At least one of my blogging friends mentioned the de-energizing quality of winter weather. I am in complete agreement. It's a time of year when I want to get under the covers with my Warmie and drop off into a state of hybernation. Today will need to be a grocery shopping day, which always throws a monkey wrench into any plans I might have made otherwise.

Yesterday morning started as it often does...establishing the hierarchy of alpha males in the house.

When that didn't work, they collaborated in their efforts to portray themselves as half frozen Kats from the Klondike.

With just a few patches of snow left, it was a hard sell.

After lunch and a nap, I went to work on my challenge piece. I'm approaching the second most difficult part. Last night, I went pawing through my scraps looking for some appropriate fabrics for the secondary subject in my image. So far, I'm happy with how it's going. I'm referencing a book from my Kindle library entitled, It's All About the Face, by Phyllis Cullen and Cindy Richard. (There's also a Facebook group that goes by the same name.)

The noses and lips are a little challenging, but referring to the book lets me know I'm on the right track. When I'd finished with my hour's worth of work yesterday, it was about half finished. Here's your peek.

Okay, so with grocery shopping on today's agenda, I don't have a lot of time for talking this morning. I haven't made up my shopping list yet, although the menu for next week is planned. It's time to make some breakfast and face the madding hordes. I'm hoping there will still be time left in the day for more sewing when we're finished.

My current sewing projects are reminding me that finished is better than perfect. I've been making my way across Calendula Patterdrip day by day, and I'm about 3/4 of the way across. It's been challenging to figure out where lines should be drawn distinguishing crows' feet from tree branches. I'm happy with some of them...less happy with others. There are still three crows along my way. The one on the extreme right of the image below still needs the rest of his tail stitched.

That bright turquoise binding helps distract from the parts I like least.

With that finished, it was time to work on my challenge quilt. My trusty assistant wasn't sure how best to use his many helping talents.

These collage quilts generate a lot of little bits and pieces of fabric and fusible web. He thought he could best help out by using his long tail to point the way to the wastebasket below.

I've been spending an hour each day working on it. It's a good amount of time so that I don't become frustrated, and yet I make enough progress to feel as if I'm accomplishing something. Here's your peek:

Remember that the prompt is "Portrait." Any guesses?

I thought I might be finished for the day, but then we turned on the news. While we watched, I was able to turn the first corner.

Today my respite from the challenge quilt will be taken up hand-sewing the rest of the binding. If I get tired of working on that, I'll start quilting another quilt from my "trashy series." This is the Chicken Feed quilt. The center panel is made up of bits and bobs from other quilts. To make it a nice lap quilt size, I added borders all around. I laid it out over the machine last night to let its wrinkles relax. 

It's actually looking pretty good, and so I can start quilting right away. I have just two more quilts sandwiched for quilting after I finish with Chicken Feed. After that, I have plenty more to sandwich.

Good morning, my friends. It snowed most of the day yesterday. I spent some time with my slow-stitching in the morning, and then headed up to the quilting machine. When I sat down to commence quilting, this was the view out my window.

Ordinarily, I'd make myself start with the challenge piece...which is the most, um, challenging, and therefore the least desirable. Yesterday, I really wanted to finish the quilting on Trashy Triangles. I had first to make my way around the inner border. When I was this close to finishing, I ran out of bobbin thread. Of course, I did.

Just the outer border was left. I tried a new-to-me motif I saw on Pinterest. Mine is a little different. I tried it out on a practice piece, and it didn't seem too difficult. When I committed it to the quilt, I was underwhelmed at how it looked.

Nevertheless, I laid it out on the floor to have a look.

Shortly thereafter, the critics arrived. 

Because I'm just going to tell you right here and now that this is not a quilt I can take purride in.

It passes the snuggleability test, but it's going to need some spurrucing up if I'm to use it as a napping quilt. What do you think, Smitty?

I don't know, Sadie. I kind of like it. My tummy furs are enjoying its purrfuse poofiness.

I'll take it if you don't want it.

Well, I'm taking note of Sadie's objections. I like this bit of quilting advice I received from my friend Karin: If you don't like what you've done, just throw more thread at it. In this case, I think I'll do some echo quilting, or some loopy stuff, or something. It needs a little more.

Smitty was excited to get to work on the challenge quilt.

You'll never find a better quilting cat than Smitty. "Dedication" is his middle name. By the way, those rotary cutters are in their safe closed position. His murder mittens are perfectly safe.

I've been spending an hour at a time on this quilt. Yesterday I spent two hours since I hadn't done any sewing the day before. It's looking pretty good at this stage of the game, and the most difficult part is finished. I'm expecting to get quite a bit done on it now that the most complicated tiny pieces are in place. Here's your peek.

Between bursts of sewing and quilting, I finished the laundry and made some French onion soup for dinner. It was a pretty low-key day. I like snow days when we're mostly confined to the indoors and keeping warm. Today will look pretty much the same. 

Good morning, my friends. It's snowing lightly outside. We've had several days of snow over the past couple of weeks, but almost no accumulation. I think that might be coming to an end. There's a "winter weather advisory" for our area, and I have an idea the snow will stick this time. Fine with me. I have plenty of food and nowhere to go. Sounds like a sewing day.

Aside from slow stitching, there was no sewing yesterday. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I needed to make a run into town for some mushrooms. It was the first sunny day in at least a week, and the mountains were crystal clear off in the distance. That's Mt. Rainier on the left and Mt. St. Helens on the right. 

