Joyful June

Good morning, my friends, and welcome to June. Today is the 24th anniversary of the founding of the Three Cats Ranch. We moved into our home on June 1, 2002, bringing with us this crew for whom the place is named. If you've been reading a long time, you'll remember George and Gracie. You won't remember Krissy, the tortie bringing up the rear. She was a memorable kitty, and she lived to be 19. She lived with us longer than either of our boys. 

And the best part about June...summer will be here before the month is over. We're expecting some summery weather today and for the remainder of the week. We're looking forward to it.

Okay, so I got a late start yesterday. I'm usually up during the 5:00 a.m. hour. Yesterday, I slept in until 7:00, and I'd already lopped two hours off my day before I even got out of bed. Then, Tiny Treasure #54 took quite a long time to stitch. This one has stem stitch, stem fill, satin stitch, and lazy daisy.

We had a floor to mop, and I had some other things I needed to do: Hoe the garden, fill the bird feeders, pull some weeds. And so it was quite late in the day before I could get to my quilting. 

The quilting is going fine, but it was giving me some trouble yesterday. I had one incident of thread breakage. A few minutes later, I ran out of bobbin thread. While the bobbin was winding, I cleaned and oiled the machine. With all that going on, my enthusiasm for quilting waned pretty quickly.

Nevertheless, I think I can finish off this interior portion today. The section to the right of the red line in the image below is all that's left. I'll do the border separately. It'll be done kind of the same way, but a little less random.

Also, it was getting late in the day, and I wanted to finish this top-stitching. Everything took longer than I thought it would yesterday, and this piece was no exception. It took about an hour to top-stitch the tree alone, but eventually I had it finished.

When I turned around, some bright eyes were watching me.

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

So I'll continue on with my quilting today. When I make my way to the sewing room, I'll start working on the next two blocks for the Northern Wilderness project. I'll be doing the salmon block...

And the mountains block.

While I was doing that, Mike was building fencing around our bean pots. Honestly, in at least 20 years of gardens at this place, we've never had so much trouble with the beans. We're hopeful this will discourage the crows from pulling up the seedlings. Just before I sat down here, I checked the new bean seeds I'm sprouting on the window sill. They're wrapped up in wet paper towels, but nothing is happening yet. I expect it will be another couple of days before I can replant. In the meantime, I think one or two were spared from the current crop.

Looking ahead, the two Northern Wilderness blocks will complete the WIP's section of my white board. Next, I'll be moving to something in the "Quilter's Choice" section. "Quilter's Choice" projects are when I let myself take a break from my "meat and potatoes" projects. This one will fall under the heading of "fast finish," indicating a small quilt I can finish with...say...a week's time. 

I've had this pattern in my sewing room for years, and years. Finally, it's time has come. I suppose I was inspired by the Amish Sampler quilt I finished recently. And I could swear this pattern was free when I discovered it. Maybe not. In any case, it can be purchased right here.

Also, I'll be making June's inverted star block for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. June's color was simply "pastel." My project isn't going to lend itself well to pastel colors given the white background. I'll probably do something in grays or else a multi-color. I'll have to pick through my scraps and figure out what's available....lavender, maybe. These are the blocks I have so far.

Finally, it's time to choose a project for June's

While it's tempting to choose finishing off "The Story of My Day," I'll do something a little more challenging and have finishing off the "Seasons" quilt as my goal for June. It's next on my list of quilts to quilt, and so it seems the obvious choice. I finished this quilt top way back in December of 2024. Finally, it's time has come.

Okay, and so I'm already short an hour in my day due to my laziness at sleeping in until 6:00 this morning. I know...so, so lazy. It's time for me to get a move on. Enjoy this first day of June, my friends. The weather only gets better from here.

A Good Day Ends Badly

Good morning, my friends. It's the last day of May. We're onto June tomorrow. Are you ready? On June 4, 1944, my mom and dad were married. They were married 52 years when she passed away in 1997. Also, my grandfather's birthday was June 14th...Flag Day. (Also the same day as...you know...he who shall not be named.) My grandfather always told me they put the flags out on Flag Day for him. He was a WWI veteran, and so it made complete sense to me.

As you're reading along this morning, you can feel purrfectly safe knowing Smitty is on the lookout for invading forces.

So, let's talk about yesterday. It was a a good day right up until I went out to take a look at the vegetable garden. I think we'll start there so that we can end on a high note. I was happy to see some of the corn sprouting. We'll leave these rows covered with gutter guards until they're strong enough to resist any crow activity.

Also, I was happy to see a bean sprouting.

But then I was chagrined to find every other visible bean sprout pulled from the ground and tossed aside, unceremoniously. This has to be the work of crows. I've never had them go after the beans like this before.

