Slow Sewturday

Good morning, my friends. I never actually know what I'm going to tell you when I sit down for these little chats until I take the pictures off my camera. There were only four pictures today, and that tells me I had a slug-like day yesterday. Probably I needed the rest. I hadn't done any slow-stitching the day before, and so I decided to just stitch on this piece until it was done. This is May's block for The Sewing Room BOM from Jenny of Elefantz.

It still needs borders, and then I'll need to make three more pieced blocks. These are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

And that left me with an impending stitching emergency again, so I traced the final three blocks for "S" is for Sew. It's pretty hard to see anything there before I start stitching.

But these are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

It was a nice day. I sat outside for a while, and then I took a nap. It was an easy-going day with nothing on my agenda except sewing. We even had leftovers for dinner. 

Earlier, though, Sadie joined me in the sewing room. She was still a little suspicious of the bears, but knowing I was poking them with my sewing machine needle made her a little more comfortable.

And I spent the whole of my sewing room day top-stitching the bear family. It's surprisingly time-consuming. Now I have everything done except for the noses and details for the faces. I expect to finish the top-stitching early today, and then I can get a start on the rest of the quilt.

I was expecting the extra border fabric for this quilt to arrive yesterday, and indeed, our mail notification said it was "expected today," meaning yesterday. When it wasn't delivered, I checked the tracking info to find it had arrived at our local Hillsboro post office, but then for whatever crazy reason, returned to Portland...it's previous stop. WTF?

Well. I suppose stranger things have happened. Now I'm thinking I won't see it until tomorrow at the earliest, but it's a little worrisome. Why was it returned to Portland? No one can say. It's a mystery wrapped up in an enigma. 

Okay, so I'll keep you posted on the Mystery of the Missing Fabric. Where is Nancy Drew when you need her? For now, I'm going to make some pancakes. And then I'm going to spend most of the day sewing. It's a nice day, though. It would be a good day to get out for a walk, and I might do just that.

Bear Family

Good morning, my friends. It's the last day of April. All along I've been thinking something along the lines of "When May arrives, then we'll have to get serious about..." And here it is. Time to get serious about our trip. As I'm writing, Mike is downstairs working with a small Canon printer I used when we made our trip around the USA Perimeter in 2017. I'm trying to think of a good comparison for size, but nothing is coming to me. Let's just say it's about the size of the average hardback book.

For that trip, I was participating in "The Sketchbook Project." The project began in 2006 in Atlanta, Georgia, and moved to New York City in 2009. A small organization grew into a worldwide community of more than 70,000 artists. For my part, I registered my book at The Sketchbook Project website. My sketchbook was entitled, "One Word Wonders." It included photographs of natural and man-made wonders that we saw on our trip around the Perimeter of the USA in 2017-18. I chose one word to describe each image, which turned out to be more difficult than you might think. The website and the project are shut down now, but, if you're on Facebook, you can see my sketchbook right here. (If you have any interest in backing up and following that trip as we went, the first post starts right here. Just keep hitting newer post, and you can follow the whole 7 months of it, if you dare.) 

And all of that to say it's kind of an ingenious and nifty device. It'll print a 4 x 6 picture. I was using it to print pictures for my sketchbook, but I could also use it to print picture postcards from my own photos. I purchased a whole roll of "forever" postcard stamps, and I still have a good part of the roll of stamps left. So, last night I told Mike I was going to send more picture postcards on this trip, if for no other reason than to use up those stamps. He reminded me of the printer, and so we got it out this morning to see if it still worked...and if we needed paper...or toner...or anything. We plugged it in, and that baby printed out a test page first try with no problems at all. So, that's another waypoint. The printer is ready, but we're not.

Backing up to yesterday morning, I had some time for slow-stitching before we needed to do our grocery shopping. I'm nearing the end of the most densely-stitched portion.

It's about 2/3 of the way finished.

Now, I've moved my hoop to encompass the last of it. I expect there's about three more days of stitching to finish it off.

When we got home from the grocery store and had everything put away, I ventured out to fill the bird feeders. Smitty kept me company while simultaneously harassing the squirrels. (He's very talented that way.)

I noticed some small flowers appearing on the lithodora. These are tiny flowers...no bigger than a dime. Eventually, this will be a carpet of bright blue.

Walking past the poppy, I checked again for signs of any buds. And lookie there! I found one!

