A Little Finish

Good morning, my friends. It's another day of beautiful weather here at the Three Cats Ranch. We're expecting good weather through the weekend, and it has been whole-heartedly welcome by us rain-drenched Oregonians. When I finished my slow-stitching yesterday, I took a walk around the house to see what's new.

A squirrel was there to welcome me. S/he looks as if s/he's cold. 

Just behind him/her, I noticed the bleeding heart is blooming. It has lots more flowers coming.

Smitty accompanied me on my walk. He checked for any buds on the poppies. Nothing so far. We don't usually see these bloom before Memorial Day, and so I'm afraid we'll miss them this year.

The echinacea are showing signs of life. We let the fall leaves cover them during the winter. It gives them a little insulation from any snowfall.

I'm seeing lots of buds on the Edda clematis. We might see some flowers from this fairly soon.

The first color is appearing on the azaleas. This one, in particular, is so bright in color, I usually have to turn down the saturation on my camera.

We're seeing more flowers and red leaves from the Andromeda.

At the front of the house, we have some wild strawberries that serve as a ground cover. I was snapping a picture of one of the flowers when this mason bee photobombed me. The air is positively abuzz with these guys right now. With fruit trees in bloom, it's their time to shine. The wild strawberries produce a very small berry. They're not particularly good for eating, but the squirrels love them.

I noticed one of the rhododendrons showing the first bit of color. I expect we'll see some big flowers from these before the weekend is over.

Another of the new daffodils has bloomed. I'm afraid this picture doesn't do them justice because of the shadows. It's a smaller daffodil...a mini...and it has a white center. It's a "Yellow Pipet" daffodil.

It's hard to see in my photo, but here's one I found online.

In other yellow news, the tulips are blooming. The deer are missing out on eating them so far. The deer seem to prefer them when they're still in bud stage, so maybe these are safe.

This next one isn't a very good picture. I might have to break out my DSLR and macro lens to get a better shot. This is a Japanese maple tree. It produces these eensy-weensy itsty-bitsy flowers. They're no larger than the head of a glass pin. The bees absolutely love them. The tree is literally buzzing with activity. It's hard to think they can get much nectar from such a tiny flower, but possibly if one has the right equipment, one can manage it.

Back inside, Smitty was hoping we were going to trace something. 

But no. We were there to finish off the Blue Blazes mini quilt. I was engaging in a day of rest, and so I was keeping it pretty simple. Happily, I pulled out a perfectly sized scrap of batting first thing. 

Considering how to quilt it, I decided to keep it simple. And, in truth, I really like how a simple diagonal grid looks. If it's appropriate for any quilt, I'll usually default to this straight line look.

Here's how it looks from the back.

Sadie was happy about keeping it simple. It allowed her to focus on being adorable.

With the quilting finished, I squared it up and sewed on the binding.

And then I spent the next hour or so finishing the hand-sewing. And there it is...16 inches square.

Here's how it looks from the back. I might have held the camera straighter, but I was blinded by the bright sunlight. (It's as good an excuse as any.)

So, happily, I have another day of nothing but sewing, if I choose. There are no housekeeping chores on the calendar, and we have leftovers for dinner. I'll get back to my slow-stitching next. 

In the sewing room today, I'll endeavor to sew these "Kitchen Herbs" blocks into a finished quilt top.

You might recall I purchased these fabrics to finish it off.

The one on the left was for the Raggedy and Friends block backgrounds. The two pinks on the right are the ones I'll use for the Kitchen Herbs. If memory serves, I've also pulled a nice green to include along with the pink...a color combination I like.

With such pretty weather, it's very tempting to get out for a walk. I'll see how I feel when I finish my slow-stitching. It's going to be a good day, and the best time to start a good day is right now. 

Another Waypoint

Good morning, my friends. Before I go on, I need to mention that today is Tortoiseshell Cat Appreciation Day.

Please feel free to honor Sadie in any way you choose. She isn't purrticular, but she does keep score.

