Welcome to another week in my life. Last weekend I made a list of all the things I'd like to accomplish over the weekend. I even added "sew something" to my list. I accomplished almost everything except for sewing. I'm sad about the sewing, but very pleased with the rest of the stuff I got done.
I'm still trying to work on my Magnificent Mystery assembly. I have sewn these same 12 seams at least five times and they still aren't fitting together well. I do pin.
I'm trying to pinpoint where it all went wrong. All the subunits were correct with the exception of some of the hourglass units being a hair off on one corner. I sewed the subunits into rows with my travel machine, so I'm thinking that may be the culprit. Here I was after round three of ripping and resewing.
I'm also thinking that since I seem to struggle with accuracy on my travel machine, maybe I should only work on paper piecing or things that don't require accuracy (??) while I'm at sew days.
Keetah's quilt, quilted with Christmas Bows.
Erin's quilt full of ultra-marathon shirts (think 40- and 50-mile races 😳), quilted with Diagonal Plaid Bias. I am biased towards Diagonal Plaid Bias for t-shirt quilts. 😏
And Donna's, quilted with Spring Thing. I will bind this.
If you're wondering what in the heck I've been doing with my working hours, well, so am I. I've had a number of drop-offs and pick-ups and a meeting which cut into my time. I had to do a bit lot of ripping when I got some fluff in the machine that caused an issue. I've had several lengthy phone calls with my family. The weather has caused some power blips which made me leery of turning on the machine. I had to quit early Monday and Tuesday because I had evening commitments. The rest of this week is crowded with additional appointments. Oh well.
I had mentioned previously that I ordered the book for the Cherrywood Challenge. It arrived, and honestly, I'm disappointed. I understand that it was likely a print-on-demand thing and that is reflected in the cost. However, the quilts were absolutely gorgeous in real life and they are completely flat and devoid of most detail in the photography/printing. The paper used in the book is flat, not glossy or semi-glossy. I'm not sure if that stripped the details or what, but it was a disappointment and I wish I'd continued to take pictures of the entire display while I was at the quilt show. I do appreciate that the book contained the artists' statements for each piece.
At the beginning of the post I alluded to getting some things done. We ran errands Saturday morning. My car developed yet another problem, as yet undiagnosed. After discussing it with his friend, right now my husband is leaning towards a mass air flow sensor failure and one is on order. He thinks there might be two separate problems, but hopefully this takes care of the worst of it.
We were able to finish planting some of the perennials and shrubs we'd purchased. We got the side and most of the front gardens weeded. I sowed pole beans and two types of bush beans. My husband got another load of dirt and filled in more of the low areas in the garden that were left after reconstructing the front porch. He worked more on finishing up the columns on the porch and got the yard mowed. Here's a few pictures I took yesterday. It was pouring rain, so they aren't the best.
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| the side garden |
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| I'm trying to do mostly natives around the barn. We found a New Jersey Tea shrub (by steps) and I'm excited for that. |
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| New dirt! I need plants and shrubs. Not sure what yet. |
Of course I must mention birds. First off, the chicks are almost too big for their tote. Our fowl are also starting to smell pretty foul no matter how often the tote is cleaned out. The big chickens are fine. I think Peanut is feeling less broody now since I saw her outside several times over the weekend. She hasn't laid any eggs since she went broody.
I thought I might have seen a female grosbeak on the feeder Sunday and asked my daughter to look at the camera feed and confirm. She sent me this.
I saw one male grosbeak on Monday. Mostly it's just females. 
I saw what I believe is a Hermit Thrush out my sewing room window yesterday.
I continue to have Baltimore orioles coming in to the jelly feeder. It also attracts lots of house finches. I've had several hummingbirds and some downy woodpeckers on the hummingbird feeder. My husband bought a hummingbird feeder with a camera. We had to charge it and get a baffle to go above it (otherwise other birds sit on the hook and poop into the feeders, gross). I'm hoping to get it out today if the weather holds. My Merlin app has been picking up some additional birds that I can't see, including Orchard Orioles, White-throated Sparrow, and White-eyed Vireo. I've never seen a White-eyed Vireo before. The others usually come in to the feeders eventually.
I guess that's about all for this week. We took my son to vote for the first time. We went out to eat with some friends who treated us at a place we hadn't been before. I liked it and would return. My son had his last honors night at school Monday. {I'm still surprised how few kids actually show up for those events compared to the list of kids in the booklet. They have some pretty amazing accomplishments.} I don't think I mentioned before, but he did finally get accepted to his summer internship. The number accepted this year was very low compared to previous years and he was the first to get an offer, so that's cool. Oh, and I had to stop for pigs in the road on the way home from guild last night. That's a first here. (Notice I said "here". Yes, I've stopped for pigs in the road in other locales previously.)
