Tackling Tomatoes Today

Good morning, my friends. It's the day I celebrate and dread all at the same time. Yesterday I picked up 40 lbs. of tomatoes from our CSA farmers. Wanna see what 40 lbs. of tomatoes looks like?

Beautiful, aren't they? We're down to our last jar of pasta sauce, and the last jar of salsa is open in the refrigerator. And not to brag, but I think homemade pasta sauce and homemade salsa taste better than anything available in the grocery store. And so...it's a big job. So far, I'm willing and able to do it. 

I didn't do any canning last year. We haven't had a garden for the past two summers, and I still had enough of everything to get us through the year. So that means I've had a two-year break from canning. Still...what a lot of work. I'm dragging my feet this morning at the thought getting started. Thankfully, our farmers left me a gift watermelon at the pick-up site. That was a nice surprise!

Before heading out yesterday morning, I spent some time on my Sashiko piece. The hand-stitching is very close to being finished now. When I left home, Sadie was snuggled up in her quilt. It's been a while since it's been cool enough for this.

When I got home, I sorted and washed jars and lids. Everything is ready to go for today and tomorrow. There was still time left in the day for a little sewing. My goal was to sew The Sewing Room blocks into a little banner for my sewing room. I first sashed them together in a column.

Then I added a stop border all around.

Then I added side borders, and checked to see if it would fit in its future home. It does. Barely.

And then I added top and bottom borders. I decided to make them a little wider to show off that fabric some more. I might decide to trim a little from each one. I'll give my eyes some time to get used to looking at it before I do any cutting.

It ends up at 12 x 47 inches. I used that same solid lavender to cut binding strips.

I'd selected a couple of different fabrics as potential backs. There was just a little left of the floral...not enough to do much else...and so I decided to use that for the back. Now, I have just a few scraps left.

Now I've listed it under the "Small Quilts for Quilting" heading. It won't have to wait long for its turn. There is one other small quilt ahead of it. I'll use this length of purple ribbon to make a banner-style hanger for it.

So my day will be pretty well filled by tomato tonnage. If there's time for sewing, I'll return to my list of WIPs. 

Next up will be to make the ninth of nine blocks for the Merry, Merry Snowmen. Here's what I have so far:

This is the block I'll be making.

Before I do anything else today, I'll spend a little time on my slow-stitching. And then...tomatoes. Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes. The next two days will be taken up by tomatoes. Wish me luck, my friends. I'm going in.

Coming Up Short

Good morning, my friends. It was another hot day yesterday...98°F at our place, which is very unusual for us. Being at the top of a hill, we're generally a little cooler than they are in the valley. It was a good day to stay in and sew.

There was a little more progress on the Stitching Wisdom quilt. The bottom row of blocks has just one embroidered block. I did that one the same as I've done the others.

At each corner were pieced (and embroidered) blocks. I did a little dot-to-dot quilting there.

There's one more row of blocks to quilt on this. I'll do that today. Tomorrow I'll get started on the sashings.

In the frigid sewing room, I finished sewing together the Cats in Pajamas blocks. 

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I was afraid I would run out of fabric, and I did come up just a few inches short. I need about 26 inches, and I have only 20-1/2. Bummer. This was worrisome because I bought this "Feline Fancy" fabric many years ago. Probably more than ten years ago. 

Happily, I was able to find another yard on eBay. The only down side is that the extra fabric has been washed. Being a light fabric, I'm hoping that won't matter. Probably the color won’t have faded, and I wouldn’t expect a lot of shrinkage either. I only purchased another yard, and so if it's too different, I'll set it aside and figure out something else.

On another happy note, I had a fabric in my cat fabric bin that will work for the back. I can't remember where or when I acquired this, but I have more than I'll need for a quilt back. 

So I'm kind of stuck on the Cats in Pajamas until the extra fabric arrives. As long as I'm waiting for that, I'll get caught up on the Kittens in Teacups. I still need to make a block for June. June's block will be orange. These are the blocks I have for that quilt so far.

It'll be good to be caught up on all my projects, and I can start fresh when September's color is announced.

Today I want to cut the dead foliage from the poppy barrels. We mostly missed their blooms this year, although I did see a few of them before we left on our trip back in May.

Next year's growth is beginning to appear, but it's mixed in with the dead foliage from this year. I want to get out before it gets too hot and give them a haircut.

If I'm going to beat the heat, I'd better get going. Stay cool my friends. September is just around the corner and cooler days are coming.

Catching Up

Good morning, my friends. Day by day the place seems a little more back to normal. We've moved from the big jobs to the small jobs, including little bits of housework. 

