Binding Ahead

Good morning, my friends. Another one bites the dust. I'm happy to say the quilting is finished for the Homestead quilt. When I sat down at the machine yesterday, just the outer border remained. As I've said before, I try to learn something from every quilt. From this one, I learned that choosing a dark color thread on light fabrics probably isn't a good idea. As I quilted some of the blocks for this quilt, I thought the dark blue thread overwhelmed the design of the quilt block. Originally, I had in mind to do something traditional in the border...a feather. As I thought more about it, I worried it would be too much and too dense. Instead, I chose this motif called "Infinite Stacked Curls."

It was something I saw on Pinterest. You can find the video right here:

It was an easy design to do, and less dense than a feather would have been. So, I was happily quilting along. When I had this much left to do, I ran out of bobbin thread. Of course, I did.

And I was really "out" of bobbin thread, having wound the last of it already.

No worries. I used the same thread used on the quilt top. The colors were close enough anyone would be hard pressed to see the change. After a delay to unthread, wind a bobbin, and rethread the machine, I had myself a finished quilt. This was my Rainbow Scrap project for 2023. It's good to have it nearly done.

Here's a little peek at the back.

And, of course, it's not "finished" being finished until the binding is sewn on. I'll use that same blue used in the sashings. Today's goal will be to get the machine sewing done. I'll work on the hand-sewing over the next several days.

While I was finishing off the quilting, I had a Cherry Crisp in the oven. As I've mentioned, I had several jars of homemade sweet cherry pie filling I was trying to use up. This polished off the last jar. The pie filling was spread across the bottom, and then a nice crunchy topping added to the top. Then it baked for 30 minutes. We enjoyed that with a scoop of vanilla ice cream last night.

It seemed like a good time to take a walk outside. I noticed the annuals are making a comeback after being eaten by squirrels in the first hour after I planted them.

And wow...the peonies are outdoing themselves this year. These are just two of the five plants...Coral Sunset on the right, Joker on the left. 

The Lavender Whisper is bloomed out for the season, but I'm still waiting for two more. The buds are showing their colors, and so I'm hoping these warm weather days will get them over the top.

The Edda clematis is starting to open more. I'm expecting this to be covered in purple flowers within the next several days.

Oh, and finally...some flowers on the cherry tomato. This one has taken its sweet time.

In my wanderings, I noticed the squirrel dining hall. They eat the birdseed and then leave their droppings. Messy critters.

I captured Sadie settling in for a morning sunbath. When you're a black cat, you purrfur to do your sunbathing in the shade. Besides, it's important to guard against skin cancers...especially basal cell catcinoma. (And Sadie would like you to know that she would make a better HHS secretary than you know who.)

Back inside, I went to work on the purple Stair Steps block. Three of five are complete now. 

Smitty helped with that. 

The next one will be pink. I'm hoping to get another one finished today, but getting the Homestead binding sewn on will take priority.

Finally, we looked out the window this morning to see that the poppy had popped! Yay!

It was pretty with the sun shining through its petals.

Okay, and that brings me to this morning. I'll get to work on that quilt binding today, and I'll try to get another Stair Steps block made. I haven't checked today's calendar, but I don't remember having anything else going on. I'd say I'm going to get in a workout of some kind, but I'm still resting my knee. It's feeling quite a bit better this morning.

Next up for quilting will be The Story of My Day. I'll probably do this one as a timed project since the design I'm planning is more of an all-over design. I'm thinking 30-45 minutes per session. I can set a timer and quilt until it goes off. It will probably take several days at that rate, which will give me time to finish the binding on Homestead.

Our weather has been lovely the past few days. We're told the rain will return on Monday, and so it's probably a good idea to get outside while the getting is good. Oh yes...I took a little walk around the vegetable garden yesterday and found that all the little seedlings have survived the transplanting process. Hopefully, nothing will eat them.

So with that, I'll get back to my slow-stitching. Time to get on with my day, and I'll leave you to your day. Make it a good one.