They also pulled up two of the zucchini. The stake is there to mark the plants so we don't go stepping on them.

Probably I have enough zucchini, but I pulled up the stakes and covered them with baskets to protect them for the time being. It's so exasperating when the critters destroy things like this. It's a lot of work to put in a garden, and to have it so easily destroyed is very discouraging.

You might notice all the little green sprouts surrounding things. Today I'll be getting outside to hoe down those invaders.

In other garden news, the Fairy Princess peony is putting on a good show.

So far, the blueberries have escaped the notice of the deer. I suppose they're waiting until the berries are ripe enough for harvest, and then they'll go after them the night before I plan to pick them...not that I'm a garden pessimist or anything. I'm just being realistic.

The replanted poppy container is making a good comeback. I had five little pots of many seeds (poppy seeds are tiny). Four of them are thriving, and they'll fill in this pot with no problem.

The Garden Treasures peony has put out another flower.

The Edda clematis is also putting on its best show of the season.

Here's a close-up of its pretty flowers.

Finally, the mint is filling in its whiskey barrel. It shares this barrel with several other things, some tulips and some iris. Mint is extremely invasive. When it started growing in this whiskey barrel, we decided that was a good way to keep it contained. Still, I'm pulling it up from other areas all the time. 

And it was put to good use yesterday morning when I made this Watermelon Salad with Rum and Mint. This is a summer favorite around here.

Also for last night's dinner, I made this Seafood Pasta Salad with Lemon-Saffron Herb Dressing. This is another once-per-year (at least) recipe. It originally appeared in Bon Appetit, and it became an instant family favorite. The original recipe calls for campanelle pasta. It's sometimes hard to find, and so I've substituted trottole. Any thick shape of pasta will do. Also, don't let that inclusion of saffron scare you off. You could leave it out and not miss it at all. Also, I use canned crab. Fresh crab is too expensive to use this way.

Okay, and so making last night's dinner ahead took up most of my morning. After lunch, I made some more progress on the quilting. I spent about 40 minutes on this before calling it a day. Here's a little peek at the quilting.

Here's a look at the back.

When I laid it out for its picture, I was surprised to see that it's more than halfway finished. I'll do something different in the border, but everything below the red line in the interior is done. 

I expect to spend another two days on the interior, and then a day on the border. So, I'm closing in on another finish with this quilt.

Okay, and finally, finally, finally I was able to get to my "Across the Wide Missouri" project. The pattern is published in this book:

As I mentioned when I started this project, I enjoy making quilts that teach us something. There is a story associated with each of the blocks. This second block honors an enslaved pioneer woman by the name of Bridget "Biddie" Mason. You can read more about her at the link I've given you. Wikipedia tells us this about her: 

Born into slavery in 1818, she successfully petitioned a California court for her freedom in 1856 and went on to become one of the first African American women to own land in Los Angeles. Mason was a central figure in the early Black community there and was a founding member of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, the city's oldest African American church.

Born in the American South, Mason was enslaved by Robert Smith, a convert to Mormonism who forced her and her three daughters west during the exodus of the Mormon pioneers. After living in the Utah Territory, the household moved to San Bernardino, California, in 1851. Although California was admitted to the Union as a free state, Smith attempted to hold Mason and her family in captivity and later planned to traffic them to the slave state of Texas. With the aid of the local Black community and legal authorities, Mason petitioned for her liberty. In a landmark 1856 ruling, Judge Benjamin Ignatius Hayes granted freedom to Mason and her extended family, declaring that they could not be held in bondage in a free state.

Here's a picture of her included in the book:

Smitty was there to help me get started. He seems pretty excited about this block, doesn't he?

Well...not so much as it turns out. He really just wanted me to dole out some catnip, and then he told Sadie it was time for her shift.

Okay, so each block is dedicated to a pioneer woman, but they still have an associated story. This block notes that settlers beginning a new life on the frontier often brought along farm animals such as chickens, cows, sheep, geese, and turkeys. Not only were they needed for the new home, they were also a source of food for the journey.

I was able to fuse all the applique yesterday. The tree took a long time. Each leaf is cut individually. I'd reached the end of my sewing day when I had it this far.

Okay, and that brings us to the first gasp of the day. This is Tiny Treasure #53: Lazy daisy, blanket leaf, stitch, straight stitch, stem stitch, and French knots.

On today's agenda, I'll start by stitching Tiny Treasure #54. Quilting will continue, and I'll do the top-stitching for Biddie Mason's block. As I mentioned, I'm going to hoe the garden today, and we've decided it's a good day to mop the floor. So, there's plenty to keep me busy. 

If there's time left over at the end of the day, I'll get started on the next two blocks for Northern Wilderness. These are the blocks I have for that quilt so far.

