Lots of Sewing

Good morning, my friends. It ended up being kind of a slow day here. The weather never really cleared up, and so I was deterred from going for a walk. Instead, I decided to stay at home and work with the macro function of my new camera. First, I picked the day's blueberry harvest, and then I just walked around taking close-up shots of things. I have a lot of pictures to show you today.

So...remember all the flowers on the Stargazer lily? Here's a photo I took last week.

Despite all my protective fencing, the deer still managed to eat every single flower. Oh well. At least we got to enjoy it for a little while. I made it to easy for them to get their muzzles into the fencing. Next time, I’ll make it taller.

Walking on, I noticed another flower forming on the echinacea. This is the one known as Cheyenne Spirit.

Growing in among the foliage on the echinacea, I noticed a tall weed. It had this cute little flower. Nevertheless, it was a weed, and I pulled it up and tossed it aside. Usually, when I pull a weed as I walk by, I leave it visible so all the the other weeds can see it. It’s a form of warning off, like a head on a pike.

The Dr. Seussian thing below is the spent blossom of the Edda clematis.

Ooooh…now this has me checking every day. Maybe today I’ll find it open. This is the first flower on the Bumble Rumble dahlia. It’s my favorite of the dahlias.

The Fuzzy Wuzzy dahlia is blooming its guts out.

Lookie here! This is a surprise. It’s the purple poppy I mentioned a few days ago. I was surprised to notice it growing in among the red poppies that are making a comeback this year. And, honestly, I shouldn’t have been surprised because the seeds came from Mae’s garden, and she often gets purple poppies.

What surprised me about it is that the poppies are biannuals. I wouldn’t expect a flower from it this year, but that sure looks like a bud to me. I pressed lightly on it to see if it might be a bundle of leaves. Pretty sure it’s a bud. That will give me something else in the garden to obsess over.

Out in the vegetable garden, I noticed the zinnias are budding out. I grew zinnias in the vegetable garden some years back. They were so pretty, but I didn’t ever plant them again. No reason. This year, I planted fewer vegetables and more flowers. Zinnias made the cut.

The smallest of the zucchini plants has a flower on it. That means all three zucchini plants are producing. Whoa, Nellie. The “Z” wars will be starting up soon.

The green beans are putting out runners. I’m going to have to watch these closely because I want them to climb the poles, and not get all entangled in the protective fencing. Mike wondered if we should remove the fencing. If I can train them, then it makes sense to leave it. And, honestly, maybe it doesn’t even matter if they entangle themselves in the fencing. The green beans are getting a lot of experimentation this year after the disastrous garden of 2023 when the critters bit every single vine off at ground level. It both broke and hardened my heart.

Having checked all the vegetables, I gazed out across the bee garden in search of some new color. I spied a few of these Checker Mallow.

This is a new one…I believe it’s known as a corn poppy.

This next stem hanging its head looks like it could be a poppy too. I had a hard time getting the bud in focus even after taking about half a dozen shots of it. I think the background is simply too busy, and that’s a common problem with macro photography. The camera can’t tell what to focus on. My new camera has the ability to manually focus, although I haven’t tried it yet. I’m usually relying on auto focus.

Okay and the hydrangeas are still showing off.

So that was the extent of my outside time. Back inside, it was time to get started quilting the Shop Hop 3.0 quilt. 

Choosing threads was pretty easy. I wanted something neutral both top and bottom. In the bobbin, I’ll use this OMNI tan. It’s a 40 weight thread.

It’s a close match to the backing fabric.

I had a nearly-empty bobbin already wound. I used most of that checking the tension, and then rewound the bobbin. It’s good to start with a full bobbin

On top, I’ll use this So Fine thread. 

.It’s a 50 weight thread and a good match to the background fabric on top. I believe the 40-50 weight combination was what I was using when I finished off Ruth’s Legacy. My tension was already good.

So, I’ve struggled deciding how to quilt this. I’m stuck on what to do with the front and back covers of the books. I’ve been perusing Pinterest for several days, looking at motifs that could be fillers. I kept stopping at this one:

My sections aren’t square. They are more like diamonds, but I still had ideas about how I could make it work. I spent a while trying to mark the section, but it was hard to see anything I used to mark it. Finally, I marked it with a blue chalk, and then started stitching. And this just didn’t work at all. I didn’t stitch very far, and I took it all out. Back to the drawing board.

Checking my book shelf, I was pretty sure I had the book below…and yes, I did. 

So I looked at her section on diamond shapes. And mine isn’t exactly a diamond either, but I still thought I could make the motif below work.

Mine blossoms out from the bottom of book spine in both directions. (I hope that makes sense.) Also, the “petals” overlap more than in her design. No matter. I like how this looks.

I’s always planned to do a little swirl where the pages of the book are.

It’s a little easier to see what I’ve done from the back. It kind of makes me think of a waterlily. Or maybe a winged insect with his antennae at the wrong end of his body. Or maybe he flies in reverse. Could happen.

Looking at the image above, I’m realizing I could make the petals face the other direction, starting at the top of the spine and going in the opposite direction. Then, it really would look like a winged insect. Nah.

