As always, my day started with slow-stitching, and I filled in some more of Calendula Patterdrip's broom straws. 

My day kind of went off the rails yesterday. There I was, minding my own business, checking the list of to-do's on the day's calendar when I saw a note to "make reservations at Iowa state parks." When we take our Great Lakes tour later this summer and fall, we're trying to stay in as many state parks as we can. The state parks are less expensive (and more interesting) than private RV parks, and so I've really endeavored to take advantage of them for this trip. With the price of fuel right now, every little bit helps. And many of the state parks have "reservation windows" so that everyone has a chance to get a spot if they're paying attention. 

Okay, so Iowa...there was one park where I needed to make a reservation. Plenty of spaces were available. We wanted to arrive on a Saturday and stay two nights. But I was thwarted when I learned that if one arrives on a Saturday, one must also reserve Friday. Well...that simply wouldn't work. It would throw off everything that came before, and so I needed to make other arrangements. We'll still see the park, but we're going to have to stay elsewhere. And realizing that...the rest of the day became a manic, panic day of making reservations and rerouting the trip. It meant no sewing, and plenty of teeth-gnashing. 

Also, I figured out that after September 30th, pretty much all the municipal parks (state, county, and city) go into first-come-first-served mode, and so I wasn't able to make reservations at many places. It's a little worrisome not to have a guaranteed place for the night when you're towing a big fifth wheel. That late in the year, it shouldn't be a problem, and so I'm laying my worries aside until we're actually on the trip.

Since routing the trip back in May, I've changed the route slightly once we start heading west again. Here are the route maps I've created. You can see where we're going. I can only list ten destinations per page, and so each page begins with the last destination from the previous page. Also, I've listed certain cities, not because we're going to stop there, but because I wanted to keep us on a certain route, in order to travel scenic byways. So here's the trip as it stands. It could still change:

Of course, we'll be visiting as many quilt shops as I can find along the way. Also of interest are these destinations: Salmon River Scenic Byway; Bayhorse Ghost Town in Challis, ID; Lewis & Clark Back Country Byway; Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park; Missouri River Headwaters State Park; Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park; Fort Ransom State Park; Voyageurs National Park; Tettagouche State Park; Apostle Island National Lakeshore; Copper Harbor Lighthouse; Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore; Tahquamenon Falls State Park; Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore; Mohican State Park; New River Gorge National Park; Hocking HIlls State Park; Indiana Dunes National Park; Starved Rock State Park; National Mississippi River Museum; Henry Doorly Zoo, Aquarium, and Lied Jungle in Omaha; Homestead National Historical Site; International Quilt Museum in Lincoln; Loup River Scenic Byway; Chadron State Park; Fort Robinson State Park; Toadstool Geologic Park; Sinks Canyon State Park near Lander Wyoming. Possibly, we'll make a trip to Devil's Tower. The one time we've been there, it was shrouded in fog. And, yes, it's a long list. Plenty of adventure. We may not see it all, but it's a good wish list. I hope you'll come along.

So there was no sewing, but plenty of cooking yesterday. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I made a couple of cold salads for our dinner last night. It was warm enough to eat outside. Mike asked for this family-favorite Seafood Pasta with Lemon-Saffron Herb Dressing.

And then, I had a yen for this favorite summer dessert. These are Root Beer Granita Floats. You need just three ingredients: One liter bottle of root beer, vanilla ice cream, and Pirouettes cookies. (The Pirouettes are optional, but hey...any excuse for those is a good excuse.)

This is super simple. You pour 4 cups of the root beer into a 9 x 13 cake pan. Put it in the freezer, and then check on it each hour, and scrape or "fluff" it with the tines of a fork. Eventually, you'll have root beer ice that looks like this:

Then boil down the remaining root beer into this root beer syrup. Just put it in a pan and boil, boil, boil, until it's reduced to one-half cup. Mine took about an hour.

And that is one tasty and easy dessert on a hot day. Mmm, mmm, mmm. It's a great choice for the Fourth of July.

Since I'm half expecting to be kicked out of my sewing room this month when new carpeting is installed downstairs, it seems wise to choose something I can work on in the upstairs quilting room. Next up is Ella's Flower Garden. My July goal is to quilt and bind it before month's end. 

If I'm really good, I can have it along for hand-sewing the binding while we're on a week-long trip mid-month. That's probably too much to expect, however.

Okay, time to get on with my day. I'm determined to finish up the New Mexico Kitchen block today. Nothing...and I mean nothing...is going to stand in my way.

This year seems to be flying by, but then I suppose I say that every time the calendar flips to a new month. It was a busy day yesterday, and I don't have a lot to show for it. We had grocery shopping to do, and we ran some other errands. When we got back home, I had some things to do in the yard, including watering the flower pots. I didn't make it into the sewing room until nearly 3:00 p.m. Fortunately, I had plenty of assistance. Smitty helped me with thread choices.

Fortunately, she lost interest in that job fairly quickly because I'm only about halfway finished with the top-stitching.

When I left the machine, it was needle down, ready to stitch the yellow sections.

I'm hoping I can finish this quilt block today, and then I'll be ready to start something new. When a slot opens up on my dance card, a new one slips right in. I'll tell you more about that when the time comes.

There was another one just over here, and lots more buds. It's going to be pretty when it gets going.

After a busy day of patrolling the fields, Smitty was tired. He could barely look up for his picture.

Sadie was employing the technique of one foot out of the covers when you get to warm at night. In her case, she was shading half of her body to keep from getting too hot.

This morning I'll be in the kitchen making tonight's dinner. We're having a couple of different cold salads, and I'll make them this morning. Also, I like to make a dessert on Fridays sometimes, and I'll do that too. Dinner will be ready, and I can relax this evening. I need to do a few gardening things, and I'll probably tackle the laundry too. Otherwise, the day will mostly be spent finishing up my quilt block. It's a good way to start July.

If Tuesday was a lazy morning, Wednesday's could be described as slow. I managed to accomplish everything I wanted to yesterday, but I was moving through the day at a snail's pace. Sometimes I have to remind myself there's no time deadline for anything. Today I'll be dragging my feet again because it's a grocery shopping day. Also, I need to water the flower pots, and so it will be afternoon before I can get any sewing done.

On the slow-stitching front, I've nearly reached the top of Calendula Patterdrip's broom straws. Yesterday morning I filled the rest of my hoop.

And next, you can see that I've stitched up to where the straw is attached to the broomstick. It'll be good to move into an area not so densely stitched.

The kitties and I went out for a stroll around the garden after that. Oh my...the rose bush is covered in flowers now. The deer must be off their feed.

Also, I noticed the hens and chicks are putting up flowers. 

These will bloom in about a week or so. They are the funniest flowers and look like they should be in a Dr. Seuss book. We were in the middle of our "heat dome" last year at this time, and temperatures were reaching above 110°F. The hens and chicks didn't bloom in that heat, and so I haven't seen them in a while. They're being inundated by the wild strawberries that share their bed. Looks like I'm going to have to do some weeding, and soon.

Right now, I'm watching the daylilies. They should be opening any time now.

And there's the lovely lavender. It's my favorite fragrance. I'll be cutting some of this to dry and save for next year's Bees Knees cocktails.

Also, I wanted to show you how nicely the wisteria is filling in above the front door. We had to replace this last year when our old one died. I'm surprised at how fast this one is filling in, but I haven't seen any flowers yet. It might take another year to establish itself.