There are six blocks to go on this, and I forget what I'll be doing next.

Okay...good grief. It's after 11:00 a.m. as I sit here, and I'm still in my pajamas. We've already had our pancakes this morning, but there's still much standing between me and my sewing. But nothing is standing between me and my slow-stitching. We do have our priorities. Mopping the floor will have to wait.

Swirls and Curls

Good morning, my friends. Sheesh...what an exhausting day we had yesterday. We had a lot of errands to run in the morning in addition to doing our grocery shopping. We got our beloved Egg McMuffins first...mainly to take the sting out of the whole morning's mission. From there, we headed to the recycling depot, then the pharmacy, then the feed store, then the grocery store, then the gas station, then another grocery store (because, weirdly, our regular store doesn't sell canned crab), and finally...the liquor store. I swear the liquor store was always a part of the plan. 

Before we left, I had time to stitch up Tiny Treasure #52. This one has stem stitch, straight stitch, and French knots.

And then I went to work churning the strawberry ice cream. Mmm, mmm, mmm.

Maybe I’ve mentioned this before, but I love my Cuisinart ice cream maker. The one pictured below is a newer model from mine. There’s no ice or salt involved. The tub has some kind of “coolant” inside. I keep mine stored in the freezer all the time when I’m not using it, so it’s always ready to go. I would never have the motivation to make ice cream the old-fashioned way. With this machine, its easy.

We enjoyed that for dessert last night. So, so creamy, and the bits of frozen strawberry give it the nicest little crunchy texture. You can find the recipe right here. 

Okay, so we ran our errands, and we were home just about lunch time. We put the groceries away, had some lunch, and then took naps. And then we both just chilled the rest of the afternoon. 

Late in the day, I decided I wanted to at least get the machine set up for quilting “The Story of My Day.” As a reminder, this is what the whole quilt looks like. I love those little pops of color.

My first task was to decide on a thread for the top. I already had a design in mind. Digging through my box of variegated threads, I came up with these three:

I really loved the one on the top left, but I worried it was too dark. The quilting might have been too forward, distracting from the embroidery and the “story” told by the quilt. So, I settled on the one at the bottom. It’s light in color, and the hues are right for the colors in the quilt. It’s a Valdani 50-weight thread. And look at that: “Made in Romania.” Who knew? These threads are kind of interesting. They come packaged in a little spool-sized zip-lock bag.

For the bobbin, I chose this neutral.

It’s a So Fine thread from Superior Threads. Also a 50-weight thread. I find I have fewer tension problems if I use the same weight top and bottom.

As always, my Quilting Fairy Godmother, Ila, has generously provided me with exactly what I need for this quilt. Thank you, Ila.

Having selected my threads, I used this orphan block to do a little practice of the design in my head. It looked simple enough, but sometimes these designs end up harder than they look. Right away, I felt pretty comfortable with this one. 

So, I committed myself to the actual quilt and went to work. I probably covered about 10% of the quilt in about 40 minutes. When I paused at one point, I decided I’d had enough. The motion in this design is actually a little tiring for my arms and shoulders.

I first saw this design on Pinterest. I’m sorry I don’t have any information about its origin. It was just a picture with no other information. In any case, I liked the looks of this, and seeing it immediately had me thinking of using it for this quilt. I’m trying to stay in the off-white background, and swirling around the colored and embroidered sections. In at least one spot, I cut a corner a little bit, but I’m going to leave it. 

Sometimes I’ll print the design and then hang it in my view to remind me what it looks like.

After I’d gone some distance on the quilt, I glanced up to see how closely I was following it. I noticed one little design element I was missing, and started adding it in here and there. You can see it bracketed in green below.

Later, I noticed this little “curl” I could add inside some of those loops. When I sit down to work on it today, I’ll find a way to add those in too.

So, with my quilting paused, I could not think of a good reason to do another thing the whole live-long day. Smitty was channeling the energy in the household.

That picture makes him look like a tub of lard, but he’s actually a pretty good weight for himself. He’s a big boy. 

So, having given myself some time to chill yesterday, I feel re-energized for today. It’s one of those days when I’ll make dinner in the morning. We’re going to have a seafood pasta salad for dinner, and it’s good paired up with a fruit salad. I’ll say more in tomorrow’s post. I want to get back to my quilting. I’m thinking I’ll commit to 30 minutes, and then decide whether to stop or continue. And I really want to get a start on the quilt block for “Across the Wide Missouri” today. Hoping I’ll have time for all of that.

Our weather was rainy yesterday, and it’s still a little chilly today. We’re expecting much warmer weather in the coming week. I’m hoping it will get things going in the garden. Hoeing is expected to commence soon.