I'm going to show you some of what we saw, but first, let's get the rules straight. 

I like our post office. It's a historic building, built in 1935. Below is a picture of its cornerstone. It was built when Henry Morgenthau, Jr., was Secretary of the Treasury, and James A. Farley was Postmaster General.

Walking on, I spotted this cat on a sandwich board outside a tattoo parlor. The tattoo parlor used to be called "Bad Kitty." Now it's called "Gilded Heart." One wonders about the name change when the sign outside still displays the same image. I can't say I've ever visited the tattoo parlor.

This area, known as "Francis Square," is a kind of community gathering place. Often, I see folks posing for pictures against those peeling brick walls. It's a nice background for certain photography, such as wedding and engagement announcements.

At the extreme left of the image above was this blooming shrub. 

There isn't much blooming this time of year, but walking on, we found these:

The walk to and from the grocery store was about 1-1/2 miles. When we returned to the grocery store parking lot, we picked up our groceries and this pretty poinsettia. I haven't seen a lot of poinsettias for sale so far, which is kind of surprising.

Arriving home, I found my new light therapy box waiting at the door. I had one of these some time ago. Winter is dark here, and many people are bothered by seasonal affective disorder. I used my old lightbox every winter, but when Mike retired, we started going south for the winter. When I stopped using it, I gave it away. We're staying home this winter, and I've already noticed I'm having trouble falling asleep at night. I decided to look into getting another one. Happily, the price has come down significantly. Also, they're much smaller than the one I had before. So, as I'm writing this post this morning, I'm sitting in front of my new light therapy box.

When folks first started talking about light therapy some years back, I was skeptical. Then, a psychiatrist friend of mine showed me some good science coming out of the University of Washington in Seattle. I was convinced. As for the sleep issue, the article stated that for people affected by darkness, it was like being jet-lagged all the time during winter. I was convinced after reading the article, and personal experience has convinced me that it is effective for the sleep issue. If something like this interests you, look for one that emits at least 10,000 LUX of brightness and is also UV-free.

Nevertheless, in our cleaning out and donating of unused items, I decided to give this dog bed one more try by putting it behind the quilting machine in my office. I'm hopeful the kitties will be inspired to lie there while I'm quilting, rather than jumping up on the quilt as I'm trying to do free motion. Cats on my quilt slow my free motion progress pretty quickly.

I'd like to finish the quilting on this today, and I'll get back to my challenge quilt too. It's a good day for staying inside where it's warm and dry.

Good morning my friends. As I considered the title for this post, I thought I might be able to put my high school French classes to work and come up with a new word...something like "troisgress" or "troisjects." But, yeah. It doesn't really work. I give myself an "A" for effort though. 

It's a pretty morning here. I'm going to get out for a walk today. I'll head down to the lowlands where I'm unlikely to slip on ice. I need to head into town to get some mushrooms for tonight's dinner. With such a nice day ahead, I'm going to walk the main street of our town. It's an old town, and there is always something interesting to see there. Heck, I might even find an open bakery or something. If memory serves, there's also a chocolate shop. Why, the mind reels with possibilities!

Backing up to yesterday, I started my day with Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage: the project I love to hate. As if I needed yet another reason to hate it, I realized yesterday that it was developing some puckers in the embroidery.

And that fixed it! Yay!

Phew! Close call. It seemed like a good time to head down to the sewing room to make a little more progress on my challenge quilt. Here's your peek.

Again yesterday, I set a timer for a one-hour minimum amount of time to work on it. I like that method for things that are causing me to procrastinate and gnash my teeth. Today, I believe I'll be adding enough that it will capture me under its spell. They're hard to work on until they start to look like something that makes sense. Then, they're hard to walk away from.

For that, I decided to do dot-to-dot quilting to finish off that far edge. Then, I took it downstairs and laid it in front of the living room window for its picture. The borders still need quilting, but here's how it looks so far. It's pretty hard to see the quilting, but I'll show it to you anyway.

Same goes for the back. I do love that fabric, though. I'm so happy to find a way to use it.

It was getting late in the day by then, and so I barely started the inner border of quilting. Here, I'm using a motif that Lori Kennedy calls "Paperclip." I like this motif. It looks good on the quilt, especially with variegated thread, and it's one that I can do easily...always a good feature in a quilting motif.

I left it needle down when I stopped for the day.

So today will look much like yesterday, making "troisgress," but I'll head out fairly early for my walk. I'm hoping to finish the borders on the Trashy Triangles today and then it will be ready for binding. 

It was a slow morning yesterday. It seems they've all been slow this week. We're expecting the "baseboard guys" to come today, and so we'll need to speed things up a little or risk answering the door in our pajamas. There wasn't much on yesterday's agenda, and so I'm not at all sure what took me so long getting into the sewing room. If you read yesterday's post, then you know I admitted to dragging my feet about getting started on the newest challenge piece. The prompt this time is "Portrait." And I did get a start on it...here's the first piece.

I probably have everything I need to finish the job, although there is one more feature on the quilt that I haven't thought about yet. It will be one of the last parts of the quilt, and so I have some time to consider what to do there. When my hour was up, I had it this far:

There isn't much to see yet, but I'll get it farther along today. As I mentioned yesterday, getting started is the biggest hurdle.