Moving on...our dinner with the neighbors was very enjoyable last night. We have nice neighbors, and so it was fun getting together. Now everyone is checked out on the alarm system. They have their own keys and codes for turning off the alarm. Realistically, probably nothing will happen, but it's good to be prepared. And count last night's dinner as just another waypoint on our journey to Alaska. 

We once left the kitties home while we went on a short camping trip. The alarm sensors are supposed to be "pet proof," but I believe they miscalculated when it comes to cats. Cats can get up high and within the zone where motion is detected. It's only a guess, but we believe the kitties set off the alarm on that journey. One of our neighbors texted us to let us know a sheriff was at the door and our alarm was sounding. We were able to get it settled even from a distance, but it's way better to be prepared.

So it was another busy day in the kitchen yesterday. The morning was spent making and baking a Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake. Yum.

I've given you the link, but you'll need a subscription to America's Test Kitchens to open it. If you want the recipe, you can email me, and I'll be happy to send it along. It was lunch time by then, and I was still in my pajamas. The rest of the dinner could wait until later in the day, and so I made myself civilized and then spent some time in the sewing room.

Surprisingly, I was able to finish the newest Kitten in a Teacup block in a single afternoon. Having made both versions of the block twice now, I'm having fewer problems with errors. Any errors from yesterday were mainly from being in too much of a hurry. First, I made the face. This block was made to look like Smitty, and so I gave it green eyes and a pink nose.

Next, I added the paws (white socks for Smitty) and a striped tail. There was only 3-1/2 inches to work with in that piece, and so it was a little tricky adding in the stripes. 

And then I just needed to add the rest of the cup, and it was finished.

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

So, I've spent the past two days on my feet most of the time, and I was exhausted by the time I went to bed last night. Possibly I was asleep before my head even hit the pillow. I'm feeling better this morning, but still kind of worn out. I don't feel this way when I make a dinner for our family, and so I can only think it was the added stress of neighbors coming to visit that had me so exhausted. Either way, I'm giving myself a day off today. I'll do nothing but sew and sleep. Sounds perfect, no? 

For today's effort, I want to sandwich and quilt the Blue Blazes quilt. It's only about 16 inches square, and so it's possible I could quilt and bind it in a single day. 

It'll all depend on how much energy I have. The focus today will be on resting and refueling. If you've enjoyed this post, you can thank Smitty for his careful editing. A more purrfect editor doesn't exis....

Oh. Well, apparently blog editing is terribly boring. So, if there are typos, you can thank him too. 

As for me, I'm going to do some slow-stitching. And if I feel like it, I might take a morning nap. It's going to be an NBS day, but it's also a "Me" day. I'm going to do whatever Me wants to do. It's important to be cooperative.

OMG: It's a Finished Flimsy!

Good morning, my friends. It's something of a red letter day. The sun has moved into the propurr position for Smitty to get his morning sunbath. When I left him downstairs just now, he was grooming himself. When one is settling in for a nap, one must have every single strand of fur in place.

He's looking pretty self-satisfied, isn't he?

Happily, I've finished the quilt top for The Story of My Day, and I can move on to something new. I didn't really expect to finish it when I made my way to the sewing room yesterday afternoon, but it all worked out. 

The morning was spent baking some Chocolate and Pistachio Biscotti. This was Mike's choice for our next morning snack. It comes out nicely crunchy. 

It was nearly lunch time by then. I still needed lunch and a nap, and so it was mid-afternoon before I made my way to the sewing room. There, I started on the bottom border for The Story of My Day. First, I pieced together the two windmill sections for the left side of the border.

Smitty helped me pick through my scraps for the windmill pieces.

When they were top-stitched, I could sew the two sections together.

Then, I made the sections for the right side of the border.

When they windmills were finished, I could sew it all together.

And then I could sew it to the bottom of the quilt. And...TA-DA!!

It ends up at 62 x 62 inches. Finishing this quilt top was my goal for April's

and so I'll link up when the party starts in about two weeks.

It was time to stop then, but I grabbed out one of the big pieces of yardage I received in the my recent gift box of fabric. When I first saw this piece, I was thinking it would make a good back for The Story of My Day. What do you guys think?

