is no different. We planned our departure date a week later than usual to accommodate the plums, but it looks like they’ll be ready in plenty of time. They’re still rock hard, but I suspect they’ll be ready in about a week.

The giant sunflowers have bloomed. I was thinking I need to back up and take a picture of the whole plant to really bring home how tall they are. Just know our fence is eight feet, and they’re well above the top of the fence.

The corn is getting some size to it. It’ll probably be another week to ten days before it’s ready.

The green beans are getting some size too. They still have a ways to go, but things have a way of growing to their full size overnight.

I was happy to find four more pickling cucumbers. Two of them had almost grown too large. I check them every day, and still, some of them are able to hide from me. I need four pounds for a batch of pickles, and oooooh…I just need a couple more. There are plenty more coming, so there’s nothing to worry about. It’s time to go hunting for some dill heads.

Later in the afternoon, we cut into the bread. It’s made with whole wheat pastry flour, and so it has a nice soft texture. It only used one zucchini. Some time ago, I learned the trick of tossing the blueberries in a little flour to keep them from sinking to the bottom of the batter. These did anyway, but it doesn’t really matter. And the bread was good. I just wish it used more zucchini.

So that was a day of not much accomplished, but at least we won’t go hungry. I’ll get back to my sewing today. The only thing on today’s agenda is to hoe the garden. Our neighbor invited us down for dinner tonight, which will be nice. I’m going to bake some more zucchini bread to take along. Everyone has to do their part, right? And as long as I’m doing that, I might take some time to shred some of the excess. I like to divide it into two-cup portions and bake some sort of zucchini bread or zucchini muffins whenever the mood strikes. 

All right then. I’m off to do my slow-stitching. Faster stitching to follow.

A Start and a Finish

Good morning, my friends. It was another mostly sewing day. We'll make up for all that sewing time today. It's a grocery shopping day, and we have a couple of other errands to run as well. Nevertheless, having a few days to focus on sewing has felt like a little mini vacation.

The morning started with the first stitches on Pieces of the Heart. This is going to stitch up pretty fast, I think.

After that, I checked on the garden. Several more zucchini were harvested. The zucchini is piling up again. I have several meals planned for the week that will use some of it, but not enough. Back inside, there was one short housekeeping chore on the agenda, but then I was able to pick up again with the quilting.

Starting with the nine-patch block, I gave it some terry twists. As long as I’m doing feathers in the block backgrounds, that seemed as good a choice as any for those two sections on the right.

From there, I moved to the right and quilted the bathtub block. For this, I outlined most of the embroidery, and then filled in with a meandering feather in the backround.

There was an embroidered border at the bottom, and I did some loop de loop stuff there. There’s another border like this at the top of the quilt. I’ll do the same thing there.

As a reminder, this is that the whole quilt looks like. 

Today I’ll start quilting the large camper block at the top half of the quilt. It’ll be done pretty much the way the other blocks have been done. Also, I’ll quilt that embroidered border at the top. From there, I’ll have the pieced blocks and the blue borders to quilt. Probably, I’ll do this one side per day, and I’ll also quilt the adjacent blue border. If I can keep up that pace, I should have this ready for binding within the week.

So, I’ve left it needle-down at the braided rug there, and I’ll start on this after lunch today.

And I’m happy to say that the Lemurs are finished. It took a while, but I finished off all the thread-painting.

Then I added the quilt back and did some light quilting in the background. Behind the lemurs, I quilted a fern on either side. 

At the left side and the bottom, I quilted a leafy vine.

Then, I machine sewed the binding. 

From there, I thought I’d stop for the day, but I hand-sewed the binding while we watched the news, and the Lemurs are finished.

For comparison, here is the original photograph:

Here’s how they look from the back. It ends up at 24 x 17 inches.

And that was a good way to end the day. 

With the Lemurs finished, I’ll be moving to the next section on my white board which is to sew together a large quilt top. The only thing listed there are the blocks for A Year in the Garden.

Since I only just finished December’s block, I’m not sure I’m ready to start on that just yet. Instead, I’ll probably choose one of the smaller quilts to finish off. I believe the next one on the list is the “Cozy Quilt” project. 

It was one of the “short” embroidery projects I finished up a couple of months ago. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it, but I have some pretty fabrics to choose from. 

All right then. We have many miles to travel between now and whatever time I’ll have for sewing this afternoon. It’s probably time to be on my way.

A Good Day of Sewing

Good morning, my friends. It was nice to have a day mostly devoted to sewing yesterday. There was progress on several fronts. For one thing, I finished up the 12th of 12 blocks for A Year in the Garden.

Here are all the blocks I have for this quilt.

When I made my way to the sewing room later in the day, I matched it up with these fabrics from my stash. I have in mind to use the bright floral for the border and sashings. I'll use the yellow for cornerstones. If there's enough fabric, I might decide to add a border around each block. Possibly, I'll add in a green as well.

My next stop was to check on the garden. I harvested two more pickling cucumbers, four regular-sized zucchinis and 7 babies. There's a recipe I like that uses the babies. I'll say more about that when I get ready to make it. For now...feast your eyes on our overabundance of cherry tomatoes.

You might remember when I was whining about how there were no tomatoes on this large plant. Since then, the plant has grown to gargantuan proportions, and it is covered in tomatoes. I've dusted off my recipes that use cherry tomatoes, and those will be on next week's menu.