On the chair behind me, we ordinarily fold up the quilt for Smitty since he considers this spot his throne for afternoon napping. The quilt was left in a pile yesterday, but he managed to fit his ample body onto what space was available.

Only a few of his furs deigned to touch the upholstery on the chair.

Since there was so little action in the living room, I went straight to work on the Trashy Triangles quilt. I'm alternating the direction of the rows as I go, and three of about 6 rows were completed yesterday.

Flipping it over, here's how it looks from the back. It's hard to see the quilting there, but I'm glad to have found a use for this long-time resident of my stash.

As I'm writing this, Sadie is napping overhead on the bookcase above my desk. There is a lot of napping going on at the Three Cats Ranch on these cold winter days. Both humans and felines are taking advantage of quilts to stay warm.

If memory serves, there is one housekeeping chore on today's agenda. After that, it will be NBS. I'm hoping to make enough progress on the challenge quilt that it will capture me under its spell. For now, I'm still dragging my feet a little bit. There was no slow-stitching yesterday either, but I'll get back to that today.

Happy December, my friends! Is it just me, or was November excruciatingly long? Maybe it was because we'd only just arrived home from a trip at the beginning of the month. Or maybe it was hassling with contractors that made the month seem so long. By the way, remember when I told you they would be here to finish the baseboards about two weeks ago? Would it surprise you to know the baseboard are still not finished? The story was that they hadn't come in at Lowe's. They even had someone at Lowe's call us to tell us it wasn't the fault of the contractor. Well...it scarcely matters whose fault it is. The baseboards still are not finished. Just before I sat down here, they called to say they would be here tomorrow. And if you believe that, then I have some beachfront property in Idaho I'll sell you at a steal of a price...emphasis on the "steal" part of the price.

In excellent customer service news, we arrived home from the grocery store yesterday to find this brand spanking new Le Creuset Dutch oven sitting at our front door.

Please ignore all that discoloration. I've been using it for 16 years, and the interior has permanently darkened after so many years of soups and stews. We used to try keeping the interior white by soaking it in bleach and other methods. We finally gave up and let it take follow its own dreams. 

It was late in the day before I thought about doing any sewing. I'll admit I'm dragging my feet at getting started on my challenge piece. It's another collage applique piece. They are completely engrossing once I get started. It's the "getting started" part where I get hung up. Today I told myself I'd set a timer for one hour. When time is up, I'll probably want to continue. If not, I'll get going on quilting the Trashy Triangles quilt. 

Knowing I'd made this bargain with my procrastinator self, I decided to get the machine set up, adjusted, and ready for quilting. As a reminder, here is what the Trashy Triangles quilt looks like. It was made from bonus triangles collected over many years of quilt-making. It is one of just four quilts in my "trashy series" so far.

With so many colors on both the front and back, I wanted to use a variegated thread. Shopping through my many spools, I came out with these two that were gifts from my quilting fairy godmother, Ila. Thank you, Ila.

It's a 40-weight thread, and I'll use it on both top and bottom.

So I cleaned and oiled the machine, switched to a new needle, and then went to work adjusting the tension. Smitty helped with that.

When we had everything set up to his satisfaction, he gave me the go-ahead.

You may purrceed.

While it was tempting to do straight line zig-zag quilting, I decided to quilt it with my go-to flying geese motif. I saw this on Pinterest some time ago, and now it's a frequent choice for quilting this shape.

I'm sorry I can't give credit to the person who created this diagram originally. I've done an image search for it, and the only things I can find do not identify the creator. Nevertheless, this quilter thanks you.

So I counted the rows of half-square triangles by twos and found where the middle of the quilt would be if I'm quilting two vertical rows of half-square triangles at a time. (I hope that makes sense.) And then, I gave it a go, just barely getting started on the quilting.

It looked good both front and back, and so I left it there, needle down, awaiting my return...hopefully, sometime today.

And this being December 1st, it's time to choose a goal for

When I sign off here, I'll head over to the linky party that starts today.

Snow is falling outside. We're expecting a couple of inches. It's a good day to stay inside and sew, and that is exactly what I'm going to do.

The day was off-kilter yesterday. Our morning routines were shot when we had to round up Sadie and take her to the vet. (Sadie is doing fine, by the way. She did lose another tooth, however, poor little thing.) The only one who had a good morning was Smitty. He was just glad it wasn't him going to the vet.

Here are the two blocks I have for this quilt so far. Only 18 to go!

It was getting late in the day, but I decided to get to work on the template for my latest challenge quilt. I always start by writing which side is the "right" side with these. The template is used for placement, but it's also used for making the applique pieces. For the applique, it's turned face down to reverse the image, and so it's quick to tell whether I'm working from the right side when I simply add it to an open spot on the image.

I was able to finish drawing the template. How much detail to include is always the biggest question with these. This one has quite a bit. Here's a little peek:

My ironing board work surface is set up now with a teflon pressing sheet, and I'll get started on it today. I'll be working from big and little scraps, but I pulled some fabrics that could be backgrounds or backs. I won't use all of these, but I will use some of them.

It was nearing dinner time, and I hadn't yet done any slow stitching. I spent some time on that, and then laid it on the floor so I could see how it was going. Given the problems I've had with this last bit of embroidery, it's not looking too bad. I would like to have done a better job on the first crow's feet, but it's good enough. 