Now, where is Smitty? Has anyone seen Smitty?

Back inside, I found him ready to finish up the applique on the last New Mexico Kitchen block.

Here's the recipe that accompanied this block. I had a picture of it for yesterday's post, but realized I'd cut it off on both sides. So here you go. I've never had Posole myself, and so I don't know if it's good, or if this recipe is any good. Go ahead and try it if you like. Just let me know what you think.

When I finished sewing for the day, all the applique was finished. That jaggedy green thing on the left is supposed to be "oregano." It gave me a chuckle. Oregano doesn't look like that. It looks more like parsley to me.

From here, I'll need to do the top-stitching, and there is a little bit of hand embroidery to do. When that's finished, I'll add borders to the block, and that will be the last of them. Yay! I'm going to love this quilt, but I am getting tired of working on these blocks.

The sun was shining when I wrote yesterday's post. About the time I went downstairs, the clouds and gloom moved in. It's quite a change from the two previous warm days, but a break from the air-conditioner was nice. It made all of us super lazy. Even the kitties went back to bed for morning naps.

When we all woke up and got going, the kitties and I took a walk around the yard. The sage plant has burst into flower. There's enough here for plenty of sage blossom vinegar, but I'm full up on vinegars. I'll probably pass them by this year.

Sadie was keeping an eye on the critters in the field.

Smitty was keeping an eye on a nearby tree squirrel.

These little red tree squirrels seem very intelligent. They are very fast, and so they have confidence enough to let me get really close. I talk to them often, and they sit listening, as if they understand every word I'm saying. Usually I'm saying something like, "You better stay out of my flower pots." They listen, but they don't obey.

Back inside, I finished up the 12th of 25 Shop Hop blocks. I might do another one of these right away. It's going to take me forever to finish making them just one at a time. They don't take long and so I might start making them two at a time as they come up on my list of WIPs.

Here are the 12 I have so far. When I have all 25 blocks, the camera will be right in the middle.

From there, I start making the last of the New Mexico Kitchen blocks. This one, thankfully, has a fringed table cloth. No more of that dreaded fringe across the bottom.

When I was this far, I quit for the day. The bright pink crescent at the bottom is just the beginning of a bowl. In the upper left, there's supposed to be a cellophane bag of chile powder. It's a little weird how the instructions did it. It was traced directly onto the background and then some chile powder and a label added. The bag itself will be machine stitched when I get that far. I'm kind of tempted to pick up some tulle to represent the bag, but I'll have to see how it looks when it's finished.

So I'll probably finish the applique today, and then it will take some time to finish the top-stitching. When it's finished, a new slot will open up on my WIPs dance card. The mind reels with possibilities!

Yesterday I got a bee in my bonnet to finish everything about the great closet-cleaning-out extravaganza we've been engaged in since discovering our plumbing leak back in April. And don't think for one minute that we would have been motivated to do any of this were it not for the plumbing leak. We've been accumulating stuff for decades, despite our insistence that we were going to get on the cleaning-out bandwagon. As it turns out, disasters are good motivators.

So there were more boxes to take to Goodwill, and then we drove across town to take my two custom-built classical guitars to a music store that will sell them on consignment. I've had them listed on Craig's List and eBay with nary a nibble, but plenty of spam. While across the river, we dropped off a few things with Matthew, including a ukulele, an album of his senior pictures, and his baby book. And that's the last of it. (Dusts off hands and then raises fists in victory.) 

It was another warm day. The kitties were outside for a while, but then came in and melted across various surfaces like so much tiger butter. Smitty was especially droopy.

The only morning slow stitching I did was to stitch up the next "name plate" for the 12th Shop Hop block.

I'll get to sewing the block together today. 

Now I've moved my hoop up, and I'm happy to announce I can fit the entire width of the broom in my hoop. It shows I'm making progress on this.

Today will be a mostly sewing day unless something unexpected pops up. The weather is much cooler today, although still sunny and summery. Possibly I'll get out for a walk. On the other hand, a lazy day seems completely in order. We'll see which side wins.

It was a hot day yesterday. It reached 93°F here at the Three Cats Ranch. We're generally around ten degrees cooler than in the valley, and so you know it was even hotter in the lowlands. We're expecting a little cooler weather today and through the remainder of the week. The kitties spent most of their day cooling their tummy furs on the concrete in the shade of the house.

As I mentioned yesterday, I had just two more chests I wanted to go through in order to complete our clean-out of the downstairs. This is my mother's cedar chest. My brother had it for a while after she passed away, but he offered it to me, and shipped it from Southern California to Oregon. It came to me all crated up in wood. The shippers did an excellent job of getting to me in good condition. 

I think during the 1940's, these were every young woman's dream. Lane seemed to be the one to have. 

If that little "brand" wasn't enough to tell you who manufactured it, there was this sign in the top for good measure.

And much the same way we register product warranties online these days, if my mom did all the things mentioned on this sticker, she was entitled to a $100 moth insurance policy. I always think it's a good idea to insure one's moths.

Inside was an envelope containing the actual insurance policy.

This is the postmark on the envelope. It was 1943, and it cost just 3¢ to mail a letter in those days. My mom would have been 21 then. She and my dad married on June 4th, 1944.

I'll tell you about my own hope chest in just a second, but I wanted to tell you first about this Lane handkerchief box I have. Around the time I graduated high school during the 14th Century (1972), the Lane company advertised free handkerchief boxes to graduating senior girls. Probably I read about it in Seventeen magazine or something. For whatever reason, they didn't do it the year I graduated, and I dearly wanted one. 

After Mike and I were married, and we were already living in Phoenix by then, my mother went to a furniture store in San Diego that was offering the handkerchief boxes. She explained that I'd missed out when I graduated. The next time they came to visit us, she brought this handkerchief box.

 

Inside...sure enough...the Lane insignia.

It's just one of the things I have to remember her by, and it reminds me what an advocate she was for her kids. Driving to San Diego to get a handkerchief box for me? All in a day's work for her.

Okay, but here's my hope chest. My dad's military service had him serving in far-flung places. This chest came from Taiwan. He was there on R&R from Vietnam, and he bought this for me and had it shipped home. It's made of camphor wood. Camphor has the same moth deterring properties as cedar. Also, it's a very fragrant wood. It made everything in my hope chest smell good.

Here's the label inside...Taiwan built.

This is the carving on the top.

This one is on the side.

It has an interesting lock mechanism. Below are the lock and key.

The key was inserted at a 90° angle on the right side, then rotated up to fit through the notches on top.

Then you push to the left to open it.

My mother's cedar chest had lots of stuff from my grandmother still. A few quilts. Two were pretty well tattered. I'm not going to restore those, and so those will go to Goodwill. I couldn't part with the other three. Also, I went through all her crocheted doilies. I decided to keep those since I might want to make a quilt from them someday. Most of the dresser scarves were donated unless I thought I could use them in my Vintage Linens quilt. I found about half a dozen I wanted to keep. The rest...all to Goodwill.

I made these little latch hook wall-hangings to hang in the nursery.

I made this next one while I was pregnant with Matthew. My pregnancy with him was so fraught with anxiety, and it gave me something to do. His birth was a scheduled C-section, and I knew we were having a boy. I could stitch everything except the weight. I took the piece with me to the hospital and finished it there after he was born.