Oooh! And look! Here's another one! We'll probably miss them when they bloom. I'm just happy to see buds for now. 

Speaking of buds, this peony is teasing me. Look at all those buds just waiting to burst open. It's going to warm up today and tomorrow. Maybe the warmer temperatures will put it over the top.

While we were out yesterday, we bought some small tomato cages to prop up the dahlias. I intentionally chose varieties that wouldn't get too tall, but they still get tall enough to require staking. We've learned the hard way, however, that just staking them isn't enough. They grow heavy with foliage, flower, and water, and then fall over, pulling the stake over with them. So for this year's crop, we're trying tomato cages, barely visible in the image below. 

The pots also have wire fencing over the tops to keep the squirrels from digging. There is new growth on all four plants now, but the left-most one and the one third from the left are just barely getting started, and those GD squirrels got into both pots through the small opening that allows for plant growth and dug around anyway. So now I've place some wire baskets there just until the plants can grow a little larger and block their own entrance from the squirrels. (I hope that makes sense.) The baskets are just sitting there. When the plants grow a little taller, I'll remove them.

Okay so with that done, I could spend some time in the sewing room. Sadie was shocked...shocked, I tell you...to see that bears had moved into the sewing room.

I tried to convince her they were harmless, but she fled the room anyway. She wants nothing to do with any bears. So, I continued on my way with this bear family. I gave them ears.

And then snouts, noses, and paws. Cute, huh?

If there's time for sewing today, I'll do all the top-stitching. I'll also be stitching in details for the closed eyelids and the noses. Fusing the applique took the whole of my afternoon yesterday. I expect the top-stitching will take a while too.

But before there's time for anything else, I'm going to do a little planting and weeding. While we were picking out tomato cages, I purchased some thyme (mine is nearly dead), some rosemary (which is an annual in these parts), and some catnip (obvi). With the catnip, I'm going to re-establish the Gracie Memorial Catnip Garden. We also have some wild catnip returning from last year, and so the kitties will be well stocked with nip.

Okay, so enjoy what's left of April. Tomorrow we'll be on the downhill side of our preparations, and I'm afraid the time will begin to move faster and faster from here. Oh yes, and tomorrow is the reveal for the "Circus" quilt. I can't wait to show it. 

Sweating the Small Stuff

Good morning, my friends. It's a foggy and wet Tuesday here. We had pretty decent weather yesterday, but it started raining overnight. That's pretty typical spring weather in the Pacific Northwest. We're doing our grocery shopping this morning, and so I'm hoping the wet stuff will stay in the heavens while we're out and about. Grocery shopping is bad enough without having to do one's loading and unloading in the rain.

With yesterday's weather fairly decent, Smitty kept me company while I walked around to check on the flowers.

The lilacs are very nearly open. We have a lilac planted in another area of the yard, but it doesn't get enough sun, and so it has never thrived. We got this one on a Mother's Day many years ago when we found some teenage girls selling them in a restaurant parking lot. The lilacs were volunteers they'd dug up from their own yard. It was small at the time, but it has grown into a very large bush now. At this time of year, it's surrounded by a halo of purple.

Over its shoulder, the dogwood is in bloom.

Around the corner, the clematis is looking very pretty right now.

And the flowers on the azaleas continue to open little by little.

I had a lot to do yesterday with housekeeping chores, planning the week's menu and making up a grocery list, and fitting in a workout too. I almost gave up on the idea of sewing yesterday, but I'd been plotting in my head throughout the day how I was going to add an extra bear to the Sweet Dreams pattern. As a reminder, here's the picture from the pattern.

Since this will be the fourth baby for this young family, I wanted to add in one more bear. I really didn't want to make the quilt any wider, but I was willing if I needed to. So I thought all during the day about the best plan of attack for this. Already, I'd reduced the bear templates to 75%. Then I had to decide whether to cut the fabrics to the size suggested in the pattern, or whether to start larger and give myself room to spare. I had plenty of fabric to work with, and so I decided to start with the suggested dimensions. I cut two strips 36-1/2 inches wide, and then sewed them together.

Then, I created the bears' heads and placed them 1-1/2 inches apart. And yahoo! They fit easily!

Now I've barely fused the centers of the heads with my iron to hold them in place. Today I'll focus on finishing off the rest of the faces, the ears, and the paws. The ears are tucked under the heads, and so I don't want to completely fuse the tops of the heads until I have all the ears added. I think this is going to be very cute.