I've hooped the section to the right where the second and third crow are located. The tracing was a little easier there, and so those feet will be easier to stitch.

Ordinarily, I would use four portobello mushrooms, but they were packaged in quantities of three, and they were big ones. One mushroom makes a meal. I decided three would get the job done. This is a recipe I adapted from one I saw online. I use leftover sweet potatoes, and so I don't bother with the first step. Here's how I do it:

It's a chilly morning here, my friends. We've had our first dusting of snow for the season...or maybe it's the second. The days become a blur sometimes. In any case, it snowed overnight, and snow is falling now.

It's a confusing morning for Smitty. First, there's the snow. A cat has to stay right next to the house to avoid sitting in this cold, wet, white stuff.

And where is Sadie? Well...she's gone to the dentist this morning. It was a terrible morning for all concerned since we picked up their food and water last night, and no morning treats were dispensed when we got up. In kitty speak: WTF? (In case you're wondering, that stands for "Where's the food?")

Okay, but let's just back up to yesterday, shall we? It was a nice morning, and it stayed nice well into the afternoon. As I've mentioned, we're trying to get more movement in our days, and so I jumped at the opportunity to get out for a walk early. We were expecting rain by afternoon, and this sunny morning came as a delightful surprise. As I was leaving, I turned to snap this picture of the Three Cats Ranch.

There were a few things that caught my eye as I was walking away. First, the water droplets on things were enchanting as they glinted in the sunshine.

Also the sun shining through the few remaining leaves caught my eye.

From our front door to the paved public road, I'd estimate our gravel driveway to be about a quarter mile long. It's half downhill, and then half uphill to the public road. When I reached the road, the pavement appeared wet, but nothing more. After just a few steps, I slipped and fell...black ice. I'll admit to uttering a four-letter word here, but I wasn't hurt. And, honestly, I wanted to go walking up to the top of our hill. I tested the pavement for a few steps more, then tried walking along the gravel shoulder. In the image below, you can see what I saw...frosty tips on all the leafy weeds. 

It was clearly too treacherous to continue. And I do NOT want to break another bone. As Trevor Noah says, "Ain't nobody got time for that." Okay, so my walk was short. Coupled with yesterday's effort at dusting and vacuuming the downstairs, I probably got enough movement to satisfy whatever gods of health happen to be paying attention. 

My friend Angei left this question on yesterday's post:

I’m not much of an appliqué or embroidery person but I have a question..would it not save time and energy . . . to prepare all the blocks with sashing as you did with first one and then they would be ready for you to transfer the design to as you come to that block?

Angei, you are no-reply, and so I can't respond directly. I'm hoping you'll see the answer here today. It's a good question, and so I thought some of you might also be wondering and interested in the answer. Allow me to explain.

First, I couldn't make the first block without first adding the sashings. The tail of the bird extended out into the right side of the block and over the sashing. (Some of the applique for this quilt actually extends into the adjacent block.) As you can see in the image below, I wouldn't be able to complete any part of the bird without first adding the tail, and so I went ahead and sewed the sashings to the background before fusing any of the applique.

Here's the trade-off doing it that way. The stems of the flowers for this block come right to the edge of the background. In retrospect, I might have done this part of the block first, and then added the sashings before adding the bird. That's not what I did, however, and so the stems of the flowers butt right up against the green sashing. It meant top-stitching around the bottom. The top-stitching isn't a problem as long as the stem is exactly in the right spot so that there is no gap between the sashing and the applique.

The preferred way is to fuse the applique first, then trim the background to size, then add the sashing. You can see below that in the second block, the flower pot is caught in the seam when the sashing is added, giving a nice clean look with no gaps.

Contrast that with the second flower stem on the first block, where there is a tiny gap between the two.

After top-stitching, it mostly doesn't matter, but you can see the thread could only cover so much, and there is a tiny gap between the two. 

I hope that all makes sense. My preferred way is to build the applique over the background, then trim the block, and then add the sashings. It really comes down to personal preference, but to my eye, this way gives a cleaner look.

Except for top-stitching the yellow petals in Block #2, both blocks are complete now, and I'll be moving on to my challenge piece while also quilting the Trashy Triangles quilt.

It's an unexpected sunny morning at the Three Cats Ranch. I'm writing fast, and then making breakfast fast, and then getting out for a walk...fast...because at this time of year, the only sure weather-related thing is that the weather will change. We're expecting rain and snow this week, and so this bit of blue sky and sunshine is unexpected. 

Yesterday I spent the afternoon in the sewing room. I was surprised to be able to get both Whimsical Garden quilt blocks ready for top-stitching. Smitty was disappointed to learn we wouldn't be doing much machine sewing. He bowed his head in disappointment, but I was unmoved. Even the grim ripper behind him seems sad about this.

The placement was a little tricky on this one. There are lots of pieces tucked under other pieces, and so I was glad I had a wax paper placement template to help me out.

Smitty was over his disappointment by then, and he helped me with the tracing. By helping, I mean that he bumped my tracing hand with his nose several times to ensure my lines wouldn't be too straight. He's very creative in that way.

This one went quite a bit faster than the first, but it still needed it's sashings.

That was the only machine sewing I did yesterday.

Here are the two blocks together. They still need top-stitching. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I'm alternating the sashing fabrics on the tops, bottoms, and sides for visual interest. Now that I have a picture, it should make more sense.

