Good morning, my friends. All my to-do's were finished early yesterday, and so there was lots of time for sewing. Three more blocks were quilted on Grandpa's Bridges. I'm just adding quilty details to the embroidery.
Here's another peek at the back.
That completes the two bottom rows of blocks. I'll start on the top two rows today.
After that, I moved to the sewing room and finished the fourth of six rows for the Zebra project.
Here's what I have for this quilt so far. I won't sew the bottom three rows to the top until they're all finished. It'll help with the bulk.
The only other noteworthy thing to happen yesterday was the appearance of the deer. No sign of his family this time. He was at the far end of our field, and so I was zoomed way in to capture this image.
Probably, I’ll be spending some time in the kitchen today. We’re out of our breakfast goodies, and so I’m going to make some Jumbo Breakfast Cookies. Usually, I only make those when we travel, but since it says “breakfast” right in the name, I figure they’re fair game.
There should still be plenty of time for quilting. As I’m writing this, I’m not sure I’m going to work on the Zebra today, even if there’s time. It’s been my focus for several days running. As much as I want to finish it, I’m also wanting a break from it. It might be good to take a day off. So, yeah…you guys just talked me into it. Maybe I’ll just spend any extra time on my slow-stitching. That always helps me relax. It’s like taking a little vacation in my chair with my feet up. If I’m really lucky, I might get a cat in my lap.
Good morning, my friends. We had an epic grocery list yesterday because we hadn't been to the grocery store in nearly two weeks. On our way home, we passed by this pretty tree decked out in its fall colors. I've seen a few of these around with three colors of leaves on a single three.
Thankfully, the shopping was all done and the groceries put away before noon, which left me lots of time in the day for sewing. My first stop was to clip the Cats in Pajamas and get started hand-sewing the binding. Before I stopped for the day, I'd turned the first corner.
From there, I spent the rest of the afternoon on the Zebra quilt. The first four blocks are finished. I've sewn together the three blocks on the left. I'll sew the fourth and fifth blocks together before I sew them to the rest. When I had it this far, I needed to cut more squares in every color. That took up the rest of my sewing time for the day.
Before I turned out the lights, I laid out the squares for the fifth block. I should have plenty of time to sew this together and complete the first of six rows.
The only other thing I have to tell you about is making these biscuits for last night's dinner. We'll finish them off tonight. We had some leftover chili, but we'd eaten all the cornbread I made last week. These Cheddar Bay Biscuits...a copycat recipe from Red Lobster…seemed like a good accompaniment for our leftover chili.
So there's not a lot going on today. I have a couple of things on my to-do list, but it's going to look a lot like yesterday. Hand-sewing will continue on the Cats in Pajamas, and I'll keep making blocks for the Zebra until I run out of time. Since I'm getting my hair cut tomorrow, I'm hoping to get in a good day of sewing today.
When you looked outside this morning, did the sky look a little bluer than it has been in a while? The future is looking just a little brighter this morning. Have a celebratory day, Everybody!
Good morning, my friends. Well, my extra hour in the day stretched to accommodate all my favorite activities: Cats, Gardening, Quilting, Cooking, and Photography. So let's just see where it all began.
In the cooking category, I baked a batch of Chocolate and Pistachio Biscotti. I've made these before, and they're supposed to be dipped in more chocolate. We liked them as is, and so I bagged the whole chocolate dip at the end. These will be nice with our morning coffee.
Biscotti isn't hard to make, but it is a time-consuming process.
In the gardening category, it was nearing lunch time before I was able to get out and cut back the dahlias. They're safely stowed in the garage for the winter now. While I was doing that, Mike very cleverly gave the poppy a new barrel. You can see one of the older, falling-apart barrels in the background of the image below. We'll switch that one out next spring when we plant next year's cherry tomato.
As for the poppy, Mike gave this quite a bit of thought. He first removed the wood and rings from the old whiskey barrel, which left him with a sort of "poppy cake." It was too heavy to lift into the new barrel, and so he took a machete and cut it into fourths, like a pie. Then, he could safely lift it into its new barrel while barely disturbing the plant. Yay! I've been worrying about accomplishing this without destroying the plant. Now, it's done and ready for blooms in the new year.
In the photography category, I noticed this perfect spider web on one of our red-leaf maple trees. I'm assuming the spider was inspired by Halloween. So, of course, I needed a picture of that. We often get these big garden spider webs this time of year, but it’s rare to find one that goes the full 360 degrees.