All right, so that was all the time I had for sewing. And I'm afraid this is going to be all the time I have for writing. I need to eat some breakfast, and then we need to be on our way. The rest of the day is open, and so I'll have plenty of time for sewing later this afternoon. Hopefully the bears will be finished when I check back in tomorrow.

For those of you who like it when I pull out my bullhorn, this is for you:

At the end of March, I saw an ad for a t-shirt online. At the time, I was especially worried about how we Americans would be received when we crossed the border into Canada. I have less concern about that now than I did at the time. And, hey...good on you, Canada! I don't know if y'all are happy with your new PM, but I'm happy you decided to vote in the anti-Trump guy. Honestly, I believe both our countries will be better off if you have someone who will stand up to the Big Cheetoh.

So, anyway, I ordered this t-shirt. I didn't realize at the time that it was coming from Italy(!). It took a full month to arrive with a rather comical tracking history. At no point did they give me a clue where it was in this process, except to let me know it originated in Italy. Every couple of days, I'd receive an update, letting me know it was on the move. But where is it? I kept asking.

Finally, finally, finally...it was delivered yesterday. I plan to wear it while we're traveling through Canada. It's not the nicest sentiment, but at least it's honest.

Okay, and with that, I'll be on my way. Time's a-wastin'.

A Little Sunday Sewing

Good morning, my friends, and welcome to Monday. April is winding up and May is bearing down on us. The merry month of May is when we'll begin our merry journey north, but we're still a few weeks away from that. Nevertheless, it's the start of a busy week, and May will only get busier as we go. 

Today I must make up a shopping list for a grocery shopping trip tomorrow. We might have been able to put it off for a day or two, but we're having the family over for dinner on Friday, and I'll want to do some cooking ahead. Also, I'm having breakfast with my friend, Sue, on Thursday. And then, there's the usual stuff that keeps me busy day-to-day. We're looking at another gray day, although no rain is expected. Warmer weather will come toward the end of this week.

We all had a busy day yesterday. The kitties spent a good part of their day outdoors. They're thick as thieves when they're outside.

Inside, I was busy baking some Carrot Cake Muffins. These turned out really good. They have shredded carrot, golden raisins, and chopped walnuts for a very nice texture. They're also supposed to have a glaze made from cream cheese, but we decided to leave that off. They taste good without the glaze, and that would just add sugar and fat to an otherwise delicious muffin. We thought it would be gilding the lily.

Also, I had some housework to do, and it seemed as if there would be little time for sewing. I was able to make it into the sewing room late in the afternoon, and I had plenty of time to finish two more blocks for the Shop Hop quilt. 

This first one is from Licensed to Sew, which was one of the constellation of shops making up Missouri Star Quilt Company. You can read my post about my visit to Hamilton, Missouri, and all the rest of the shops right here. This was the store where I found the fabric for this block.

And after a day exploring so many quilt shops, what else could I choose but something quilt related?

The second one was from a brand new quilt shop in Moab, Utah, called Never Enough Stitches. I was on the hunt for a particular color of embroidery floss. I didn't find it there, but the store had potential. It was just barely open, and they were still stocking their inventory. I'm looking forward to our next visit to Moab when the store will be more fully populated with fabrics. For this block, I chose this Black-eyed Susan print for all the wildflowers we'd seen along the roadways. The dark orange color made me think of the approaching fall season.

That makes 10 of 16 blocks for this quilt. I'm going to have to shop hard on our journey to Alaska to find six more fabrics to finish it off. What are the chances?

So that completes my list of WIP's projects for this go-round. Next up comes the "Quilter's Choice" section of my whiteboard. I've already done a fun finish and a quilt from a photo. For this turn at choosing something fun, I'm going to make a quilt for a kid...but not the Quilts for Kids charity.

No, this one will go to the fourth child of a high school friend of my son. I've made baby quilts for his other three children...all boys. This new baby isn't due until September, and I'm told it will be their last. (I kinda have an idea they're hoping for a girl. What do you think?) In any case, when I saw this pattern on Pinterest, I knew I'd found the quilt I wanted to make. 