This next one was from a little needlepoint kit. I used to find in them in stores. I'd done several of them, but this is the only one I kept. It was hanging in the nursery too. It's about 5 x 5 inches.

Also, I found this one. It was probably a gift at a baby shower. I don't remember who KAK was, but she was probably a co-worker.

It was hard to give up some of that stuff. I couldn't part with the baby shoes or my wedding dress. I'm saving my wedding dress to donate to a group called Little Angel Gowns. They use wedding dress donations to make burial gowns for deceased infants. They only accept donations at certain times of the year, and I've signed up to receive notifications from them. When the time comes, I'll donate my dress to them.

I cut this one a little larger and "peakier" to try to capture as much of the embroidery as possible.

When it was all finished, it looked like this. The sharp angle at the top point meant it ended up positioned higher among the fabric strips than the others I've done.

When I lay them out together, it seems less noticeable to me. I can always sew a strip to the sides where they are uneven. I have an idea to set these with sashings and to use some of the smaller embroidery motifs as cornerstones. When it's all sewn together, I don't think it will matter that some are a little off center.

Next up on my list of WIPs is to make another block for the Shop Hop quilt. The next one will be from Forget-Me-Knots quilt shop in Bandon, Oregon. We were in Bandon for the Circles in the Sand event at Face Rock. While there, we saw the nearby Coquille Lighthouse...

Now I've traced out the name for my quilt block, and that's where I'll start this morning.

So the back of my Jeep is packed to the gills again with more donation boxes. I'll be making (hopefully) my final trip the Goodwill for a while. It was hard to part with some of that stuff yesterday, but the alternative was putting it back into the chest for my kids to deal with after I'm gone. Might as well lighten the load now. Aside from that, I'll need to water the flower pots today and then I'll get back to my sewing. 

The weather is heating up at the Three Cats Ranch. I believe yesterday might have been the warmest day of the year so far, and today will be even warmer. A year ago, we were trapped under a heat dome, and the days were *very* warm...record-setting heat. Just yesterday, I read in our local newspaper that nothing like that is anticipated for this string of warm days. After so much rain, we're reluctant to complain about the sunshine.

Sadie knows what to do. She hides out under the dwarf Japanese maple tree outside our living room windows. We call this the "umbrella" tree.

I was giving the flower pots a drink of water. I'm happy to see that the snapdragons I planted at the beginning of April are making a comeback. The squirrels ate all the flowers I planted within the first hour or so.

There are fewer squirrels now, Smitty having dispatched at least three that we know about. Mike relocated another seven. There are still plenty, but they've left this dahlia alone too. Possibly when I go outside this morning, I will find it bitten off again.

While the workers were downstairs pulling up our "contaminated" carpeting, I was stitching on Calendula Patterdrip's broom straws. It's moving along, but there is still a ways to go.

When they were finished pulling up the carpet, this was the state of our guest room. What isn't showing in this picture is the outer family room where all the furniture and bedding is piled up. The room looks pretty clean now, but there's still a big hole in the wall where the plumbing leak was, and the floor is down to bare concrete. There hasn't been much progress on the room given the nearly three months since we discovered our leak.

As you know, we've been working hard cleaning out closets and getting rid of a lot of stuff we no longer want nor need. There was half of one closet still to be done in my sewing room. I'd already done my sewing stuff on the right side of the image below.

On the left side was a bunch of long-forgotten junk. Old cameras...I mean, real antique stuff. There was even a roll of undeveloped film. (No, we aren't developing it.) The shelves you see there were stacked high with old backpacks, sleeping bags, and scuba diving equipment. Toward the back is more diving equipment. All of that will be sold since our diving days are over. Above are some HUGE bags we used when we traveled with our diving equipment. It would probably cost a fortune to check those bags onto an airplane nowadays. I'm showing you this picture to show you all the shelf space that has opened up for my sewing stuff. I keep my sewing room pretty tidy, but there are still a lot of bins sitting around because I have nowhere else to put them. Now, I'll be able to put some of that stuff on these shelves.

I finished quilting the third row of thimbles and then turned my attention to the sashings. There, I did a motif Lori Kennedy refers to as "ribbon candy." It isn't a motif original to her, but I like her name for it.

It's a pretty easy insy-outsy-upsy-downsy pattern. Then I set up the machine for straight stitching again and just stitched a single line of stitching in the outer border. 

It's hard to see the quilting from the back, but here's a picture anyway.

And then it was time to sew on the binding.

I spent the rest of the afternoon hand-stitching, and I made my way all the way around to a finished quilt.

Here's how it looks from the back.

Today I'll link up to:

And that was a long day. Cats were tired. Smitty was caught lounging in kitty no-cats-land...on the dining room table. You can't fault him for wanting a comfortable place to lie on a hot day.

Today I'll get to work on my slow stitching, and then I'll work on cleaning out those hope chests...or "hopeless" chests as a friend's father used to say. If there's time for sewing (and there should be), I'll get to work on my list of WIPS, starting with another block for the Vintage Linen quilt. This is where I left it last time.

Yesterday morning brought high hopes I'd have another quilt ready for binding, but it didn't work out that way. We ended up running all over town again. I had a letter to mail...my contribution to the embroidery quilt collaboration. Also, it was the last weekend of the month, which meant a product I use daily was half price. I always take advantage of that sale. And as long as we were out, I suggested to Mike that we pick out carpet for the downstairs. And, of course, a trip like that generally de-evolves into running every possible errand that we can think of...in this case, related to car maintenance. Oh well.

Earlier in the morning, I received a message from a dear friend. I gave them the Garden Sunshine quilt. Ever since having to evacuate our home for a wildfire two years ago, I've been giving away quilts almost as fast as I can make them. Up until that point, I had dozens quilts, sitting around, folded up, never looked at nor used. After that experience, I gave at least half of them away, and I've continued with that practice of finishing and giving away. For me, the fun of quilting is in the making and the giving. And this is just what I'm talking about. This is my dear friend Rick. My friend (his wife), Danni, is taking the picture, and Rick is enjoying his new quilt.

Okay, so we picked carpet for the downstairs. Since it's a daylight basement, there isn't a lot of light. We have a nearly-white carpet down there now, and of course, it shows every little thing that falls on it. I wanted something light, but with enough color to hide any spills. It's not unlike what we have on the main level, but lighter in color.

If you haven't picked carpeting recently, then you might not know that it takes about five seconds of looking before it all starts to look the same.

There's another that is close, and still lots more buds. I expect this one will be covered in flowers within the next few days.

Also, the roses are surviving the assault from the deer. (Actually, I think the deer just haven't noticed them yet.) There are lots of buds, and quite a few flowers are beginning to open.

Nearby, these guys were enjoying a sunbath. They're pretty cute and funny when they do this kind of stuff.

So, the hours went by quickly. There was no more quilting accomplished. As I've mentioned, we're planning dinner outside most days this week, and I have salads and sandwiches on our menu for the next several days. Last night it was Shrimp and Crab Salad Rolls. They have the most wonderful brioche sandwich rolls at our grocery store, split on the top, and they are perfect for this sandwich. The original recipe was from Cooking Light, and this was my third attempt at it. The original recipe seemed a little bland to us, and so I made some changes the second time around. I wrote myself some more notes after that attempt, and Mike announced it was just right with this attempt. I'll share the recipe below. I changed the amount of horseradish, added a little bit of salt and some Old Bay seasoning.