Sowing and Sewing

Good morning, my friends. It was a busy and tiring day yesterday, but I'm happy to say the vegetable garden is planted now. We've lived in our house 24 years, as of June 1st. I can't remember the exact year we created our garden plot, but it was early on. I believe I can safely say it was within the first three years...so at least 20 years ago. In years past, we've planted the whole thing. Here's one of the pictures from early on.

A few years ago, we decided to plant a smaller garden, and we planted perhaps three-fourths of it. This year's garden has been scaled down to half the plot, and much of that is in sunflowers and zinnias. After scooching around on the ground planting those sunflowers yesterday, my knees are thanking me for not being more energetic. So here's our scaled down garden for 2026:

In the foreground, you can see three rows of corn. We cover it with gutter guards because the crows will pull the newly-sprouted seedlings right out of the ground. When they start growing through the gutter guards, we can remove them, and they'll be safe from pecking beaks. 

Beyond the white fencing is the "bee garden." Weeds and wildflowers grow there. Each year, I broadcast a new quarter-pound of wildflower seed and then wait to see what I'll get. On this side of the white fence and along the northern fence line, I've planted a dozen different varieties of sunflowers. Along the south fence line are some zinnias. Toward the end of the corn rows, I've planted three hills of zucchini and three hills of pickling cucumbers. 

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, a gopher killed the entire green bean crop in our last garden (2023) by chewing off every single vine at ground level. It broke (and hardened) my heart. Here's a picture from when I first discovered the damage. You can see it there on the right. Eventually, the same thing happened at every trellis pole. 

In the image below, you can see our solution for the green beans. This year, we've planted the seeds in pots. They're sitting on boards in order to maintain good drainage, and we're hopeful that will thwart the gnawing vermin.

Interestingly, we've grown green beans every year we've planted a garden, but we never had this problem until our 2023 garden. In fact, the 2023 garden disappointed in many ways because of gnawing critters. It's probably good that our travel schedule forced us to take two years off from growing vegetables. The sting of that last garden has subsided some, but we haven't forgotten it.

When we finished the planting, we sat, our limbs throbbing, on the garden bench and enjoyed our Mike's lemonades. Eventually, I felt I could move again, and I made my way into the house for some lunch, a shower, and a nap.

It was touch and go working up enough energy to do anything else, but I made my way to the quilting eventually. Smitty was there to make sure I didn't go too fast...speed demon, and all. (Good thing they don't hand out speeding citations for quilting.)

My goal was to quilt the vertical sashings, and mission accomplished. Here's how they look where horizontal and vertical intersect.

Here's a peek at the back.

Also, I found enough energy to sew the yellow Stair Steps block together. I'll keep going with these today. The next common color diagonal stripe will be purple.

It was late in the day by then. I tried a new recipe for Creamy Tuscan Ravioli. This was really good. We liked it a lot.

It's made with Italian sausage, canned fire-roasted tomatoes, oil-packed sundried tomatoes, onion, garlic, and spinach. Oh yes, and of course, 4-cheese ravioli. The recipe suggested frozen ravioli. I bought the unfrozen refrigerated kind, and so mine was ready to go into the mix without needing to allow it to thaw. Nevertheless, I left it sitting out while I did the rest of the cooking and allowed it to warm up a little before adding it at the end. I've always boiled fresh ravioli. For this recipe, it was added at the end, then the pan was lidded, and it steamed until it was done. I had my doubts about whether it would actually cook enough, but it did. 

I've linked to the recipe above the image. Aside from using fresh ravioli, I also substituted white wine for the chicken broth. (I was too lazy to make any "Better than Broth" chicken broth.) We liked the slight tang added by the wine. Also, I did a rough chop on the sundried tomatoes, although the recipe doesn't say to chop them. They seemed too large as they came from the jar, but a rough chop was just right.