This cluster of zinnias continues to delight me. It seems each time I see it, it has added another new color.

And I love how these are sort of a flower within a flower.

This is another sunflower from the package labeled "Infrared Mix." It has produced all different colors, with the red center common to all of them.

This one is called Sunburst Panache. It's one of the taller ones.

And the giants are starting to open. I'm hoping they'll be fully open when I check on them today.

Back inside, I went to work on the quilting for the Girls' Getaway project. I finished filling in the background on the bicycle block.

And then I quilted the tent block in much the same way. Some of the embroidery was outlined, and then I filled in the background with a meandering feather.

Here's a peek at the back.

From there, I really wanted to give the Lemurs plenty of time, and so I stopped. I left it needle down at the 9-patch. Today I'll stitch this with some terry twists, and then move on to the embroidered bathtub block to its right.

As for the Lemurs, I have just two colors left to stitch...the darker tan and the white. I'm hoping to finish the thread painting today.

When I stopped for the day, I had the machine threaded with the darker tan thread, and I left it needle down.

There are just a few things on today's agenda...the usual garden check-in and a couple of easy household chores. We'll need to do our grocery shopping tomorrow, and so I'll need to finalize our menu for next week and make up a grocery list. Next week's menu will feature lots of zucchini and lots of cherry tomatoes. Mainly, it'll be another sewing day. Happily, we have leftovers for tonight's dinner.

Okay then. Sewing ahead. I'm hoping to have the Lemurs finished and ready for quilting by day's end.

Four Projects

Good morning, my friends. It was a very busy morning yesterday. Since I hadn’t checked the garden the day before, I really needed to do that. One of the zucchinis had gotten away from me. It wasn’t a true giant yet, but another day going undiscovered and it might have been truly humongous. There were two or three more normal sized ones that I added to the pile already in the fridge. Also, I found another half dozen pickling cucumbers. I’m still a pound short of the four pounds I need for a batch of pickles. 

The bird feeders were empty, and so I filled those. Then, I went to work getting some chili started in our slow cooker and baking some cornbread to go with it. It meant an easy dinner last night. By the time I had everything done, it was lunch time.

Not to worry, though. There’s no getting me off the couch in the morning until I’ve done my slow-stitching. This piece will be finished today. There are just a few more flower petals to stitch, and that will be the twelfth of 12 blocks.

Okay, and so I needed to decide what project would replace it. There are 24 projects on my list of long-term embroidery patterns. As usual, I asked Mr. Random to help me choose what I’d stitch next.

Mr. Random selected #20, which happens to be…

And I couldn’t remember that project, so I went looking for it. One of you gifted me with this project. I’m sorry I can’t remember who it was, but if it was you, then thank you. There are 12 blocks for this project…one for each month of the year. January’s block will be first. Makes sense, right?

Okay, but I needed to do some other things before I could get too involved with that. There was quilting to be done. Girls’ Getaway will be next under my needle. I’ll use white thread throughout, both top and bottom. I’ve had good luck with these So Fine threads, but my spool of white is nearly used up.

Thinking ahead, I purchased another cone.

As a reminder, this is what the whole quilt looks like. I’ll be starting with the embroidered blocks in the middle.

The bicycle block is closest to the middle, and so I started there. It has a pretty embroidered border at the top, and so I started with a looping design that crossed into the sashing.

That was pretty easy. Here’s a peek at the back.

For the rest of the block, I outlined the embroidered bicycles, and I extended the road they were riding to reach the full width of the block.

It still needed more quilting, and so I decided to do a feather winding in and out of the open areas. When I was halfway across, I ran out of bobbin thread. (I was starting with just a partially wound bobbin.)

So I wound a new bobbin, and then left it needle down at that spot. It seemed like a good place to stop for the day.

The new embroidery project had me curious. Sadie came to see what I was up to. She thinks this cat is purrposterous. 

Smitty was similarly unimpurressed.

There was just enough of this off-white in my stash to cut the backgrounds for all 12 blocks. And then I traced January’s block. Probably, I’ll start on this tomorrow…or maybe today if I don’t use all my stitching time on my current project.

I spent some time studying the pattern and choosing floss colors. I didn’t have all the DMC colors listed in the pattern, but I had enough that were close, so I can use my floss stash for this. (I might have to buy something down the road.) The colors shown below are for January’s block. I don’t know yet if there will be other colors in the blocks to come. We’ll all find out together.

There was no more time to spend on that if I wanted to make any progress on the Lemurs. I had about an hour to work on it. Most of the medium gray sections are stitched now, although there are still a few left. You can see some of the stitching on the back of the head of the right-most lemur. I’m hoping to get on to the lightest of the grays today.

Today should be less hectic than yesterday. I’ll check the garden again, and then I’ll need to water the flowers. There’s nothing else on my list of to-do’s, and so it’s going to be a mostly sewing day. I’m hoping to finish up the bicycle block, and then I’ll move down to the tent block below and to the left. Also, I want to get more done on the Lemurs. There’s still quite a bit to do with the thread work, so I don’t expect to finish it today. Tomorrow wouldn’t be out of the question, but it will still need quilting and binding.

So, I’m ready for a more relaxed day today. How about you? How are you spending your hump day?