In the quilting category, I was ready to quilt the border on the Cats in Pajamas. I scrolled through heart motifs on Pinterest, eventually settling on this one. It's really just a heart-shaped feather.
That was pretty easy to do on the quilt. It took about an hour, and the quilting was finished. It's a little hard to see, but you can get a look at it along the left side and the top of the image below. From there, I took it downstairs to square it up.
In the cat category, or cat-egory, Sadie took one look at that and claimed it.
This looks like a delicious spot for a nap.
Why yes, I think this will do purrfectly.
It took some convincing, but eventually she decided to nap in the bed provided for her in the sewing room. That gave me an opportunity to square it up. I might have sewn the binding on, but I was kind of tired of wrestling with it by then.
Besides...the fabric had been delivered for Matthew's Zebra quilt. I'd hoped for a little more contrast between the two in the upper left, but this will do.
So, I started by cutting one 4-inch strip from each color. (I already had the white in my stash.) Those were cross-cut into 4-inch squares. I can get 10 or 11 from each strip.
The original grid is 25 columns by 30 rows. (I've added two rows to each side to make it queen sized.) So, I drew a 5 x 5 grid on the pattern, and I'll make it one grid-block at a time. There will be 30 blocks in all...six rows of five blocks.
Now I've done the cutting and laid out the first block. I was getting kind of tired of sewing by then, and so I covered it with rulers and left it there.
Today I'll start sewing it together. Before I do that, however, I'll get the binding sewn on the Cats in Pajamas by machine. Hand-stitching will probably commence tomorrow. If I’m feeling really energetic, I’ll sart on it this afternoon.
So that was a busy day. While I was waiting for various baking times on the biscotti, I was able to get my to-do's for both yesterday and today finished. Today is going to be all sewing, all the time. Probably I’ll do the laundry, but laundry and sewing are a good partnership. I'm hoping to have a lot accomplished by day's end. Happy Moanday, Everybody!
Good morning, my friends, and welcome to November! Sheesh. Can you believe we're into the "holiday season" already? And it’s my favorite time change of the year. For the past week, I’ve been making a list of all the things I’m going to do with my extra hour of time.
Truthfully, time seems to fly by any more. I feel as if we just got home from last winter’s trip south. It makes me think of a conversation I had with one of my graduate school professors. Her name was Maria, and her social work career was spent working with the “frail elderly.” I recall her saying once that she asked her clients, does time just seem to go faster and faster as you grow older and older? Yes, was the answer. I believe it.
We won't be heading south this year, and so we'll get to experience the crappy winter weather here in the Pacific Northwest first hand this year. It's okay by me. I'm just as happy to stay home, but I will miss seeing our SoCal friends. Today is going to be relatively nice. We’re going to get outside and do a little yard work. Gazing out the window at the moment, it’s still foggy, but we’re confident it will burn off.
But let's just back up for a minute and talk about yesterday's sewing, shall we? The first stitches were taken on the Snow Day project.
And this being the first of the month, it's time to set a goal for November's
My goal for November will be to complete the embroidery for the Snow Day piece.
As I was packing things up to move on with the rest of my day, I glanced out the window to notice the color on one of our showier trees. No color editing on this...it really is that red.
Okay, and I had a couple of easy housekeeping chores to do, but then I went to work finishing up November's gold star. I needed to make and trim 24 HST's.
And then, I could sew it all together.
And, yes. I'm feeling pret-ty smug about having November's star done already. Here are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.
Since there won't be a new color in December, I'm already thinking December's star will be pulled from my "multi-colored" bin with a focus on fabrics with a black background.
From there, I was ready to get busy quilting the Cats in Pajamas. My goal was to quilt the eight "spacers." Each was done with this same upsy-downsy heart motif.
When they were all finished, I laid it out for a picture. In this image you can see all the different motifs I've used on this quilt so far.
Here's a peek at the back.
Just the border remains for quilting, and I'll make that my first priority for today's sewing. Probably I'll do the same "half-hearted" motif I used in the vertical sashings, but I want to spend some time on Pinterest looking at other heart-related motifs I might use in the border. With any luck, this will be ready for binding by day's end.
If I can get the border finished, I'll move directly to squaring it up and machine sewing the binding. The binding is from that same background fabric pictured above.