Yesterday's small gardening job was to tie up the echinacea into a tidy bundle and let the light shine on the plants hidden underneath. If you look closely at this image, you'll see black spots on the flowers. Those a bumblebees. They aren't aggressive, but I put on long sleeves just in case. You can see the size difference between the pink echinacea and the other two colors on the left.

The dark pink is the Pow Wow Wild Berry.

As I suspected, the Cheyenne Spirit was hiding there too. Now that they can get some sunlight, I expect they'll bloom and grow larger. Also, it's almost impossible to take a picture of these without getting a bumblebee in the mix...not that I mind.

Back inside...it was a small job, but we were all tired nonetheless. We're old. Even the cats. Smitty took his morning nap on his kitty pole.

Sadie deigned to help me in the sewing room, but only if she was purrmitted to nap.

Realizing I needed the embroidered names and places for the next Shop Hop blocks, I traced those first.

But my goal for the day was to make the fifth block for the Raggedy & Friends quilt. I have to keep reminding myself this is a free pattern because, with one exception, I've found a mistake in every block I've made.

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

This was my take-along project for our trip to Alaska. There are still more embroidered blocks to stitch before I can finish the rest of it. I've put it in the regular rotation with my other embroidery projects.

It was too late to start on anything else, and so I spent the rest of the afternoon stitching the names and places for the next Shop Hop blocks.

Making these two blocks will be my sewing goal for today. Also on today's agenda, one housekeeping chore, and then I'm going to make a Skillet Cherry Cobbler. We were appreciative of our neighbors' efforts at keeping an eye on the house while we were gone. We picked up a little something for them at a gift shop in Alaska. We've been plotting how to get it to them with at least a little fanfare. I wasn't up for making a whole dinner, and so I offered to share dessert with them this evening. I hadn't counted on this, but they invited us to come down to their place for dinner, and I'll bring the dessert. Sounds good to me.

Okay, so it's time to get back to my stitching. I'm nearing a finish on the latest block for Grandpa's Bridges. Maybe today will be the day. 

Bloomers

Good morning, my friends! If you thought you were going to get a break from my endless prattle today, then you would be wrong. I'm still mouthing off on a daily basis. For sure though, I'm taking the next couple of days off. We'll be in full-on packing mode, and it's going to get ugly. Trust me. You don't want to know a thing about it. 

On the other hand, things have been looking up flower-wise. Mike was the first one to spot it, but when I looked out the dining room window yesterday morning, I was surprised to see the poppy had bloomed overnight. These tend to show up around Memorial Day, and so it wanted to do its part, I suppose.

It was a surprise to see this one because it was way behind my other poppy barrel. The one by the greenhouse is loaded with big fat buds, and so I was expecting it to bloom first. By yesterday afternoon, one flower was showing itself. When I looked outside this morning, there were two looking just like this one.

Well, flowers blooming will get me walking around outside no matter what time of day. Smitty accompanied me on my walk. It's always good to have your guard cat along. You never know when you might encounter a marauding squirrel or a giant slug preparing to slime you to death. Smitty protects me from the squirrels, but he's let me know that I'm on my own when it comes to giant slugs. How would he ever get that sh*t off his fur with only his tongue to clean up. Ick.

I noticed a third of the Joker peonies was opening, and a bumble bee was having its way with it.

Also, I noticed the Coral Sunset peony has a flower opening. This next image was taken late in the afternoon.

I ventured out early this morning (before my coffee!) to see if it had opened. Not yet. I'm hoping we'll be able to see the whole thing by this afternoon.

Continuing on, the lithodora has created a beautiful blue carpet. The bees love this too.

And I noticed the Burning Bush is sporting tiny yellow flowers. They're about the size of a pea. This bush turns bright red in the fall, and thus the name.

Finally, I checked the plum tree to reassure myself that it is actually producing plums this year. And, yes! These won't ripen until September, and so they'll be waiting for us when we return. There are two desserts I love to make with the plums, and so that will be nice to come home to when our journey is finished.

 

In yesterday's post, I said I was going to give the Spring Flowers top priority, and I did. It's a small finished quilt now. It ends up at 12 x 13 inches.

Here's how it looks from the back.

The Raggedys got some time in the afternoon. I've stitched both faces now. Aren't these cute? I'm going to have fun stitching this one.

So today and tomorrow will be packing days. I'll pack food one day and my clothing and toiletries one day. I'm still trying to decide which to do first. I've already packed some of the food, but I still need to go through the refrigerators and decide what to take along and what to discard. We're taking along an insulated shopping bag and some ice blocks. When we cross the Canadian border, I'll put anything questionable in the bag in case the border agents want to look at anything. It'll keep things chilled until we can stop and put things back in the refrigerator. I'm really, really, really hoping the agents won't want to look inside the camper. It would mean opening all three slides and freaking out the kitties. Freaking out the kitties is something we want to avoid, especially at the beginning of a trip. So there's that.