Also in yesterday's post, I mentioned that I didn't have enough of any one white to do all 20 block backgrounds. However, I have two fabrics that are nearly identical. In the two images below, I've taken a close-up so you can see the difference. I'll do all the odd-numbered block backgrounds with this one fabric...

and the even-numbered block backgrounds with the one below. Standing back a distance, it's hard to see the difference.

The only other thing of note from yesterday is that my quilting fairy godmother paid me a visit. She read my posts about snipping the rag quilt I finished recently, and she sent me these wonderful Gingher snips. These are actually my favorite snips to keep beside me when I'm sewing.

My mother gave me a pair when I was a teenager, and I hate to even think about the number of years that have passed since then. Over the decades, they've become dull, and it usually takes me a couple of snips at my threads before they'll cut through. So, I needed a new pair, and I'll be appreciative to be using scissors that actually do the job they were hired to do. Thank you, Ila. These will be used every time I sew.

Good morning, my friends. It's a wet Sunday here. We're expecting rain and some snow in the coming week. We may not see the sun again before April. Actually, it only feels that way sometimes. Ordinarily, we go south after Christmas, but we're staying home this year. We only just took a two-month trip this fall, and with fuel prices so high, it seems like a good winter to stay home. That's fine with me. I'm looking forward to lots and lots of sewing this winter.

There was yet another open slot on my list of WIPs, and so yesterday I started a new project. I was able to pull the fabrics I need from my stash. Smitty helped with that.

With a gray and cold winter ahead, I wanted to start something bright and cheerful, and it will help winnow down some of my scraps. Only, have you noticed how your scraps never appear to have been winnowed, no matter how many times you try to make a dent? The blocks for this quilt can be made as individual mini quilts, or you can make a smaller quilt of however many blocks you want. I'm going to make all 20 blocks. I've learned that it takes a long time if I make them just one block at a time, and so I'll start with two blocks at a time from the outset. Here's how the finished quilt might look.

I'll start with the two blocks at the upper left.

I pulled some fabric candidates for the outer border. It will depend on how much fabric I need when I decide which to use. For now, they are included in the project box.

I'll use these two greens for the inner sashing on each block. 

These are the two reds for the outer sashing.

If you'll notice in the quilt picture above, they've used scraps for their sashings. I don't have enough fabrics in large enough hunks for that, and so I'll just alternate mine on the tops, bottoms, and sides for visual interest. It'll make more sense when I start sewing them together. And since I'm alternating them, I cut half and half of each length and each fabric. This took far longer than you might think. Regarding the background fabrics...I didn't have enough of any one white to do all of them, but I have two fabrics that are nearly identical. If I didn't point out the differences to you, I doubt you'd notice. Nevertheless, I'll do all the odd block backgrounds with one fabric and the even block backgrounds with the other.

As you can see, helper cat was by my side the whole time.

Okay, and so this is one of those annoying applique patterns where the printing is on both sides of the sheet, making it impossible to trace the pieces with a light box. I understand why it's like this. The templates are not reversed for fusible applique, and the pattern designers clearly were intent on needle-turn applique. 

So reversing them isn't a problem. I just turn the pattern face down on my lightbox. But with printing on both sides, I'm forced to copy each one. And since they're larger than a standard 8-1/2 x 11 sheet, I have to make two copies, and then cut and tape them together. 

With so many pieces, it seems advisable to have a placement template, and so I created one using wax paper and a fine point Sharpie.

Also, the tail of the bird extends out into the sashing, and so I needed to sash the first background before I can begin to add the applique pieces. 

Good day-after-Thanksgiving morning, my friends. I hope you're all recovering from your food comas. We had a nice dinner here. I didn't overeat, and enjoyed a reasonable plate of food with some of our family favorites. We had a small gathering. I don't have much to report since it was a busy day in the kitchen. Mae brought dessert, and Mike did the turkey on our Traeger grill. The turkey was especially good. It was brined, then given a spice rub, and basted with a 1:1 mixture of melted butter and triple sec. The skin was like candy, and the meat was moist. The only Thanksgiving-related picture I took was this one of our table after it was set:

So here's the thing about me and embroidery: I'm an unapologetic stabber, if that makes sense. I stretch my fabric tight in the hoop (and, yes, I prefer the heft and stability of a hoop), and then I push the needle in with my hand on top, and pull it through with my hand on the bottom. With smaller pieces, I pin back the excess to keep it out of my way. This quilt is simply too large for that, and so I'm spreading it out in my lap and keeping the least bulky part toward my body. Yesterday, I decided I needed to put on my big girl panties and do embroidery the way some folks consider "proper," by keeping my hand on top. It'll be slow going until I get used to it, but it'll probably make the job easier. 

It was a beautiful day yesterday, but we're promised at least a week of rainfall. And you know the saying...red sky at morning, sailors take warning. So I'm considering myself warned this morning. It'll  be a good day to spend in the sewing room where it's warm and dry.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! It's my favorite holiday of the year. I was able to get quite a bit of our dinner done yesterday. Today there will be more, beginning with stuffing the turkey. And, yes, I know there are naysayers out there who will tell you not to stuff your turkey, but we do it anyway. We just check the temperature when everything is done to make sure it is hot enough to be safe. 