On the side was a Watermelon Salad with Rum and Mint. It's one of my favorite ways to use fresh mint, and it's a really delicious summer salad. A personal-size watermelon is all you need. I've linked to the recipe from Martha Stewart. Of course, if you're feeling into The Martha, you might use a melon baller to scoop out the watermelon. I just chopped mine into cubes. 

Yesterday morning started with me slow-stitching my way across the bottom of the Calendula Patterdrip block. The broom straws are going to take at least a week to stitch just on their own.

After seeing the deer outside yesterday morning, I wanted to check to see if he'd also dined on the roses and lilies. Fortunately not, and we even have a rose blooming right now. These are very fragrant roses.

Also, check out this Fairy Princess peony. Isn't this amazing?

You can see the cruel peony...Rosy Prospects...there to the left. That bud actually has some white petals on it, and so it has made progress since last season. There are still plenty of buds that did nothing but go to seed. I'm happy to see this little bit of progress though. Fingers crossed we'll get the whole flower next year.

We had a pile of errands to run. We needed to do our grocery shopping, but there were several stops to make along the way. We needed more bird seed, for one thing. The birds are eating us out of house and home, and I can't resist filling their feeders when they are empty. We were completely out of suet. The Northern Flickers really like that, but the little birds eat it too. The image below is one I took with my bird cam some years back.

Bird seed aside, we had prescriptions to pick up at two different pharmacies, and something from the hardware store for Mike's watering hose set-up. We'd already made five stops by the time we got to the grocery store. With all that, I was actually happy to get there! And then, we had a very long list. Everything seemed to take forever. Finally, we were home. It was well past lunch time and I was hungry. And with all that, we both needed naps. Even then, there was still more to do. I needed to water the flower pots. And so all of that to say, it was very late in the day by the time I made it into the sewing room.

My first task was to cut binding strips for the French Roses quilt. This is one of the fabrics I picked up at Boersma's the other day. I pinked the edges and then washed it. There was almost no fraying.

Then I went back to work quilting Grandma's Thimbles, finishing up quilting thimbles into the cornerstones, and continuing on with my spool, thread, and needle motif on the top row of blocks. Now, just the bottom row, sashings and border are left. Probably I will have it to binding stage by day's end.

In yesterday's post, I mentioned an embroidered quilt collaboration. We're asked to contribute a 6-inch block embroidered in accordance with the instructions. You can read more about it at that link I've given you. She promises this will take no longer than an hour, and mine certainly was within that time constraint. Sadly, this is another project I can't show you before the reveal date, which is going to be on September 1st. For now, you just get this peek.

Join in, if you like. Even if you don't regularly do embroidery, this is a very quick and easy project. 

And that brought us to dinner time. We're really enjoying this sunny summer weather. It's about time the rain stopped. We enjoyed eating outside last night. We have all sandwiches and salads on the menu for the next week, starting with last night's dinner of Asian Chicken Salad.

I'll give you the recipe below, but in a nutshell, it's made with napa cabbage, romaine lettuce, fresh basil, slivered almonds, shredded chicken, and red bell pepper. The dressing is a delicious Asian-inspired vinaigrette. Then it's garnished with chow mein noodles and black sesame seeds. White sesame seeds are fine too...we don't discriminate. Also, none for Mike. We just say "no" to seeds for him. 

I can't recall where I found this recipe, and I have it listed as my own. I probably adapted it from somewhere else, but I can't remember where. Here's my recipe:

Asian Chicken Salad

Serves 2 as a main dish, or 4 as a side dish

Recipe by Barbara Stanbro

Ingredients:

1 carrot, peeled and shredded (I used packaged julienned carrots from the produce aisle)

3 cups shredded napa cabbage, from one small cabbage

3 cups shredded romaine lettuce, from one small head

1 small red bell pepper, seeded and deveined, thinly sliced

2 tablespoons fresh basil leaves, chopped

2 cups thinly sliced roasted chicken breast, (from a store-bought rotisserie chicken, if you like)

1/2 cup slivered almonds, toasted

1 tablespoon toasted white or black sesame seeds

1/2 cup chow mein noodles, for garnish

For Dressing:

6 tablespoons rice vinegar

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1/4 cup sugar

3/4 teaspoon ground ginger

3/4 teaspoon dry mustard

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

3/4 teaspoon sesame oil

Directions:

Toss together carrot, cabbage, lettuce, pepper, basil, chicken, almonds, and sesame seeds.

Whisk together ingredients for dressing in a bowl.

Pour the dressing over the salad and toss well.  Garnish with the chow mein noodles and serve.

* * * * *

Just FYI, you'll end up with a lot of chow mein noodles. I don't think I use them in anything other than this salad. They freeze well, though, and so I just freeze them and save them for next time.

Okay, and so that was the end of our day. The kitties were outside most of the afternoon. Once they're out, we rarely see them until they come to the door to be let in. They stick pretty close to the house and lounge under the bushes. They're really loving this weather, as are we.

Today there's less on the agenda. I have a little housekeeping to do, but then I'll get back to my quilting. I'm hoping to have it to binding stage by the end of the day.

On the slope above the peonies, there are cherries on the tree. They are way behind from last year, and I noticed yesterday that a lot of them are shriveling. It's an indication they weren't pollinated, which isn't at all surprising. We don't have a single plum on our tree either. It bloomed on days when it poured rain.

It was such a nice day. I didn't want to do my walking on the treadmill, and so I set out for a walk. It's hay fever season for me. These blooming grasses and weeds are my sneezy worst offenders.
 

Here's some more.

And here's even more. They are pretty when the sun glints off their seed heads.

Of course, I took pictures of every blooming thing, and so much is blooming right now. I came across these wild roses. These are larger than the ones I usually see. These are approximately the diameter of a tennis ball. The bumble bees were interested.

The white ones are very fragrant.

These yellow ones are smaller...maybe a little larger than a quarter.

Gazing through the trees, I could see our neighbor's horses grazing in the sun. When I walked back, I noticed one was rolling in the grass and making a grunting sound like a dog's growling.

Here's one close-up. That red grass beside him is called Timothy grass...very bad for hay fever sufferers. Fortunately, I'd taken some Allegra early in the morning, and so I was tolerating this walk just fine.

Now there's a horse's a$$ if I've ever seen one. But that's not why I took this picture. I took it for the bird sitting on his back. Just before I pressed the shutter, there were three more sitting there.

Here's one of my alpaca neighbors. He seems not too happy to see me taking his picture. I mean, he hasn't even finished his breakfast nor combed his hair! He also looks as if he's been sheared recently.

Getting back to the wildflowers, this one has tiny white flowers. It's a heavy ground cover, and it was growing thick along the roadside. My phone tells me this is Bearberry Cotoneaster.

There was another red one growing to its right.

I asked my phone to identify this next one, but the answers it gave were obviously incorrect. I needed to get closer for a better picture, but there was a muddy ditch there.

I saw this in several places along the way. This is Crimson Columbine.

California poppies with vetch growing to the left side of the image.

I tried only taking pictures of things I hadn't seen on my last walk, but some are too much my favorites to ignore. This one is the Hesperis. It's the one new name I've learned in this year's travels.

And, of course, I can't ignore the corn flowers. I just love them.

Here's a pink one.

And a purple one.