I've gone through my toiletries noting what needs to be packed, what needs to be refilled, and what needs to be discarded. The laundry is done, and so I just have to decide what clothes I'm taking. Anything I don't need between now and Tuesday was packed yesterday. We're making progress, but we have two full days of work ahead of us.

So, okay. Our drive to our first stop is about 4-1/2 hours, and we're going to try to time our travel through Seattle to avoid rush-hour traffic. (Interstate 5 through Seattle has some terrible traffic, in our experience.) We'll be staying at a state park near Bellingham. If we get in early enough, I'll blog on Tuesday afternoon. If not, then it will be Wednesday morning, for sure. I'll need you guys to help me build  confidence that our border crossing will go smoothly. Please be ready with some encouraging words, okay?

And like I always say to the kitties...we'll see you on the other side.

Final Full Week

Good morning, my friends. Things are about to get real here at the Three Cats Ranch. Real busy, that is. We'll be at home today, but the week starts off with a bang tomorrow when we take both kitties to the vet to collect their CVI (Certificate of Veterinary Inspection). Think of it as the kitty passport they'll need to enter Alaska. And, honestly, they are natural-born American catizens, so they are very put out at this extra hoop they must jump through. And if you don't know it already, kitties are not fond of doing tricks not of their choosing. Sadie won't even discuss it.

Pardon me while I go off on a tangent just now because I happen to know that certain cats will do tricks. We were fortunate to see The Savitsky Cats when they visited Portland some years back. You can see a video of them right here.

Okay, I'm back from my tangent. Let's talk about yesterday, shall we? I baked the Jumbo Breakfast Cookies. These are individually wrapped now and frozen to keep them fresh until the day we leave. These will ride in the truck with us, and we'll have them as a lunch or a snack. They're good hiking food too.

While I waited for those to bake, I finished off the second block for Le Jardin. I really like these.

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

When I laid them side by side like that, I could see that the "seed packets" weren't exactly the same size. It's because the design for the first seed packet was cut off at the bottom on my download. I simply turned the design upside down and finished it up by tracing the pink border the same distance it appears at the top. Now that I've done this second one, I can see it should have been closer to the 15c price. I might need to redo it. For now, I'm just going to leave it and see how the rest of the blocks look when they're finished.

With that finished, I took time to make up the Kitty Lovers Redwork block from Bird Brain Designs. Happily, I have plenty of floss in the suggested color. I have 8 days to finish this. Think I can make it? 

With that finished, I went to work on my quilt binding. I'm probably a little less than halfway around, but the corners are 50% finished. I'll aim for the third corner today.

The rest of my afternoon was spent studying the Milepost, which is a milepost-by-milepost guide to traveling from Seattle to Alaska and beyond. It's a voluminous and highly detailed book, and it takes some studying to figure it out. I'm working from the 2024 version, although there is a 2025 version out.

It's the third time I've studied this book recently, trying to figure it all out. Yesterday, I decided to see if I could follow along in the book for our whole route. It took me all afternoon, but I located all the stops and placed tabs to mark the pages where they occur. Ideally, I'll be able to start in Bellingham, Washington, and follow our route milepost by milepost for the whole journey. Also, I've figured out that I can view a digital version online. The digital version has search capability. I was having a hard time locating one stop, Bob Quinn Lake, in British Columbia, Canada. When I opened the digital version and searched, it took me directly to the page and even highlighted the words. Cool.

So I feel as if I'm ready, navigation-wise. There is still much to do, however. I've already mentioned taking the kitties to the vet. On Tuesday we need to take Mike's truck in for some service work he can't do himself. Routine maintenance only, thankfully. Then on Wednesday, I'll get a pedicure. Certainly, I can't neglect my toes when we're going on a trip. I'm sure you understand the importance of keeping ones toes looking good. In all of that, I still need to bake one more batch of cookies and make some breakfast burritos. After that, packing, packing, packing. It's a lot to do in a short period of time, but then, the wait will be over and we'll be on our way. I look forward to that. 

Today feels like the last day of peace before the big push at the end. I have a few things to work on today, but I'll have plenty of time for some slow-stitching too. Pancakes are up next, and then I'll take the first stitches on the newest redwork piece. After that, I'll get busy comparing my packing list to what's already in the camper. Today will be focused on inventory and organization. Careful planning pays off once we're on the road. Don't forget to bring your passports if you're going with. 

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.