But let's back up to yesterday, shall we? Mike and I are endeavoring to get more movement in our lives. To that end, we recently purchased a Bowflex, and we are liking that a lot. It's filling in the space left behind when we sold our pool table earlier this year. We also moved our treadmill down with the Bowflex, and now we can watch TV while we do our walking. But I'm also going to try to get outside for more walking when weather permits. It looked as if yesterday would be my only chance for some time, and so I did that first.

The sun was shining at the top of our hill. We were above the clouds. It's the same this morning. 

This is how it looks on a better day.

Nothing is blooming at this time of year, but the carcasses of things that bloomed earlier are still interesting. In better days, this was Queen Anne's Lace.

Here's how it looks from the top. Just look at all those seeds ready for next year's bloom.

Beside them were these little guys...about the size of a quarter.

Even the crispy grasses were interesting.

But at this time of year it's hard for anything that stands still to escape the moss and lichens. It's another good reason for us to get more movement in our lives.

This mule was contemplating where to graze next.

This was one of the few trees that still had some leaves attached to its branches.

I saw lots of trees with just one leaf attached. It always reminds me of that O. Henry story, The Last Leaf. I saw a dramatization of it when I was a little girl, and it has stuck with me ever since. It's a good story, and appropriate for Thanksgiving, I think. If you don't know the story, you can see a dramatization of it on YouTube:

Also, I saw the first holly berries of the season. I regret not getting better focus on these.

These next ones are known as snowberries. Some experts will tell you they are edible if cooked at the right stage of maturity. It would be risky, however. They are considered mildly toxic to humans and other animals.

And I don't know about you, but cold weather gives me a runny nose...always. I'm like my grandmother these days, and I never go out without a packet of kleenex in my pocket. It was the same yesterday, and I pulled an unopened packet from my pocket. Generally, I'm using regular generic kleenex, but yesterday's was a surprise. I knew you'd want to see it.

Walking on...despite the moisture in the air, it didn't seem wet unless I noticed the dew on the grass and dripping from wire fencing.

I've walked by this "barn" hundreds of times, but never photographed it. It isn't really a barn, but more of a garden shed. The fog made it more picturesque than I remembered it.

I saw this single robin...no friends anywhere that I could see.

I passed by some apple trees with apples that were never harvested. It always makes me sad to see this pretty fruit go to waste.

Here, someone had gone to the trouble of putting miniature pumpkins on every fence post.

Every post for the whole length of the fence had its own pumpkin or two.

These ghostly trees were interesting.

Some of the fields have been planted, presumably with winter wheat, although this could also be red clover.

As I returned to my car, a blue heron flew overhead. I watched until he landed and then posed for his portrait. Isn't he a handsome fellow? Such excellent posture.

Here are some shriveled wild rosehips.

And a cattail that's seen better days. Smitty would be appalled at such a scruffy tail.

By the time I reached my car, I was cold and ready to go back home where the sun was shining.

It was time to head into the sewing room. Sadie was my sewing cat yesterday.

I found my applique cat right where I'd left him. It still needed topstitching on the birds and their legs and feet added.

From there, I was ready to stitch the yarn coming from the yarn ball entangling the cat. I wanted to use a thicker thread than regular sewing thread. Looking at my wall of thread, I was pretty sure I had something from my quilting fairy godmother, Ila. Ila gifts me with some wonderful threads...stuff I've never seen before. In this case, it was this 12-weight thread.

I always like the names of colors. "Red tomato." It brings a picture to mind.

And I love that Superior threads often tell you what needle to use. In this case, it was a 100/16 top-stitching needle. Well, I didn't have anything that large, and so I stepped down to a 90/14 topstitching needle. For good measure I used some Sewer's Aid to keep it lubricated.

And that performed amazingly well. It gave me not one bit of trouble. And take a look at this! I used the triple stitch on my sewing machine. Is this just too stinking cute?

Okay, so that block is nearly finished. I need to add a couple of pieced blocks to the left side, but I set it aside there so I could finish up December's Books & Roses block.

Now all the blocks are finished and ready to be sewn into a quilt top. Here are all the blocks for this quilt.

We had a pretty sunset last night. The sun actually sets looking in the opposite direction, but it lit up the sky to the north.

Okay, so here we are Thanksgiving morning. I hope y'all enjoy good food and good family time. As for me, it's time to get cooking. 

There wasn't as much time for sewing yesterday as I'd hoped. Nevertheless, I got a good start on the next section for Purrfectly Pieced. Initially, Smitty turned up his nose at making yet another cat block. He wonders why I make so many cat quilts when I have purrfectly good cats living in the house with me. Also, fluffy cats are not fond of flat cats. Finding a flat cat is never a good thing.

He suddenly realized he had a vested interest in whether this was done correctly.

I first traced all the applique pieces, and then I needed to make the ball of yarn.

I was so immersed in the business of creating the ball of yarn that I neglected to take any process pictures. This morning, I took a picture of the pattern diagrams. It was easier than it looks. I created a freezer paper template according to the measurements show in the diagram below. Then, I cut three different reds to 12 x 4 inches. I stacked the whole thing together, and then cut wedges along the drawn lines on the freezer paper.

Then, I mixed up the wedges and sewed them together, alternating directions. When that was finished, I cut four 3-1/2 inch squares from the strip set, and then sewed them together 4-patch style. Then, I used the circular template provided to cut the 4-patch into a circle, and voila! One red ball of yarn for the kitty to play with. The next step was to fuse all the applique.