My next project is on hold just now. I'm awaiting the fabric I ordered before I can get started on Matthew's zebra quilt. My tracking number promises it will arrive today. I'm hopeful.
Also, I'm hopeful y'all survived this year's Halloween visitors. Sadie went dressed as a black cat.
Every year...same costume. You'd think she'd outgrow it, but she is a small kitty.
Today will probably be our best day of weather for the week, and so I'm going to cut back the still-blooming dahlias. It's time to be moving them into the garage for the winter. Mike will load them into the tractor bucket for that since the individual pots are pretty heavy.
Also, we’re going to try to transplant the poppy into a new planter. We started with five whiskey barrels shortly after we moved into our home in 2002. Over time, they’ve rotted and fallen apart. So far, we’ve replaced two of them. The poppy needs to be done now so that it can grow again in the spring. (I might end up having to reseed it.) That will probably wrap up my year of gardening until next spring.
Next spring, we’ll endeavor to replace the other two whiskey barrels. One has our cherry tomato growing in it, so that will be easy enough. The other has mint growing in it. We could probably just fill the new barrel with soil, and then set it beside the current rotting mint barrel. It would probably start growing there all on its own. If you’ve ever grown mint, then you know I’m not kidding.
So for today I'll focus on getting the Cats in Pajamas to binding stage. Also, I have a couple of easy housekeeping chores. Mike has requested biscotti, and so I’ll probably do that too.
Happy November, Everybody. And if you haven't voted already, please do. Our democracy is counting on you.
Good morning, my friends. Things are pretty much back to what passes for normal around here. Our weather hasn’t been as bad as anticipated. We get a little rain each day, but then we can also get blue sky and puffy white clouds. It’s cooler than earlier in the month, and it seems some kind of coat or sweater is a good idea when we’re out and about.
So I got my pedicure and had some lunch when I got home yesterday. Then I went to work quilting the vertical sashings on the Cats in Pajamas.
Today I’ll aim to get the eight horizontal spacers quilted. I’d call them “sashings” except they don’t extend all the way across. With the blocks offset as they are, they’re really just spacers. In any case, I started my upsy-downsy heart motif in the first one, and then left it needle down for today’s quilty pleasure.
From there, I headed to the downstairs sewing room. As I glanced out the window, I saw three deer! Happily, I already had my camera in my hand. Here’s the doe and her fawn.
And there’s John. You might have heard of him…John Deer? That must be the rest of his family. These are Columbian black-tailed deer.
Okay, well, I’m only sharing two pictures, but I probaby took about 100 of them.
So, it was a little later than I’d hoped getting October’s star sewn together. It still needed a border.
And that’s done. I’d hoped to get the gold one started today, but I ran out of time. I spent a little time picking through that bin, and I think I have enough gold scraps to pull it off.
Okay so today is going to be kind of a kitchen day. I’m going to start some chili in the slow cooker, and I’ll make some skillet corn bread to go along with that. Then, I had in mind to try a new recipe for Cast Iron Hot Fudge Pudding Cake. The recipe makes a big 10-inch skillet, but I’m going to scale it down to make it a dessert for 2. Of course, I’ll share the link if it’s any good. And since I’m already using my small skillet for corn bread, I’m going to have to rob the skillet from the camper. Where there’s a will there’s a way.
So…plenty on the day’s agenda. Time to get to it. Have a good Friday, Everybody!
Good morning, my friends. Well, I skipped a day of blogging, and so I have a lot to show you. Happily, my dental appointment is behind me, and I'm good for another year. And, look ma! No cavities. Always a good outcome.
Backing up to Monday morning, I cut back the peonies to the ground. We'll look for them next spring. For now, I'm enjoying the last gasp of the flowers. This first one is the Firefighter dahlia. When we left on our trip mid-September, it had not a single bud on it. I was threatening to replace it. When we got home, there were three flowers and more buds. So here’s a handy gardening tip: If fertilizer, water, and TLC don’t work, try threats and intimidation.
There are still a few flowers on the echinacea, but these plants are looking pretty well bloomed out. I cut some of the taller stalks that fell over. I’ll let the bloomers stay until they die.
This is the Bumble Rumble dahlia…still blooming away.
This is the Checkers dahlia.
This is the Fuzzy Wuzzy dahlia. I’m going to have to cut these back and move them inside the garage soon. They’re still blooming to beat the band, so I guess we’ll just watch for the first freezing temperatures and let them carry on until then.
