Bears for Binding

Good morning, my friends. How's September treating you so far? It was warm here yesterday, and it didn't really cool off overnight. I'm hoping we don't get another hot spell coming through. It seems like we've paid our dues for the year, doesn't it? (Says the person who spent most of the summer in Alaska.)

Just the border remained on my quilting project yesterday. That was a pretty quick round of the quilt. I used this upsy-downsy heart motif.

When it was finished, I laid it out for a picture.

Here's a look at the back.

When I took it downstairs to square it up, Sadie arrived to subject it to her rigorous snuggleability check. She's a tough critic.

Having passed that last hurdle, I felt confident sewing on the binding. I used the same bear fabric used in the border.

Baby quilts require extra careful snuggleability testing, and Sadie was 'zhausted after that. She lay down for a nap while I readied the quilt for the next step.

Now it's clipped for binding and draped over the arm of a chair. Smitty is keeping an eye on it now. Bears, you know. A cat can't be too careful.

So there's a good chance I can finish this today. Between binding quilts and stitching on the Sashiko piece, my broken thumb (from a few years ago) has been a little achy. I'll stitch for as long as my thumb can tolerate it, but I think I can get it finished.

Speaking of aching, my knee is feeling good enough that I'll get back to my Bowflex workouts this morning. Having learned my lesson, I'll take it very slow this morning, and then ice afterward. There are a couple of other little things I need to do around the house, but mostly I can focus on hand-stitching. It sounds like a good way to spend the day.

For now, I need some breakfast and then I'll get on with the day's wanderings. It has that peaceful, easy feeling about it...sitting and hand-stitching. If I'm lucky, I might get a cat on my lap.

Border Crossing

Good morning, my friends. So that's enough of that three-day weekend stuff. It's time to get back to work. My yesterday started with a trip to our plum tree to pick plenty of pretty purple plums. (Awesome alliteration.) Just look at these pretties...

After selecting a dozen of the most ripe ones, I baked them into this Original Plum Torte.

There's a story behind this recipe: The NYTimes published Marian Burros's recipe for Plum Torte every September from 1983 until 1989, when the editors determined that enough was enough. The recipe was to be printed for the last time that year. "To counter anticipated protests," Ms. Burros wrote a few years later, "the recipe was printed in larger type than usual with a broken-line border around it to encourage clipping." It didn't help. The paper was flooded with angry letters. "The appearance of the recipe, like the torte itself, is bittersweet," wrote a reader in Tarrytown, N.Y. "Summer is leaving, fall is coming. That's what your annual recipe is all about. Don't be grumpy about it." We are not! And we pledge that every year, as summer gives way to fall, we will make sure that the recipe is easily available to one and all. The original 1983 recipe called for 1 cup sugar; the 1989 version reduced that to 3/4 cup. 

It had to bake for an hour. While I waited, I made good on my threat to get back to working out. I walked on the treadmill for half an hour. I started up a new-to-me Ken Burns documentary about the Civil War. (Seems appropriate, no?) There's another one about the gilded age that tempted me, but I figured I'd take them in the order they occurred.

With that out of the way, I could get back to my quilting. I finished the diagonal grid on the patchwork part of the Sweet Dreams baby quilt.

Here's how that looks from the back.

After that, I went to work on the section above the sleeping bears. I used a heart-shaped cookie cutter as a template.

Then, I used a hera marker to draw a heart shape above one of the big bears' heads. 

But wait...there's more. Also, I had a smaller cookie cutter that I could use...

To make a second heart inside the first one.

I did one above each bear's head, centering it in the space available. Then, I used a looping line to connect all of them. Here's how it looked when it was finished.

Here's how that looks from the back.

Now, I've started my trip around the outer border. I'll do the upsy-downsy heart motif here. It's an easy one for me, and so I use it often.

It seems realistic to aim at getting the binding sewn on today, and then this one will be on the home stretch. No word on the arrival of the newest resident of Planet Earth yet. I expect we'll hear something within the next week or so.

It's senior discount day at our grocery store today...first Tuesday of every month. We could wait another couple of days to go, but that discount is enticing. We decided to do our grocery shopping today, and that will hold us until next week. Aside from that, there isn't much on today's agenda except for sewing. 

My treadmill walk from yesterday left me with an aching knee last night. I slowed my pace, but still walked for half an hour. It surprises me that my knee flared up so badly. I took some naproxen before bed, but it still kept me awake for a while last night. Lesson learned. It's probably best to give myself at least a day off before getting back to the Bowflex. (And it's also an excellent excuse.)

So that's my day. It's time for some breakfast and slow-stitching, and then we'll be on our way.

Plan B for "Better"

Good morning, my friends. Happy Labor Day and welcome to September! Time marches on, doesn't it? Fall will be here soon enough. Our landscape is already showing signs. 