This is a scene from the top of our hill. This area was all wooded last year, but the owner logged it all off. The story is that he's facing a terminal illness and logged it off to sell the timber. It sure left an eyesore. We can't see this from our property, but we live just on the other side of the far tree line. It means less habitat for coyotes, but also for other small animals and birds.

On a more positive note, this is how it looks just across the road, and looking down into the Willamette Valley.

So my walk ended up taking more time than I'd planned. If I didn't stop to take so many pictures, I could walk farther and faster. But, oh well. I was enjoying the warm weather.

followed by a meandering looping thread line...

and a needle. I'm also outlining the thimbles and filling in some of the lines in the middle. It needed a little more quilting from a functional standpoint.

There are six cornerstones. I made a little free-hand thimble in three of the six.

Sadie was my quilting assistant, but she was keeping a close eye on Smitty who was on the floor below her.

My heart really wasn't into the quilting yesterday, but I filled four blocks and three cornerstones.

It's hard to see the white thread on a white background.

You can barely make it out on the back.

When I came upstairs and looked outside, I noticed this squirrel was eating one of the poppy buds. (Shakes fist!) Where's a cat when you need one?

And then, adding insult to injury, this is what I saw when I came downstairs first thing this morning. (Shakes fist and bangs on the window!)

I'd just been pointing out to Mike yesterday how we have lots of flowers on this cherry tomato, but never any tomatoes. Now I know why. I'm surprised he'd come right up onto the patio like that.

Want to stitch something cool?​​​​​​​​

Want to be part of a collaborative project?​​​​​​​​

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Check this out! ​​​​​​​​

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I designed a project that I hope will illustrate, thru the use of stitch and fabric, how there are myriad interpretations of communication - or in simpler terms, how we can all read the same thing and come to different conclusions.​​​​​​​​

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I'd be thrilled if you join in! ​​​​​​​​

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I invite you to stitch a block, following some very simple instructions. The project is to interpret the instructions the way YOU think fit; there is no right or wrong. ​​​​​​​​

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Once I put the collective collaboration together into one piece of fiber art, my hope is that it will illustrate the concept.​​​​​​​​

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Once all the blocks arrive, I plan to assemble them into a quilt, and submit the quilt to various quilt and fiber art shows, starting with QuiltCon 2023. Depending on the response, I might send out different sets of instructions for other quilts at a later time to create a series.​​​​​​​​

It was such a beautiful day for our first day of summer, and we're expecting nice weather for at least the next week. I have salads and sandwiches planned for our dinners over the next several days. We have eating-out-on-the-patio days to make up for after such a wet, cold, and dark spring...or what purported to be spring. We're still thinking spring passed us by this year.

I was settling in for a day of quilting when Mike suggested we have lunch in town. Really, he just wanted to drive his Corvette with the top down...something he hasn't been able to do yet this year. I was in the middle of sandwiching Grandma's Thimbles for quilting when he brought it up. And, hey...I'm always up for some adventure.

It's all set up and ready to go, but that was the extent of yesterday's sewing. There was a little time to kill, and so I walked around outside to check on the blooming things. There was really nothing new, but I did catch this violet-green swallow poking her head out of one of the bird houses. We believe we have two tenants living in our four-house complex this year. To her left is our bat house, and yes, there are bats living in there.

And when the time came, we were off! So nice. 

We had lunch at one of our favorite brew pubs, the Golden Valley Brewery in McMinnville. They have a really nice outdoor seating area to the right and outside the frame of the image below. This was our mainstay restaurant during the worst of the pandemic. 

We were only about half a mile from my favorite quilt shop, Boersma's, and so we walked the main street of McMinnville to the quilt shop and back.

Of course, I took pictures of every blooming thing along the way. There were pretty dianthus in all colors.

These roses were blooming at a different restaurant.

Farther along, there was a whole "hedge" of these Shasta daisies.

This next one was hanging overhead in a basket.

Now here's something interesting. These "Smoke Free Zone" signs were lining the street. There are a lot of restaurants along this street with outdoor seating along the sidewalk. Apparently, the City of McMinnville no longer allows smoking even in outdoor sections of restaurants. Neither Mike nor I are smokers, and so it doesn't matter to us, but we wondered how the smokers in the town felt about this apparently new law.

I was curious about this and so I looked it up. Sure enough. In 2018 the city council passed an ordinance prohibiting smoking in the "downtown core." 

Now here's something. Did you know that Oregon produces 99% of all hazelnuts sold in the United States? And so it makes sense we would used the shells as a ground cover, just like bark dust. This was a parking strip we passed by, and that's a tree growing there.

When we reached the quilt shop, I was on the hunt for a dark green flannel to use as a binding for the French Roses quilt. (Have you ever noticed how when you're trying to use up scraps in a scrap quilt, you almost invariably have to buy more fabric? And then, you generate yet more scraps?) So, I found what I was looking for, and then took a walk through the store. It seemed a shame to waste a perfectly good visit to a quilt shop and not buy out the place.

Of course, I saw lots that I liked, but I ended up purchasing a yard of the one on top in the image above. I keep buying fabrics for a quilt I've wanted to make for several years. Thus far, I think I've purchased about five different fabrics. I still have no planned start date, but I'm circling around the idea. It's this building we saw in the Tin Cup ghost town (inhabited by living people, by the way) in Colorado.

It was a nice way to end the day. We sat outside with the kitties.

There were birds all around, singing, and feasting at the bird feeders.

The kitties had a bead on something...probably a gopher.

Mr. Hawk saw it too.

But then, they thought better of it. Sadie was distracted by something else. Smitty just walked on by.

I checked again on the peonies. The warm sunshine caused all the buds on the Fairy Princess to open. 

And I noticed this one...Garden Treasures...is very close to opening too. I checked it this morning, but it wasn't open yet. I expect it will be by the end of the day.

It's another pretty day outside. Smitty spent his morning baking in the sunshine.

Being a black cat, Sadie can't tolerate that direct sunshine for very long. She prefers spending time in her catio apartment on these warm days.

Smitty is almost too big for this little cat house, and so it has become Sadie's purrivate domain.

Summer has arrived bright and beautiful. We're in for at least a week of sunny and warm weather. After finishing up my slow-stitching yesterday, I went outside for a walk around and discovered flowers on the lavender.

The Coral Sunset peony is looking marvelous.

The bush is fairly covered in flowers now.

It's in competition for the most beautiful with its neighbor to the right. This one is called "Joker."

Okay, so I'm starting to think the cruel peony, called "Rosy Prospects" might actually have made a little progress this year. In years gone by, it's never progressed farther than what you see below. This photo was taken last year.

It's supposed to look like this when it's in full bloom:

There are still lots of buds coming. Maybe one of them will give me the full meal deal. If not, I'm thinking I might give it a reprieve for one more season before giving up on it. If I decide to replace it this year, I'm in a bit of a bind because we'll be traveling during the time when it would ship and when it would need to be planted. I could have it shipped to Erik and Mae, but then I'm not sure it can wait a month or so before being planted. 

Now that I'm seeing this one make some progress, I'm thinking it makes sense to give it another year. I've checked with peony lovers on Facebook about this. People have told me it could take as much as five years before it blooms. This will be its third season. It might have won itself another year by displaying those white petals. My threats of doom are paying off, I think.