I worry that it will be too boring if I use a neutral color like this. On the other hand, it goes with the background of the quilt top. Also, if I choose this backing, I can continue using the same off-white thread when its turn to be quilted arrives. I'm not confident enough about my quilting to do anything too forward, and so being able to use the same thread both top and bottom is a plus. I can jazz it up with a fun striped or scrappy binding. So, I'm still mulling this over, and I haven't looked through my stash at all. Still...what do you guys think? Should I use this? Or should I strive for something more colorful?

Okay, so I took time to clean up the colossal mess in my sewing room before turning off the light. When I make my way there this afternoon, I'll be starting with a clean slate. My first task will be to finish of April's assignment for the "Sewing Room" quilt. I've finished the embroidery, but it still needs borders and three more pieced blocks before I can set it aside.

These are all the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

Also, I'll want to make April's Kitten in a Cup. April's color is red, and I'll be making another block like the one you see in the middle.

It will have a longer striped tail like Smitty's tail.

When those are finished, I'll be ready to quilt the mini I made back before Christmas. This is the Blue Blazes quilt. It'll be quilted pretty simply, so it shouldn't take long.

At the top of my list today, though, will be to trace the first block for Le Jardin. I'm going to need something new for slow-stitching very soon.

I'm going to enjoy my Monday peacefully. Tomorrow, I'm going to need to do some cooking. Our neighbors are coming for dinner on Wednesday. On our menu will be some stuffed pasta shells, a Caesar salad, some Italian bread, and a Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake. I can do the pasta shells tomorrow, but the rest will all need to wait until the day of. These sorts of things can stress me out as I anticipate the work involved. Like so many things, the anticipation is always worse than the actual effort. 

So with that, I'll let you get to your day, and I'll get to mine.

Starting to Finish

Good morning, my friends. It ended up being quite a busy day here at the Three Cats Ranch. It was our day to mop the floor. Mike helps me move everything out of the way, and he does the sweeping. Then, it's up to me to do the mopping. For this task, I mopped myself to the door leading to the chamber of horrors downstairs. Then, I walked on the treadmill while the floor dried. All of that took most of the morning.

After lunch, I went to work making the promised Cranberry Ecstasy Bars. It's been a while since I made these, and I'd forgotten what a to-do they are...well worth it, I might add. This is one of my favorite holiday baking projects. It was nearing dinner time when they were finished. After baking, frosting, sprinkling, refrigerating, and glazing, they looked like this.

I only make half the recipe, and I do them in a 9 x 9-inch baking dish. Now they're cut into twelfths for our morning snack enjoyment. It's a process making them. You first bake the "cake." Then it cools completely in the pan. Then, they're frosted with a cream cheese frosting and sprinkled with minced dried cranberries. Then, it goes into the refrigerator for an hour. Then, they're drizzled with a while chocolate drizzle. Yum. And by then, you're pretty well dirtied every vessel in the kitchen. Thank goodness for dishwashers.

Of course, none of this could happen until I'd done my morning slow stitching. I took the first stitches on "Walk the dog." Mainly, I was using up the cut-off bits from the last time I worked on this project. When I'd finished for the morning, I move my hoop to the right to encompass the right side of the design. Probably, I'll be stitching on this for another couple of days.

It was after lunch before I could turn my attention to my other sewing projects. I ended up sticking with my original choice of fabric for the back of the Blue Blazes mini.

And I cut two strips for the binding. The quilt is 15-1/2 inches square, and so two strips will do the job.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I'll need to take breaks from the quilting on Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage. I have in mind to sew the four "Seasons" blocks into a finished quilt top. These are the embroidered sections.

Really, I haven't the foggiest notion how I'm going to sew these into a single quilt. The embroidered sections were created to be individual quilts. Obviously there's no reason they can't be sewn into a single large quilt, but I haven't given a lot of thought about how to accomplish this. I'm still mulling it over. 