After that, I went to work on the top-stitching. I had all but the birds finished when I needed to stop for the day. I ended my sewing day early in order to get a stew going in my Dutch oven.

For today's sewing, I'll finish up the top-stitching, and then draw in a line representing the yarn in which the cat finds himself entangled. I'll also embroider some legs and feet for the birds. This section also includes some piecing, and so I'll need to do that before I can say it's finished.

Our day seemed a little disjointed yesterday. It's what happens when you start the day with an agenda in mind, and then start changing it as the day progresses. Our day started when Mike went outside to chip the ice skating rink off the bird bath. Garden Cat was very excited about this.

There's no more enthusiastic helper than a kitty primed to assist with life's most important tasks.

With his snoopervision, I was able to sew the borders on September's light blue block...

With October's light green block close behind.

While I pondered what I should do next, Sadie joined us.

Smitty was thinking her arrival opened a whole new world of mischievous possibilities.

There are only two more Books & Roses blocks, and then I'll be out of slow stitching projects. It seemed a good time to pull out the dreaded Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage and take a look at the final stitchery. 

Working on this had me yearning to go to the grocery store. And you know how I love grocery shopping. (Not.) And the final shopping before Thanksgiving is the most dreadful shopping of the year. So I sewed together the blocks on the left side of the quilt, and then I left it like this while we went and did our shopping. Happily, we found everything we needed at just one store.

When we returned home and had things put away, we both took a well-deserved nap. Miraculously, Smitty and Sadie shared Mike's lap in perfect harmony. This rarely happens.

There was time to spare in the afternoon, and so I finished sewing together the quilt blocks. When it was finished, it looked like this:

So here's where the impossible part happens. In the image below, I've approximated where the branch lies.

The wind died down yesterday. We've had a bitterly cold east wind blowing for about a week, and so it was nice to be out without getting blown away. The kitties went with me to fill the bird feeders. (The kitties are especially fond of this task.) Smitty was excited to have a human outside with him. Humans are a rare breed this time of year.

Most of the leaves are gone from our trees now, but a few are still present. This Japanese maple is at the front of the house.

There are two of these bright red guys around the back near the catio.

Uh-Oh, I think there's gonna be a rumble!

While they negotiated their respective territories, I went to work sewing together the latest three Shop Hop blocks. Here's San Diego:

Then, Newport, Oregon. These go pretty fast once the cutting is finished.

And finally...um, I'm trying to...could you just step a little bit...?

There we go. Arizona, near the Nevada border.

Here are the 15 blocks I have for this quilt so far. I need ten more to finish it off, and I'll add the final blocks to either side of what you see here. The camera will be in the middle.

Okay, so having finished up a couple of projects before I was booted from my sewing room, I have two open slots on my list of WIPs. One of them will be filled with this group of blocks gifted to me from my friend Wendy. Wendy gets some sort of monthly sewing sampler box, but she didn't want to make these. She sent them my way, knowing my obsession with barns. There are 12 blocks, plus a final setting design. (I'll probably set them my own way.)

I needed a background fabric. I can't remember if this came from my stash or if I bought it specifically for this quilt. It's a mottled off-white. I'll use it in all of the blocks.

Also, I added to the project box these leftover fabrics from other barn quilt projects. I have enough of the lower one for borders and more.

So, I'll begin with Block #1 and work my way through, starting here:

It took me a bit of studying and comparing different blocks to figure out what fabrics I should use. The pattern only specified "background, medium, dark, and stripe." Each block has a "stripe" in the lower left corner, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but whatever. I couldn't really come up with a good substitution either. Also...am I supposed to use polka dots? Or is that just for illustrative purposes? Well, I happen to love polka dots, and I have lots of them, so what the heck? And I'll do each one in a different color, RSC-style, although I'll be choosing the colors as I go.

Okay, so next up, I'll be making the next section for Purrfectly Pieced. This is what I have for this quilt so far:

There was a little of everything in yesterday's comings and goings. Actually there was no coming nor going...I just stayed home (and inside). There was plenty to keep me busy all day. I spent most of the day in the sewing room with breaks for dealing with the week's laundry. Also, I wanted to bake some more biscotti. I didn't do any Christmas baking last year, and so I have a desire for some this year. Biscotti is something we both like, but it's not the sort of thing that entices one to eat the entire batch in one sitting. Yesterday's batch was Cranberry, Orange and White Chocolate Biscotti.

Smitty let me know he was bored at the prospect of it, but he perked up when I offered him some catnip.

So, yeah...I've been dragging my feet about these, but I had the right stitch plate and foot on my sewing machine for top-stitching the little appliques. It seemed the most logical place to start yesterday's sewing endeavors. I started with August's orange block. 

The applique was my idea for this. All the other blocks have applique, but this one did not. I decided the book cover could be fabric. Then I realized there is another block with no applique. Oh well. One can never have too much applique. (I say that whenever I have too much of something.)

Then, October's light green block.

From there, I was out of colors, and so I chose lavender for November's block. I chose lavender for the Jericho Walls quilt too...my other rainbow scrap quilt.

Finally, for December, I chose multi-colored. 

All the borders are cut for each block, so I can finish them as I stitch them. I'll start with August this morning.