Okay, and I’d only done one block, but I’d run out of patience for this project, and so I called it quits. I left it needle down at the second block, and I’ll make more progress today.

In the downstairs sewing room, I found Sadie ready to get to work.

My first task was to trace the last twelve of the Tiny Treasures. When these are finished, I’ll be ready to sew all 72 into a quilt.

And it’s almost impossible to see anything in that image above, so here’s the page from the book, showing what I’ll be stitching. My goal is always to do one per day.

With that finished, I was ready to get to work on the third block for Where the Cows Come Home. This block is called “Home for the Holidays.”

Sadie helped me choose my fabrics, although she’s pretty possessive about that one she’s holding.

She let me have enough of it to make the block background.

It was the change of shift, and so Smitty helped me with the applique. I think he just woke up.

The applique for these is best done on a pressing sheet. By day’s end, I’d created the structure of the barn. And that took of the rest of the time I had for sewing. I still need to add a door and windows and some other details and then I’ll fuse it all to the background. It should be ready for top-stitching today.

For dinner I tried this recipe for Miso Corn Dumpling Stir-Fry. It was pretty good! I used veggie potstickers (dumplings) because that was all that was available. I substituted broccoli for the zucchini in the original recipe, and I added a one-pound bag of medium shrimp for some protein. It was a stir-fry dish, and so it meant standing at the stove for a while, but it wasn’t hard to make. I’d do it again.

The garden needs hoeing today and I should probably water the flower pots. When those things are done, I can get back to my sewing. I’d say I’m going to take that walk today, but I know hoeing will be enough physical activity for one day. It’s important to pace oneself. A good rule of thumb is to keep a 1:10 ratio of physical activity to laziness. That’s how cats do it, and cats know everything.

Making Progress

Good morning, my friends. There was a lot on yesterday's agenda. Not as much was accomplished in the sewing room as I'd hoped, but there was some progress. Probably I'll end the day with some top-stitching. But first, I'm going to finish off the last of the snowman and the reindeer.

When I finished with yesterday's slow-stitching, I happened to look outside to see Smitty sitting in his favorite spot. He can keep watch on his entire terrortory from this spot, and the sunshine isn't too intense. They were smart to enjoy the sunshine yesterday because we're back to rain today and tomorrow, at least.

Toward the end of the day, I found Sadie stretched out in the afternoon sunshine.

In the sewing room, I finished off the applique for the Outhouse.

I'm making this quilt two blocks per go-round. The next one I'll make is the Loon. Here's the picture from the book.

First, I created the quilt block. 

Some time ago, I mistook the block above for a "Dutchman's Puzzle." Maybe you would too. My friend, Sharon of Vrooman's Quilts, set me straight that time. A Dutchman's Puzzle has the flying geese oriented to form a pinwheel in the center like the one below. (Think of it as a windmill.) 

And the block I made for the Loon background does not. Somehow my brain grabbed hold of this riddle: What is its name if it's not a Dutchman's Puzzle? I asked in a group on Facebook and the answers I got were of two varieties: It's a Dutchman's Puzzle (no, it isn't), or it's pieced wrong (no, again). So I went perusing my bookshelf and started paging through this book.

It has a good index. It took me a bit of flipping back and forth, but I finally found it. When the flying geese are oriented as my block is, it's called "Return of the Swallows." (Polishes fingernails on shirt.) When I first learned to quilt, realizing that all the blocks had names was, for me, part of quilting's charm.

Okay, but I wasn't finished yet. I still needed to add the surrounding pieces to create the background.

Somehow I wasn't in the right head space to start on the applique. I might have packed everything up at that point, but then remembered I needed to trace out my next embroidery project. Next up will be October's block for A Year in the Garden. Probably I won't start on this until tomorrow.

There was still time in the day. The pile of leaders and enders was growing scarily large, and so I decided it was a good time to trim and sort them. Now I'm back to zero with these.

Okay, and then it really was time to stop. I tried this new recipe for dinner last night. This is Butter-Soy Chicken and Asparagus Stir Fry. With asparagus in season, how could I resist?

It's easy to make, but a little unusual. The chicken is marinated for anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours in what amounts to a coating made from a lot of dry ingredients, a little oil, some soy sauce, and a portion of egg white. Then, the chicken is first boiled for 90 seconds before adding it to the rest of the dish. Meanwhile, the vegetables were stir-fried before adding the chicken. After that...some butter and soy sauce is added to the pan making another coating for the veggies and chicken. I'd say it was a "sauce" except that it was too skimpy to qualify. It was easy enough, and it was good. It's not going to win any cooking contests, but I'd make it again. Also, the recipe specifies to serve it with rice. It really could be served with anything, including noodles.

That brought me to the end of my day. Today is still busy. I want to get in a walk on the treadmill, and I have one housekeeping chore on the calendar. Also, it seems like a good day to get the laundry taken care of. There should still be plenty of time to finish the applique on the Loon. If I feel up to it (and there's still time), I'll get started on the top-stitching. It's doubtful that I can finish it all today, but I'll give it a valiant effort.