It was a busy weekend for me. Matthew was here on Saturday and spent the day with us. It was good seeing him and hearing about all the things he's involved with. Then yesterday, I had some housework to do, and we also headed down to the neighbors' for an open house. We didn't stay long, but it still took a chunk out of the day.

Despite being busy, there was some time for sewing. I'm off to a good start on the Sweet Dreams baby quilt. I've outlined all the bear appliques.

It's easier to see from the back.

And then, I was ready to start the diagonal grid for the rest of the quilt. My plan was to take the grid to the edge of the quilt on all four sides. I'd planned to skip across the bear appliques, and continue the long grid lines on the other side. For this sort of thing, I absolutely love this "Line tamer" ruler. Since I was taking my lines out into the borders, how could I line up the ruler so the lines intersected with the block intersections?

Well...the ruler makes this so easy because I can line up the markings on the far side with the block intersections.

And then center it across the block. And that tells me where I should start stitching. Then, I just keep sliding the ruler across the quilt until I reach the other side.

Only...ignore everything I just said. It won't work on this quilt because the border is narrower than the blocks. It only works that way if the border and the blocks are the same width. Maybe you figured this out right away, but I had to stitch all the way across from edge to edge on the quilt before I realized it. Oh well. 

So, now I'll just take the diagonal grid to the edge of the border, and then ricochet around from there.

It's about 1/3 of the way finished now. As for my Plan B for "Better," I need to figure out something for the border, and for the area above the bear applique. I have ideas for both, and I'll tell you when I get there.

This being the first of the month, it's time to choose a goal for September's

My goal for September will be to finish quilting and binding the Sweet Dreams baby quilt above, and get it off in the mail to the newest resident of Planet Earth. Insofar as I know, he's not here yet, but he's expected to arrive any day now.

There was some happy mail over the weekend. First, the extra fabric I ordered to finish off the Cats in Pajamas has arrived. Look at the image below. My unwashed fabric is on the left. The fabric I ordered, which had been washed, is on the right. Honestly, I can't tell the difference. It feels just slightly different. The unwashed fabric feels a little more satin-y. Still, if you didn't know, I doubt you'd guess.

So that means I can add the final border to the Cats in Pajamas and finish it off.

 I'll also make a back for it from this fabric. Since posting this the first time, I was reminded it came from my quilting fairy godmother, Ila. Thank you, Ila.

And Ila always knows just exactly what I need. If a thought pops into my head that I need something, I open the mailbox and find a care package from her. You can see why she's my quilting fairy godmother. She knew I was working on a Sashiko piece and that I needed different shades of gray. And look at all these different shades that came with her care package that arrived a few days ago. Perfect. Thank you, Ila.

I'm making progress on my piece. Here's your peek.

So I'll continue on my merry way today. It's going to be a mostly sewing day. Cruelly, I gave myself the assignment of getting back to my treadmill and Bowflex workouts as of September 1st. And, as we've already noted, the day hath arriven. Bummer. So, I'll get going on that today, and try to keep it up until the next time we drive off into the great beyond.

If you've enjoyed the careful spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and questionable grammar in this post, you can thank this cat purrson who serves as my editor-in-chief.

After seeing all those cats in pajamas, he's thinking he'll put his on and take a nap. Oh, but silly me. Cats wear their pajamas all the time. If I could get away with it, I'd wear mine all the time too.

Okay, a starving man is waiting for his breakfast downstairs. I guess it's time for me to save a life. Enjoy what remains of your weekend, Everybody. 

A Finish!

Good morning, my friends. I'm happy to say that the Stitchin' Wisdom quilt is finished! It's my first finish since returning from our trip. It took a while, but I turned the fourth corner before we needed to head out yesterday morning.

And then it wasn't long before I reached the end. I laid it out in front of the window for its picture. Smitty was on standby in case his assistance was needed.

And there it is...a finished quilt. Almost exactly three years in the making. I started this quilt on August 21, 2022, and finished it on August 29, 2025. 

Here's a look at the back.

Already it has a place of honor on the wall beside my quilting machine. It seems completely appropriate for that spot.

It took the place of this quilted panel I finished up last year. I call this quilt "Starburst." It was a quilt-along with Angela Walters.

My son, Matthew, spoke up for it. He likes these densely quilted quilts. When I finished the Dream Big quilt some years back, he spoke up for that right away.

He's coming up for a visit today, and so I'll give him the Starburst quilt. With so many quilts and so little space on my walls, it's good to send some of the older ones out into the world.

Okay, and so we left to do some errands. That took longer than expected. There wasn't much time left in the day when we returned home. Nevertheless, I went to work on the quilting for the Sweet Dreams baby quilt. Mainly, I got the machine set up for quilting. I'm using a pale yellow thread on top.