Okay, so my bum knee was absolutely killing me after planting the garden yesterday. I iced it three times, took some Tylenol, took some naproxen, and rubbed some anti-inflammatory gel on it at bedtime. It feels a little better today, but it's still painful. I'll give it a day off today and focus mostly on my sewing. I've moved to the border of my quilt now, and I expect to have it ready for binding by the end of the day. Also, I'll aim for at least one more block for the Stair Steps project. There are a couple of easy housekeeping chores on the calendar for today, but mainly, it's going to be all sewing all the time. 

We have several days of warm weather ahead of us. Fingers crossed those newly planted seeds get to work making little sprouts. Also, I'm on peony watch. We might see a new peony today.

PT Graduate

Good morning, my friends. It gives me great pleasure to announce the end of my Wednesday treks to PT. It also gives me great pleasure to say that my shoulder is nearly pain free. And who among us doesn't have some ache or pain somewhere in their body? I'm hopeful that I can eventually put this annoyance behind me completely. For now, I'll just say it feels better on the days when I do my exercises. That alone will motivate me to keep doing them. Nevertheless, I'm happy not to be making that drive to the next town over each week.

My appointment made for a short day sewing-wise, but everyone is better off when I take some time for slow-stitching in the morning. Yesterday's session had me finishing off the third Santa in the Santa Quartet.

Now I've moved my hoop to the right, and you can see that I've encompassed most of what remains. I spent some time on this yesterday evening while we watched the news. Probably I still have several days before this is finished.

From there, I filled the bird feeders and checked on the seedlings. I noticed the purple rhodie is getting more flowers.

In other shades of purple, the lavender is beginning to bloom. This can only mean one thing: it's time for Bees Knees Cocktails. 

When I'd finished with my outdoor activities, I could spend some time on the quilting. For the sashings, I'm doing this "Paperclip" motif. This is one I saw on Lori Kennedy's website. I've used this motif on many quilts. I like how it looks, but mainly, I like it because it's easy to do.

Where the vertical and horizontal sashings intersect, I quilted a diagonal line. 

Now, I've finished the horizontal sashings. If there's time today, I'll start on the vertical sashings, and I'll do the "cross" of the crisscross there. I left it needle down right here. 

From there, I was ready to start sewing together the first block for the Stair Steps project. The first one has a pink diagonal running from corner to corner. When it was time for me to leave, I had it mostly sewn together.

When I returned home, Smitty joined me to help finish it off.

There it is...the first of five blocks. In this row, there will be one more pink.

There was time in the day to start on the second block. The second block has a yellow diagonal. I had the pieces laid out when I needed to stop. If I have time for sewing today, I'll start sewing this one together.

And I'm happy to announce that Mike's new 3D Printer has arrived. His first printer looked like this:

Think of this like a sewing machine. The print head at the top was adjustable, but stayed stationary while it printed. As it printed, all the movement was from the "plate" at the bottom. The new one looks like this:

Kind of looks like you could use it to cool some soft drinks, doesn't it? Now, I can't explain much about this, but I'm told by the Resident Retired Engineer that the print head moves on this one, and the plate stays stationary. This means that tall things can be printed without having the movement of the plate cause them to topple over. Also, it's an enclosed space, which means he can use heat for some of the filaments. If he wants to, he can print with filaments that produce noxious fumes. There is an attachment that allows the fumes to be vented out a window.

At the top...these spools of filaments. His are all neutral colors in this picture.

But he has some other colors in the stash beside his desk.

Already, he's happily printing away...for now, mainly stuff that is used with the printer. And if you know how it feels when your sewing machine is in the shop for a spa treatment, consider how Mike has been mooning around the house waiting for his new printer to arrive. Death was imminent. Phew. Close call.

Speaking of close calls...Smitty. He's sitting close by as I'm writing, enjoying a morning sunbath. It's his favorite time of the year when the sun shines through the windows in the morning.

Okay, so today is the day we've designated to plant our vegetable garden. We'll put up our little fence to mark the boundary between the "groomed" part of the garden and the rather chaotic "bee garden." This will be our first garden since 2023. (We were traveling in 2024 and 2025.) It's going to be much smaller than the one you see in the image below, but we'll use the same little fence you see at the far end.