Okay, and moving on, the poppies are still blooming, but I'm afraid the rain has pretty well destroyed them. It's too bad because they were having a good year with lots of enormous buds. Many of the buds opening now have only rotten flowers inside.

I noticed some rosebuds. This is usually a signal for the deer to come down and enjoy them with a nice glass of chardonnay. If they bloom before the deer notice, we might actually get some very fragrant roses.

Across the sidewalk from the roses, the purple rhododendron is in full bloom. Behind it, you can see the dappled willow is having its best year ever.

To its left, the red cardinal clematis is looking good. I worried about it when we got snow in April, but it seems to have come through just fine. There are several flower buds, but it's probably a ways from blooming just yet.

To its right, the first flowers are forming on the hydrangea.

Back inside, Smitty was ready to get to work sewing borders on the French Roses quilt.

When I left off, I was adding a scrappy inner border, and I was explaining that I'm too old for math. I couldn't figure out how to make these 4-inch blocks come out evenly. If I used a calculator, I ended up with fractions of blocks, and so I committed a quilting crime: I sewed them to the sides, and then cut off the excess. 

Call the Quilt Police if you must. She looks like she needs something to do.

By the time I'd rounded all four sides, it looked like this.

And then, I just needed to add one more border, and my quilt top was finished. Yay!

I've made a back for it, and it's ready to be sandwiched for quilting.

I'll tie this one. It's made from flannel, and so I want it to stay nice and soft.

I tried another new recipe last night. This is for Korean Barbecue-style Meatballs. 

I served it over some reheated leftover rice. These were really good. They were a little salty, and so I'd reduce the amount of salt if I make this again...and I will. Also, the recipe calls for crushed Ritz crackers in the meatballs. I used panko instead. It was all very tasty. The only thing missing were Bees Knees cocktails and eating outdoors. That will be for tonight's dining pleasure.

Okay, so I think we're in for a string of good days. I'll probably get out for a walk this morning. It's only going to get warmer as the week wears on, and then I'll be ready to start complaining about the heat. In the sewing room, I've moved onto my next project, which is to quilt one of the "small quilts." A quilt qualifies as "small" if I can sandwich it on the work table in my sewing room. So that brings me to the Grandma's Thimbles quilt top, finished last fall.

Already, I know how I'm going to quilt it, and so it shouldn't take long to get it to binding stage.

Summer starts tomorrow. We, here in Oregon, can only hope it's going to replace this terribly wet spring we've had. We're expecting temperatures into the low 90's for next weekend. I sure hope so. When Mike and I looked at the forecast last night, we both said in unison, "We might have to water!" As if that would be so unusual. It would be. 

The kitties started their day yesterday with a four ear salute to all the cat dads for Father's Day.

After that, I took a walk outside to check on the peonies. This next image shows the spent flowers on the blueberry plants. I haven't grown blueberries before, and so I'm watching these to see what they'll do. I expect berries will be forming soon...if they got pollinated, that is. With so much rain, we haven't seen many flying bugs or bees.

The mint is coming up lush and green. This gets used a lot in summer cooking, and I'm happy to have it, even if it does regularly plot to take over the world.

Flowers are forming on the sage plant. I might make some sage blossom vinegar again this year. It's a pretty good stand-in when I don't get enough chive blossoms.

And behold! The third peony has opened. This one is called "Fairy Princess."

While I was out, Smitty passed by me. He was a cat on a mission.

A few days ago, he was teaching Sadie the finer points of weed sniffing. Yesterday's mission was to teach Sadie his best sneak-em-up moves. 

You must face the fearsome gopher head-on, like this. Be sure to keep your ears and tail down.

Like this, Smitty? Am I doing it right?

That was better, Sadie, but to be honest, I'm just not seeing anything. Are you?

No, but watch out, Smitty. The pawpawrazzi is just over there.

Okay, that was all that was going on outside. Back inside, it was time to get started sewing the French Roses quilt top together. When I had the first two rows sewn together, it looked like this:

Then, I just kept adding rows...

one after another...

Until all 25 blocks were sewn together. I love all that color!

Next up, I'll be making a scrappy pieced border. I went back and forth about this, thinking I might instead make a border from the backing fabric. But then, practicality spoke up and reminded me that I was trying to use my flannel scraps. So, instead, I spent the rest of my sewing day cutting 52 scrappy 4 x 4-inch patches. I'll start sewing them together today.

 

It's a little confusing because I'm following along with the pattern, but since I'm using flannel, I'm making everything one-half inch larger so that I can use a half-inch seam allowance. Flannel quilts I've made in the past have frayed apart at the seam lines, and so I'm giving some extra room in the seam this time around. And, with that said, I had to figure out mathematically how many of these I would need. As I've said many times, I'm much too old for math, and so I'll have to wing it when I make the four sides to the border and make adjustments as necessary.

It was a nice way to finish off the day.

My title pretty much describes my day. It was another rainy day, but things are looking good for the coming week. It looks like Summer will come on time, even if Spring has been AWOL. Rainy days are good days to sit by the window and sew, and that's exactly what I did. The washing machine was doing all the work while I was finishing off my quilt. 

There was a little sunshine in the morning, and so I took a walk around to check on the peonies. I didn't notice much change, except that one flower was resting on the ground, full of water. So, I shook all the water from all the flowers. (I probably need to do that again.) I expect this one will be the next to bloom.

He was standing at attention. He takes his squirrel and gopher hunting duties very seriously. A cat must be disciplined and purrsistent.

Back inside, I went to work on my quilt binding. I didn't really expect to finish it all in a single day.

With my little stitching cat by my side, how could I go wrong?

So I stitched and stitched and stitched, and I stitched some more, and I rounded the third corner. By then, my one housekeeping chore was beckoning. Also, I was tired of sewing, and so it was easy to switch gears.

But I was so close to finishing, and so I went back to it after I'd finished my chore. When I turned the fourth corner, there were only about 20 inches left.

I started this quilt on January 16, 2019. It was a free block of the month from Cindy Staub at Quilt Doodle Doodles. I give you Garden Sunshine...a finished quilt:

Here's how it looks from the back.

But that wasn't my only hand-stitching for the day. Also, I took the first stitches on the next section of Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage. This one is going to take a while.

And this being Sunday, I'll be linking up to:

Okay so today is Father's Day! Happy Father's Day to all you father's out there. I always have to post this picture on Father's Day. It's one of my favorites.

It was another day of rain, rain, rain. Certainly there's plenty of time for sewing. I finished off January's block for A Joyful Journey quilt. 

If I'd been thinking when I cut the muslin backing, I would have extended it out toward the bottom of the piece to give myself space for my embroidery hoop. (Yes, I know that not everyone uses a hoop, but I prefer it.) It wasn't too late to baste a muslin strip to the bottom of the one already present, and so I did that. I used a long stitch, and when this is finished, it'll be easy enough to remove.

Okay...now we're talking. That's where I'll start this morning. I predict many weeks of stitching ahead on this large piece.

There was just a little bit of quilting left on the Garden Sunshine quilt. Already I'd quilted one side of the border, and I just needed to make my way around the remaining three sides. When it was finished, I laid it out in front of the living room windows where I can get good lighting to bring out the contrast.

Here are a couple of photos of the back. Looking toward the right...

Looking to the left...

And then, the only thing left was to square it up and sew on the binding.