One thing we always do when we're in this part of San Diego is to drive out to Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery on Point Loma, which happens to be the final resting place of my mom and dad. If one drives to the end of the point, one can see the Point Loma Lighthouse and Cabrillo National Monument. I cut the lighthouse portion of the panel for my quilt. The rest will be squirreled away for use in another quilt sometime. You can see all these places at the link I gave you above.

The next block was from Roxy's Quilt & Sew in Ft. Mojave, Arizona. Ft. Mojave happens to be just across the Nevada-Arizona border from Laughlin, Nevada, where we stay when we're in the area. When I purchased this fabric, I saw casinos, and I chose it because there is a lot of gambling anywhere one goes in Nevada. 

Looking at it yesterday, I realized these are motels, not casinos. Oh well. There are lots of motels in Laughlin too. It still works...except for the Hollywood & Vine sign in the lower left corner. Nevertheless, this is the fabric I have to represent Roxy's Quilt & Sew. It's a great little shop, and I've visited more than once.

Finally, I chose this fabric from Quilter's Cove in Newport, Oregon. I visited this shop when a friend from high school was in town. They were staying at a house near Newport, and we drove over for the weekend to see them. From the house, we could see the Yaquina Head Lighthouse off in the distance.

So when I found this fat quarter at the quilt shop, it was a no-brainer.

Sadie seems unhappy with this choice of a fabric. She wanted to stay home that trip, but we made her go with us. Besides, where's her catnip?

So I spent the remainder of my sewing day cutting all the pieces I'd need to finish these blocks. It was late in the day by then, and so I left them covered with rulers, to protect them from prying paws.

Today is going to be another NBS day. There isn't much else to do now that the weather has turned so cold. It shouldn't take long to sew these together today, and then I'll be starting a new project. I'll say more about that in tomorrow's post.

Good morning, my friends. Some of you are probably digging out this morning. Oh my goodness! So much snow! There's no snow here, but it's been blustery and cold for the past several days. Not fit weather for cat nor beast. I spent most of my day in the kitchen. I had Grown-up Mac and Cheese on last night's menu...comfort food, for sure. It's a bit of a production to put together, but it will feed us for two nights this week, and then there's a bonus for some future RVing adventure. It sure tasted good for last night's dinner. I didn't take a picture of mine, but here's one to entice you:

and part of another.

I should have no problem finishing these off this morning, and then I'll be ready to make the next three Shop Hop blocks.

In the sewing room, I made the 7th block for the Vintage Linens quilt.

Here are the seven blocks I have so far:

Originally, I'd planned to make 12 blocks for this quilt. The blocks are 16-1/2 inches square, so they're fairly large. When I laid them out yesterday, I decided to make just nine. I have some cute ideas for how to set these blocks, and I'll be making cornerstones from some of my grandmother's smallest embroidery designs. If I make 12 blocks, I'm afraid the quilt is going to get as big as all outdoors. With nine blocks, sashings, cornerstones, and borders, nine blocks should get it to a nice size.

Awesome alliteration. Who knew I'd be writing to tell you about my fifth November finish today? Certainly not me. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I had a bunch of running around to do yesterday. When I left the house yesterday morning, I'd snipped the first three rows of the Flannel Four-Patch quilt, and that was my goal for the day.

 

And indulge me my usual short rant about Joann and their coupons. As anyone who shops at Joann knows, their coupons are only good on full-priced items. When I saw these scissors hanging on the rack, they were priced at $34.99, and there was no indication anywhere they were on sale. In fact, none of the hundreds of different scissors on display were marked as being on sale. Cool!, I think, because I have a 50% off coupon on my Joann app, and I think I'm going to get a pretty good deal on this! Only...hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...fooled you! Because when they rang up at the register, they rang up at 20% off...so the coupon couldn't be used. Surprise, surprise! So, here's my question: Is absolutely everything in a Joann store on sale all the time? Why even bother with coupons? Okay, stepping off my podium now. But in closing, it's just one more thing that makes me despise shopping at Joann. It is the best place for certain items, but this coupon scam really chaps my hide.

Release the catch, and the blades open. It's an improvement over regular scissors because I only have to squeeze them closed, and then they open again on their own. It's much less taxing on those gripper muscles.

But here's the best part. They allowed me to hold the scissors at odd angles as I snipped my seam allowances, and so I wasn't having to turn the quilt in every direction to get all the sides of my blocks.

Here's another odd angle I was cutting.

So I still had six more rows to snip, but I was so happy about this new and useful tool that I just sat and finished up the whole thing.

And how could I go wrong with such an excellent kitty cheerleader by my side.

Ordinarily, the table is off limits to cats. When there's a quilt on the table, all bets are off.

Here's how it looks from the back:

That brings me to the WIP's section of my workflow. Today I'll be making another block for the Vintage Linen quilt. If there's time, I'll continue on with my projects. I forget which one would be next in line after Vintage Linen. Shop Hop, I think. I'll be making three blocks for the Shop Hop quilt this time around, but I first need to embroider the names and places of the various quilt shops. Also, Jenny of Elefantz has finally posted the last two Books & Roses blocks, and so I'll be preparing those for slow-stitching. I'll probably do them all at once. Once again, here are the blocks I have for this quilt so far. There are five more to finish all the blocks for this little quilt.

There are some other domestic things on today's agenda. It's going to be a busy day and leading up to a busy week. Thanksgiving is just around the corner. There's always plenty to keep me busy at this time of year. How about you? Are you cooking this year?