These are zinnias. I enjoyed the heck out of these.
Another zinnia. I might plant a whole row of zinnias next year. They brought me great gardening joy this year.
These next ones are all in the bee garden. My phone calls me this next one is Clarkia.
This is coreopsis. This is a new one to the bee garden this year.
The Black-eyed Susans are new too. I think I might have bought a separate packet of seeds for these and mixed it into the Northwest wildflower mix.
This is mallow…another newbie to the bee garden.
This is our old friend godetia. It is well-established in the bee garden.
If you’ve been following for a while, then you might remember that I have a large vegetable garden plot. When it started feeling like too much to care for, I made the vegetable portion of the garden smaller. Still, there’s a large fenced area, and just letting the unplanted portion go to weeds was dispiriting.
About five years ago, I started throwing out pounds of wildflower seed to try to establish color there. This has been the most gratifying bee garden so far. Lots of new flowers have appeared, and the previous newbies are filling in more and more. There is still plenty of weedy tangle, but the flowers are nice, and the bees love them. It’s gotta be good for the vegetables, right?
Speaking of gratifying, Smitty is back in his happy place on the corner of our deck. It’s good to be home.
There’s been precious little time for sewing this week, but I grab a half hour here and there. I filled in my embroidery hoop…
And then moved to the next position.
And then I pretty well filled that in too.
So I moved my hoop to encompass the last of it. I’ve stitched even a little more since I took the picture below. I’m expecting to finish this today.
Okay, and making progress on my quilts-to-be-quilted pile is still my first sewing priority. Quilting has commenced on the Cats in Pajamas. As a reminder, this is what it looks like. I’d planned to do one row at a time, but I’m working with the vertical rows.
It was hard to decide what to do with this. And what color thread should I use? I was leaning toward white both top and bottom. When I pulled the cover off my machine and found it already threaded with those colors, I was satisfied that the quilting gods had spoken loudly and clearly.
Speaking of gods…His Worship was there to advise me on the design.
We finally settled on this design by Angela Walters. There’s a little bit of chit-chat at the beginning of her video. She’ll start sewing about a minute in, and you can see her design.
I’m doing it block by block. I liked the wavy lines part of this design, but I didn’t like how she filled it in. I decided to do a sort of loop de loop design in mine. And how could I do anything without my cat? He helped me adjust my tension.
And then I went to work. Here’s the first block. I’m doing them all the same. So far, I’ve done two of four vertical rows.
Here’s how that’s looking from the back. The quilt is large at 72 x 72 inches, and I feel a little as if I’m losing a wrestling match with it. I have some other ideas about what to do with the sashings, spacer blocks, and the outer border. That probably won’t happen before the weekend.
I’m kind of excited to show you what I’m going to do next. Matthew is an engineer by education and experience. He’s also a musician, and a deejay. He does some gigs on the side, and he’s adopted the zebra as his symbol. Without saying more than I should, I’ll tell you that in addition to being smart and talented, he’s also very funny. (I’m his mom…I have to brag on him a little, doncha know.) Since he was a little boy he’s had a delightfully offbeat sense of humor, and I used to tell him he was the zebra with the horizontal stripes. So, I’m happy to see that he’s embraced that part of himself.
A few days ago he texted the head of a zebra he’d created using AI. (I think he’s trying to create a logo.) I looked at it and said, “I can make a quilt from that.” Well, that got an enthusiastic response, and so that’s what I’ll be working on next. He's requested queen sized.
I have some figuring to do. It’s similar to a pixelated design. Already I’ve decided to cut the pieces to 4 inches (3-1/2 finished). To make it queen size, I'll add two rows of the background colors to each side, following the pattern of colors already there. Cool, huh?
So, I haven’t made any more progress on Northern Wilderness. I’m hoping to get back into the sewing room today, but it’s also a grocery shopping day. It's a terribly long list. Like I said, it’s a busy week. We still have to take Smitty to the vet tomorrow. He seems fine. We’re not expecting any sort of dire news about him, but he’s 14. He’s just like the rest of us. At his age, anything could happen. And then the kids are coming for dinner on Friday. I’m looking forward to that, and we’re keeping it simple, but I have some cooking to do ahead of time.
Okay then. I guess I’ll get to it. Mike has gone back to bed for a while. We'll preward our grocery shopping trip with a trip to McDonald's for our beloved Egg McMuffins. ("Preward." Did you see what I did there?)