It's good to have it this far. When I finished with the binding, I folded it up, draped it over the arm of my living room chair, and that is where it stayed for the rest of the day. Today is laundry day, which also translates into a good day for hand-stitching a binding. It's a large quilt at 61 x 64 inches, and so I doubt I can finish it in a single day. It does sound like a good challenge, though, doesn't it?

The morning was spent running around town. I had an appointment for a haircut, and then I had several drop and go, or else grab and go errands to run. I returned home around lunch time. After arriving home, my first stop was to check on the peonies. It was a relatively warm and sunny afternoon, and several of them popped open. I stood on a wall above them for this shot:

The two peonies on either end of the peony bed have yet to bloom, but I expect them to show themselves any day now.

I was anxious to get back to my quilting. I'd started quilting the flying geese before I left to drive into town, and I finished them up when I got home. This is my go-to motif when I'm quilting rows of flying geese.

Below is the photo I saw on Pinterest that gave me inspiration. There are other ways to fill in the center triangle, but I chose the backsy-forthsy way of doing it for this quilt.

With that done, I had to decide on a motif for the outer border. I decided to do one I'd done before. The border isn't terribly wide, and this one filled it in nicely.

I'm still limiting my quilting time to save my wrist(s), and so I did just one side of the border. It shouldn't take long to finish the other three sides today, and then it'll be ready for binding. I believe I can get the binding sewn on by machine today too.

It was a nice afternoon, and so Mike and the kitties and I all sat outside and enjoyed the sunshine. Mike has been working hard getting the field mowed. Sadie was taking in the bird activity.

Okay, so this is an absolutely terrible picture of last night's dinner. I tried a new recipe for Easy Ravioli Lasagna Casserole. It was very good. We had it with a simple romaine salad on the side.

It's basically a lasagna made with frozen ravioli instead of lasagna noodles. The meat is ground pork sausage. (Usually, I'm using ground beef when I made lasagna.) I used a 32-oz. jar of my homemade pasta sauce, and so I omitted the extra water. Also, I had some shredded zucchini in my freezer, and I used that. I didn't think the zucchini added anything. We couldn't even taste it, and so that could be omitted when I make it again...and I will make it again. It was easy to put together, and very tasty. It was supposed to be made in a 9 x 13 baking dish, but I split mine between two 8 x 8-inch baking dishes. The second dish went into the freezer as a take-along camping meal. The dish above was obviously a little too small. The sauce boiled over and made a bit of a mess in my toaster oven. It would have been a good idea to put it on a rimmed baking sheet.

It's not my favorite kind of morning. If I can't sit around in my jammies for as long as I want, then what's the use of living? I actually have to get dressed and leave the house and go act like an adult. I'm getting my hair cut (my hair is a work in progress right now), and then I need to replace my gardening shoes with something. I've been using the same shoes for many years, and now the sole is half off of one. I've been wearing them anyway, but I expect to fall flat on my face if I keep pushing my luck. I have a couple of other drop-off-and-go errands too, and so it's going to be a busy run-around day.

Backing up to yesterday, I checked on the peonies first thing. The kitties went with me. 

We were also out to check the squirrel trap in the greenhouse. We caught our fourth squirrel. We've been relocating them to the other side of our hill. They can all meet up again and have some kind of little squirrely reunion...maybe gnaw down a tree or something.

Mike and I had a couple of errands to run yesterday. It was mid-afternoon before I was able to get back to my quilting. I wore the splint on my left wrist, and I was able to finish off these quilt blocks without too much trouble. I continued with my dot-to-dot quilting.

The last two blocks were treated as one. I gave the flowers and leaves some shape lines, outlined the applique, and then did a looping meander over the background.

That completes all the blocks. If there's time today, I'll do the rows of flying geese, and then only the border will be left. I'm not sure how long it will take to do the flying geese...probably not long. I've been keeping my quilting times short to save my wrist, and so I'll probably limit myself to the flying geese, regardless.

And you can see there are lots more coming.

I tried a new recipe last night. This is Coconut-Gochujang Glazed Chicken with Broccoli. It was quick to make once I had the ingredients all gathered up. 

It calls for "gochujang paste." The only thing I could find in my grocery store was "gochujang sauce." It's a Korean barbecue sauce, and it seems to be widely available in the Asian section of most supermarkets. It's basically a stir-fry, and so it cooks up fast. The directions had me preparing the broccoli separately, but I did mine in the microwave. Then, rather than keeping it on the side, I added it to the chicken and sauce. Then, I served it over some leftover rice. It was very tasty. For sure, I'll be making it again.

So there isn't much time to write this morning. I need to make breakfast and then get ready to go. I'm hoping I'll get home in time to do a little more quilting. I've been working on the Garden Sunshine quilt since January of 2019...pre-pandemic. (Do you find yourself using the pandemic to mark time?) When I get this close to a finish, I just want to keep going until it's done. It's such a bother when life gets between me and my sewing.

Sadie held my place at the quilting machine yesterday while I gave my hurting wrist a rest.

There was still plenty to do even without adding any more quilting to the Garden Sunshine quilt. I spent some extra time on January's Joyful Journey block. It's about halfway finished now.

Later we all went outside to check on the peonies. With so much rain, it's been hard to keep up with the grass. It's grown to about knee height now, and the kitties are appreciating of the lush lawn for their dining pleasure.

Sadie, Sadie, Sadie...I've taught you everything I know, and you still don't know anything. The best weed is over here on this west-facing slope.

Where is it, Smitty?

Okay, now sniff...it's impurrtant to savor the furragrance furrst, then chomp in a lively manner.

I left them enjoying their snacks, and walked around to the front of the house where the dark purple rhododendron is in full bloom. It's the last of the rhodies to bloom.

Back inside, and with quilting off my to-do list, I focused all my attention on finishing off the next Calendula Patterdrip section(s). My current slow-stitching project won't last long, and so I wanted to have this one ready to go. I still needed to make four flying geese units.

Then one more pinwheel...

and a churn dash. Yes, as a matter of fact, I did fudge on the fabric in the lower right corner. It's a sore subject. Let's just not talk about it, okay?

I'm hoping that turning it in this orientation will make it less obvious. Then, I sewed everything together to make the background for Section 8.

After that, I sewed Sections 7 and 8 together, and my background was complete. That didn't take long, did it? Only several days, but who's counting?

The embroidery motif for this one is so large, it had to be spread out, trimmed, and then taped together.

Then, I pinned it to my background piece and took it upstairs to the big dining room table for tracing.

When it was finished, I still needed to add a muslin backing to it. Sadie was my helper cat for that, checking the piece for snuggleability first.

As I worked, I thought we might be gearing up for a rumble. I brought a larger kitty bed from upstairs down to the sewing room, hoping it would entice kitties to nap rather than help me as much as they do. A cat can get tired working so hard, you know. Sadie was the first to notice, but Smitty thought he might actually be the rightful owner of this space.

While they sorted out the seating arrangement, I continued on, cutting a piece of muslin to size, and then smoothing the embroidery background over it. Ordinarily, I use iron on stabilizer, but these pieces are too large for that. I've been using muslin for this quilt.

The use of muslin requires spray baste, in my way of doing things. My spray baste of choice is usually 505. When I use that, I'm doing it in the garage with the doors open. The stuff isn't good to inhale, and it's flammable. I don't really want to be using it in my enclosed, windowless sewing room, especially since it's also a utility room where the pilot lights for the furnace and water heater are burning. So, when I'm doing this inside the house, and in the sewing room, I prefer this product.