Nevertheless, I spent some time pulling fabrics that could be used. I won't use all of these, but getting them out gives me a place to start thinking. I have in mind to stack them one on top of the other, but offset them from right to left...sort of zig-zag style. Clear as mud, right? Well, I have a picture in my head about how this could work, but I can't describe it very well. 

In any case, these are the fabrics I've nominated to be included in the finished quilt top. Probably only one or two will make the cut.

I'm kind of partial to the sunflower batik in the middle, combined with the polka dot in the upper left. There is probably enough yardage in a few of these to make them candidates for a quilt back. 

Okay, but enough of this procrastination. I was dragging my feet a little getting to the start of free motion quilting on Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage. It's one of the larger quilts I've ever quilted by myself, and so it's a little daunting. And since my wrist has started bothering me every time the mention of free motion quilting comes up, it's even more daunting to consider a many-days-long project like this one. As a reminder, here's how the quilt looks.

I'll be using a Bottom Line white in the bobbin. Already I had a bobbin partially wound, and so this was an easy choice. 

For the top thread, I'll use this tan So Fine thread. It's a 50 weight thread, and so it should play well with the 60 weight Bottom Line thread in the bobbin. The So Fine thread was a gift from my quilting fairy godmother, Ila. Thank you, Ila.

As I was setting the machine up, I realized I'd used a Bottom Line thread for my last project, and so the tension was already pretty well adjusted. Testing it out...it looked pretty good. I did loosen the top thread just a tiny bit before starting.

And then there was this...I'd left myself a message from when it was sandwiched. I was telling myself the quilt back was a little short at the bottom left corner, and so I should start the quilting there. 

As a general rule, quilting should start in the middle of the quilt and work outward. The quilt will shrink as it's quilted. Think about it...and maybe this is obvious, but please allow me to finish with my brain fart. If you were to start at the outer edges and work your way inward, you could end up with too much fabric at the center. Thus, the recommendation to start in the middle. But here's the thing...this is much more important with hand quilting. It's less important with machine quilting, but I usually start in the middle anyway. With this note I'd left for myself, I had in mind to start at the lower left corner and work my way across the expanse of the quilt diagonally. I hope that makes sense.

Then, when I actually looked at this trouble spot, it didn't look so bad. I'd laid my tweezers there so you can see where the edge of the quilt back is. It's really not that bad, and I could probably start anywhere I wanted to.

Already, though, I'd made up my mind to start at that corner, and so I did. I'll work my way across the quilt bottom (all pieced blocks) from left to right, and then I'll work my way back from right to left. And I'll just keep working back and forth until I reach the quilt top and a finish.

So I'm doing dot-to-dot quilting, Angela Walters style. This is very simple to do, although it takes some practice to hit those marks accurately.

And then I just continued on block after block...

After block.

And this is working out well because there's a row of half square triangles above the row of pieced blocks, and so I can travel to the block to the right using the same dot-to-dot method.

I'm trying to be consistent, using the same design in identical blocks.

For this rail fence block, I got a little fancier with lines and ruler work.

And then I returned to the curved lines.

When I had it that far, I got a little stuck trying to decide how to travel from block to block when I ran out of the row of half square triangles. Reaching the broom, I spent some time considering how to quilt that block. I have some ideas, but I decided I'd quilted enough for one day. In deference to my bothersome left wrist, it seemed like a good place to stop. 

Here's how it's looking from the back. And this is why I love this dot-to-dot method so much. The patterns that emerge on the back look so pretty. For me, making the back look as good as the front is among the biggest challenges of machine quilting.

So I'll continue on with the quilting and I'll think some more about the Seasons quilt top today. Also, I'm going to make some turkey pot pies from the leftover turkey breast of last week. It's a bit of a to-do making the pot pies, but I'll get four meals from it by the time I'm finished. The filling is dished into 2-cup ramekins and then, for simplicity, I add a Pillsbury pie crust when we're ready to eat them. We'll have one each for dinner, and I'll keep two more for another dinner this week. The remaining four will go into the freezer for some future RV trip. 

It's another busy day ahead. There's no time like the present. Slow-stitching is next.