I've reduced the size of the appliqued bear family to 75%, and I'm going to try to add one more bear between the two larger mama and papa bears. It'll be their family of six. And I've pulled these fabrics from my stash. The top three will be for the bear faces and paws. I'll work in that green below as a border, but I'll also use it in the patches that make up the bottom three-fourths of the quilt.

I have only 3/4 of a yard and some scraps of the green, but I was able to score two more yards from an Etsy shop. It comes in three colorways, but the green was mostly sold out everywhere I looked. I found a shop that had the last of its yardage on sale for half price. Score! And then I went in search of a coordinating backing fabric from the same Sleep Tight Teddy Bear line from Riley Blake...the green one on the left:

I'll use that for the quilt back. So I'll have to wait for the bear fabrics to arrive, but I can get started on the upper portion of the quilt. Also, I can start cutting patches for the lower portion. I might decide to add an extra column of patches in order to give myself more room for the extra bear at the top. Ordinarily, I wouldn't start a baby quilt before the baby is born because I worry I'll jinx the outcome somehow. (I know...weird...but that's me.) I'm making an exception this time since I won't have any time for sewing this summer, and I don't want to feel pressured to finish it when we get home. 

Okay, so that's the day I have planned for myself. I'll have to fit in some housework and a Bowflex workout. Also, I'm going to make some trip-related calls today, so I'll be donning my travel agent hat today. (Do travel agents still exist?)

And now...I'll get on with my day and let you get on with yours. How are things going at your end?

Fast Finish

Good morning, my friends. It's a gray, foggy, and rainy day. I wish we could send this moisture to Los Angeles. It's the one day of rain we're expecting. We should be back to sunshine and blue skies by tomorrow.

My day was pretty easy yesterday. I took a walk on the treadmill, and then I went to work baking some Carrot-Apple Muffins with Citrus Glaze. I swear there were a dozen when I took them out of the oven. Mike snagged one before I could get a picture.

In all honesty, I snagged one right after I took that picture. It was tasty with my afternoon cup of espresso.

Probably there was a nap in the mix there, but eventually I made my way to the sewing room. Smitty was there waiting. 

He's understandably concerned about this "bear" quilt in his sewing room.

He was hoping we were going to sew on the binding, and it's not surprising that he'd want to have all those bears bound up. They rifle through everything looking for food, and that is Smitty's exclusive domain.

So, no problem, Buddy. We went straight to work sewing on that quilt binding. I'm happy for an opportunity to use this striped fabric. I can't remember where, when, or why I purchased it. It has a pinky-peachy stripe like the inner border of the quilt along with a very pale green. As you might guess, it's been hard to find a way to use it. It was just right for this quilt. I've been told the binding fabric should be made from something used in the quilt, but I ignore that. My quilt, my rules.

And then I took up a comfortable seat and stitched and stitched and stitched until I'd stitched all four corners.

Just a little bit farther, and my quilt was finished.

Laying it in front of our living room window, I was able to get a better shot of the quilting on the back. I love this design. So simple, and so pretty.

Okay. And so we'll return to our regularly-scheduled programming now. I'm ready to get back to my list of WIPs. Today I'll begin sewing together the final four Scrappy Plus blocks. As I've said ad nauseum, I'm going to love this quilt, but the blocks are a PITA to sew together. I'm glad I'm on the home stretch.

It will probably take at least two days to make the final four. 

That will open up a slot on my WIPs dance card. I have in mind to make something scrappy using my greens and blues. Those bins are stuffed to the gills, and so I'd like to try to pare them down some. I've been looking at a quilt I've seen in one of the Facebook groups I follow called a "Duckworth Quilt." If you're on Facebook, you can find several pdf's and word documents that discuss how to do it in the Scrap Quilt Enthusiasts files. It's a private group, and so you'd have to join the group to see it. You can also see many examples on Pinterest. I've printed out the pages and I'll start working on that soon.

Next up on the list will be to make another row for the Light Frame quilt. It's fun watching the pattern  emerge with each addition.

There is a little bit of housework to do today, and I'll get in a Bowflex workout. Also I'm going to start some split pea soup in my slow cooker this morning. I'll use the ham bone and some of the leftover ham from our New Year's Day ham dinner. Split pea soup was the biggest reason for buying the larger bone-in ham. Aside from that, it'll be a mostly sewing day.

Before anything else, though, I'll get back to my slow-stitching. I'm closing in on a finish for the Bicycles and Lace. It'll be good to work on something else when it's done.