It's less toxic and non-flammable. It also costs more, which is why I don't use it all the time. Also, it has a more precise spray pattern so that I'm not getting spray-on goo all over everything. And so I sprayed and smoothed and realigned until it was ready for stitching. And with a piece this size, I ran several lines of basting stitches across it about every six inches or so. I just used the longest stitch on my sewing machine...about 6 stitches per inch.

And now, that's ready for stitching. It's always a relief to know I've fended off yet another stitching emergency.

I have a pile of errands to run this week including a trip to the grocery store and to the post office. Mike is driving into town today, and so I'll probably ride along with him and take care of those two things. There will be more tomorrow, and so it'll be good to cross a couple of items off the list I've created for myself. 

Well, it seems I've gone and done it...quilted beyond my physical limits. When I went to bed last night, my hands and wrists were hurting so much I could barely move them. I slept with splints on both wrists. This morning, my right hand feels pretty much back to normal, but the left is still too painful to use. Clearly, I'm going to have to take a break from quilting today, and maybe from sewing altogether. I'll give a try to sewing with the splint on, but wearing it is awkward. As with so many things, it will be an experiment.

I took a walk outside yesterday morning. We had to set a squirrel trap in the greenhouse. The squirrels have been in there again, and they ate three of the six cucumber plants I had in there. They also ate every single one of my sunflowers, which was disappointing. When I checked the trap yesterday morning, I found this guy:

I told myself I thought they'd progressed further toward opening than in previous years.

They're still not looking very promising.

Then, in my Facebook memories this morning, this collage popped up from last year.

It looks just the same to me. I don't think it's going to bloom this year either. And that will be the end of it. I'm not moving it and trying again somewhere else. I'm replacing it. I might start shopping for a new one right after I finish here. 

After that, I got busy on my quilting. The first of yesterday's blocks was done with dot-to-dot quilting.

To its right, the bird house was mostly stippled, but I did some more dot-to-dot quilting in the corner triangles, and made some shape lines on the flower petals.

I quilted some meandering bird feet on the sides of the bird house. Birds defy gravity all the time. Why not have them walking on the sides of structures?

I treated the last two blocks as one, with some loopy meandering in the background, veins in the leaves, and more shape lines in the other flowers and in the pumpkin.

With that, I've completed four of five rows. I'd dearly love to get back to it again today and finish off all the quilt blocks, but really, if I'm being smart, I'll take a day off and give my wrists a rest. 

I'm having a hard time coming up with enough contrast in my off-white fabrics for these blocks. I resorted to using the wrong side of one of the fabrics in the pinwheel below. I'll probably do that with some of the blocks I make today.

I needed another variation on a 9-patch. 

And I needed a bow tie.

I started sewing the blocks together at that point, but then realized I still needed one more nine-patch.

And then I had them all. I sewed the entirety of Section 7 together.

Before I can do any tracing of the embroidery motif, I'll need to make Section 8. There aren't so many blocks for this one.

When I have it finished and sewn to Section 7, I'll be finished with the background, and I'll be ready to trace the embroidery design. It was tempting to keep going, but I was getting tired of sewing, and my left wrist was starting to scream.

As I'm writing this, the sun is shining, and the day's weather looks promising. Reconstruction is supposed to commence in our basement today, and so I'm hopeful the good weather will continue. It probably doesn't matter since new carpet is a part of the deal, but I'd still rather people not be tracking mud onto the soon-to-be-replaced carpeting. 

You might be tired of me complaining about the rain. I am too, but it isn't just our imagination here. We really have had a record-setting amount of rain this spring (if one can call it that). I saw this on Instagram yesterday...a post from our local newspaper.

Before I get too far along today, several of you have asked questions about the Sticky-Fabri-Solvy I mentioned in yesterday's post. Sadly, several of you are no-reply, and so I can't answer you personally. Enough people asked to warrant some extra explanation blog-wise, and so I'll direct you to this post from many years ago when I used the product for the first time. You can see there how it works in this "Trying Something New" post. When I'd finished stitching that particular quilt block, I followed-up with a "Last Word" post later. (And before you go away, read on for my final last word on the matter.)

Fast forward to today, and I've changed my way of rinsing it from a finished quilt block. Although some people told me not to do this, I went ahead and did it anyway, because you know...I won't be bossed around. Nowadays, I put the quilt block into a mesh bag, run plenty of water in my washing machine, and run it through a rinse cycle. It does a better job of removing the sticky stuff, and I've had no problems with the washing machine. If you have a "high efficiency" washer like mine that minimizes the amount of water it uses, I suggest adding in some clean towels or something to force it to use more water. 

So, getting back to yesterday, while kitties slept, I got back to my quilting. I've finished three of five rows now. Yesterday's started with this tulip. I outlined the applique, then added in some "shape lines" to the leaves and flower petals, and then did some stippling around the background.

To its left was a basket. I considered how to quilt it, but then returned to this motif I stitched in a free motion quilting challenge some years back. (I love that thread. Thank you, Ila.) I've always liked this motif, and so it seemed a good time to use it in the basket that follows.

And, voila! I filled in the basket portion as above, and then did this "paper clip" motif in the handle. I'm usually working that one vertically. Yesterday I stitched it horizontally, which was harder to do. Then I finished the outer portions with more dot-to-dot quilting.

This next block combined dot-to-dot quilting in the flowers with outlining the applique and stitching in more leaf veins.

Here, things got dicey because my bobbin thread ran out, and it took me three tries to get the bobbin wound evenly. The thread kept popping out of the tension disks and making a big mess. I ended up wasting a lot of thread too. Oh well...finally, I had it right again, and I could finish off the last block of the day with more outlining and more dot-to-dot quilting.

From there, I headed down to my basement sewing room to work on some of the Calendula Patterdrip blocks. By then, Smitty was wide awake and ready to help.

So, you might recall, I had six half square triangles sewn into this configuration:

Oops...I think I sewed those HST's together wrong. So I checked it again yesterday...sure enough. So I took them apart and sewed them together again. Now I had one "broken dishes" block and two more HST's. Easy enough to fix.

Then I made a variation on a 9-patch...

and a traditional 9-patch. That tall ship fabric is some I bought as a regional fabric in an Astoria, Oregon, quilt shop.

Moving on, I needed one "rail fence" block....

a "flying geese" block...

and a "friendship star."

And I was getting tired of sewing by then. As I was leaving, I glanced again at the pattern. Oy boy. Do you see what I see? I had those six HST's sewn together properly all along. The "broken dishes" block comes later. I hate it when I undo what I think is wrong only to realize I had it right all along.

So, okay...I couldn't walk away knowing that, and so I made four more HST's and sewed them together as I had them originally. 

Now I need five more blocks to finish Section 7 of the quilt, but I won't be ready to sew everything together until I make the blocks for Section 8. You can see where Section 8 is in the image below.

The rain had stopped by then, and it was nearing dinner time. I took a walk outside to see if there was anything new at the peony bed. This one is a little farther along, but nothing else was happening. They're waiting for the sun to come out, just like the rest of us.

Today will go pretty much like yesterday...more quilting and more quilt blocks. And today, add in the sound of reconstructing our guest room. The kitties are not going to be happy about Mans invading their purrsonal space with their cat-stomping feet and their noisy machinery. If they survive the day, it will be a meowrical.