The garden in the image above was rather disappointing. The critters killed the green beans. They ate all the carrots. They gnawed at the beets. Thus, we're not putting as much work into this year's garden. We'll plant a few rows of corn, and I'll try the green beans again. We have an idea how to plant them in such a way they'll be protected from critters. I'll show you when we have it set up. Also, zucchini. Is it possile to have a proper vegetable garden without zucchini? I think not. Also, there will be pickling cucumbers. And, of course, lots and lots and lots of sunflowers. This year I'll also plant some zinnias. I don't expect this planting effort to take all day, but it does have a way of taking all of one's energy. Whether there will be any time/energy leftover for sewing is anybody's guess.

Okay, and we're expecting a warm day today, so we're going to get out early. That means now. Hopefully, I'll have something to show you tomorrow. I'll have something...but it might not be sewing.

Home Stretch

Good morning, my friends. It's a day for celebration. Today will be my last day of physical therapy. As I've grudgingly admitted, it has been very helpful. I was to return to the doctor tomorrow, but I canceled that appointment. My shoulder isn't completely pain-free, but it's improved enough that it isn't a constant annoyance. When I got into bed last night, I realized I hadn't thought about it all day. For now, I'll just keep doing the PT exercises at home. Surprisingly, it feels better on days when I do some exercise.

I've finished quilting all the blocks for the Homestead quilt. This first one is called "Anvil."

Here's how that looks from the back.

For this big Log Cabin, I used a motif I saw on Pinterest, which consists of diagonal lines round and round and round.

Here's how that looks from the back

Finally, this block called "God's Eye."

On the back, I didn't quite capture the whole thing in my image, but you get the idea.

Now, I've left it needle down at the middle horizontal sashing. Today's goal is to quilt all the horizontal sashings. I'll do the vertical ones tomorrow. After that, it will just be the outer border, and then it will be ready for binding.

From there, I checked on the watering in the greenhouse and took a walk around the yard. The Coral Sunset peony is fully opened now. There are two open flowers and many more coming.

Also, another flower has opened on the Edda clematis. Neither of these is completely open yet. When they're open, you won't see the ruffly edge to the petals.

And I noticed I could see the cherries on the cherry trees at a distance. It's going to be a big crop this year.

Back inside, I made good on my promise to get started on Row 5 for the Stair Steps project. Thankfully, Smitty was there to keep me company while I did all the cutting.

If you can remember, each block has a common color running diagonally from corner to corner. In this row of five blocks, there will be two pinks, one yellow, one blue, and one purple. I've cut all the blocks for those parts. Also, I've cut the "stair steps" from neutral fabrics. In some cases, I'm using the back side of the fabric.

And then, each block requires an additional 32 scrappy blocks. When I cut these, I neglected to subtract the eight common color blocks, and so I ended up cutting 40. I can use the eight additional ones on the next block.

As I dig through my scraps looking for appropriate pieces, I'm cutting as many as I can from each one and tossing the extras in a bin to be used on other blocks. Now that I've cut everything for the first block in the row, the remaining blocks will not require as much cutting (if that makes sense).

Before I sat down here, I started some laundry. It's early for something like that, but I want to get it finished before I need to leave at 2:00 p.m. Leaving mid-afternoon makes for a short day. The bird feeders are empty again, and so I'll need to fill those. I'll check on the seedlings at the same time. We're hoping to get started planting our vegetable garden tomorrow. The garden will be small this year, and we have the next four days to do it. Rain is forecast for Monday, and so the time is now. I don't expect it will take longer than a day.

As for the rest of today, my first priority is always going to be the quilting. I'll aim for getting the horizontal sashings done today. If there's still time in the day, I'll get started sewing together the first block for the Stair Steps quilt. With a shortened day ahead of me, it's best I get started. It's Hump Day today, and with it being my last day of physical therapy, it feels celebratory at this end. What are you celebrating today?