In the bobbin, I'll use a pale green.

These threads are the same weight as the threads I used on the Stitchin' Wisdom quilt, and so I didn't need to make any adjustments to the tension. It looked good on top.

And the bottom looked good as well.

There wasn't much time left in the day, but I outlined one of the small bears.

Here's how that looks from the back.

I left it needle down on the next small bear. I'll continue to outline all the bears, and then I'll do a diagonal grid on the rest of the quilt.

And that was the end of my sewing day. We had an easy dinner last night. I tried this recipe for Green Goddess Chicken Sandwiches. I didn't take a picture of mine...it's hard to take a good picture of a sandwich. I'm borrowing the one that accompanied the recipe.

This was so easy and tasty. I used one of the rotisserie chickens from the grocery store, and then mixed in the rest of the ingredients. Surprisingly, there is no mayonnaise in this sandwich. It gets its creaminess from an avocado, and so it's relatively low in calories at just 442 calories per sandwich. (We lightly toasted ours.) We had it with some halved cherry tomatoes with a little bleu cheese dressing, and that was a simple dinner to end a busy week.

Okay, and so I mentioned Matthew is coming up to spend the day. It'll be the first good one-on-one time we've had with him since returning from our trip. He'll get here around noon, and then stay through dinner. I'm starting some pulled chicken in the slow cooker, and I'll make some coleslaw. It'll be another easy dinner to end our day, and as a bachelor, I know Matthew will appreciate it. And all of that to say that I'll take the day off from blogging tomorrow. I doubt there will be any time for sewing today, and there won't be much else to talk about either.

That brings me to breakfast. It's time to get on my way if I'm going to get everything done before he gets here. Enjoy the rest of your Labor Day weekend, my friends. I'll be back on Monday.

A Good Day for Slow Stitching

Good morning my friends. Our truck came home yesterday. Unfortunately, it has to go back again today. The air conditioner is working again, but not cooling very well. Probably it needs more refrigerant added, and we're hopeful that will fix it for good. If not, then I don't know. We're told it was an electrical issue, which would explain why it came on at times for a few minutes, then shut off again. Possibly some critter had chewed the electrical harness, but I'm no expert. It's a common occurrence here. Critters. Can't live with 'em, can't seem to live without them, despite the hard work of two hunter cats.

Okay, so what's going on sewing-wise? Well, I finished the second section for Block 6 of the Raggedy & Friends project. I'll set this one aside until its turn comes up on my list of WIP's, and then I'll sew the block together.

With that finished, I took a walk around the yard and filled the bird feeders. Pretty much anything that blooms has bloomed out this late in the season. The dahlias are still going strong, though. This is the newest flower on the Fuzzy Wuzzy dahlia.

There are several flowers coming on Checkers.

This one has yet to bloom, and until yesterday, I hadn't seen even a single bud. Last week, I noticed the leaves had a yellow cast to them, and so I gave it some fertilizer. Now...maybe...I think this might be the first tiny bud forming.

It's the "Firefighter" dahlia. When it blooms, it looks like this. Fingers crossed we'll see some flowers from it this year.

The quilting is finished on the Stitchin' Wisdom quilt. Yesterday, I finished off the outer border.

In the corners, I did a stylized heart. I've done this before. It was a little more tricky doing it in this larger space. The cornerstone is about 3-1/2 inches.

And that finished it off.

It's hard to see the quilting on this, even from the back.

When I spread it out on my table to square it up, Sadie gave it the all impurrtant snuggleability test. There's no point finishing off the binding if it fails this crucial test. She gave it five stars.

So I went ahead and sewed on the binding.

And then I sandwiched the Sweet Dreams quilt. It'll be next under my quilting needle. I'll do a diagonal grid on this, but I'll skip over the bears. For those, I'll just outline the appliques.

When it was sandwiched, Sadie checked it for snuggleability too. It's a baby quilt, and so snuggleability is extremely impurrtant.

Okay, and that was enough sewing for one day. I took the Stitchin' Wisdom quilt upstairs and clipped the binding. Now it's draped over Smitty's favorite napping chair. He's been keeping an eye on it ever since.

Today I'll get started on the Sashiko piece. Also, I'll do some work on the quilt binding. I wouldn't expect to finish it in a single day, but sometimes I just keep going, and going, and going, Energizer bunny-style. As I mentioned, we're taking the truck back. We'll drop it off and then do our grocery shopping. We're hopeful that will be enough time. It'll be my fourth trip into town in four days, and we'll also have to go into town tomorrow. Oy. That's too many days away from home in a row for this homebody. And that's what will make this a good day for slow-stitching. Sometimes I need it just to settle myself down.

Okay, so off I go. I have a little time to work on the Sashiko piece before I hit the shower. Despite all the running around, slow-stitching is going to save the day.