Great Day in the Morning

It's going to be a great day. Wanna know how I know? Well...two things: (1) It's an NBS day (Nothing But Sewing). But more importantly, (2) is the morning's inchy. It contained the dreaded bullion stitch and I DID IT. (Cue the band playing Stars and Stripes Forever!) So, do you wanna see it?

This could not have been accomplished without my very helpful stitching cat.

When I wrote yesterday's post, I hadn't yet done the inchy from yesterday, so here it is.

As I mentioned, I was heading out to the grocery store. It snowed most of the day and it was coming down in great fat flakes when I left the house.

With the temperature well above freezing, nothing stuck, and most of the remaining snow has been washed away.

When I came downstairs to leave, I found my stitching cat comfortably ensconced on the dining room table, which is a big no-no. The kitties wonder why we put quilts on the tables if they aren't supposed to sleep on them. It's very confusing.

There were hardly any people at the grocery store yesterday. It's the first trip in months that I haven't needed to kill anyone while there. A refreshing change, to be sure.

When I got home, there were several deliveries at the door, including this one from The Fabric Shack.

Usually when I shop for fabric online, I shop at Fabric.com. I've always had good luck with them, and I think you \]ettttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt===============] (<-------an interjection from Smitty).

Ahem. As I was saying, I think you get free shipping after spending $35. Also, I get an ebate from them. Their website was impossibly slow that day, and fabric shopping waits for no one. Am I right about that? So, anyway, I ended up at The Fabric Shack. They stuffed approximately 13 yards of fabric into that little priority mail envelope, and it burst during shipping. I sent them the picture with a suggestion not to pack it so tightly next time. (Always the smart aleck.)

So here's what I got: The first one is to be a back for Matthew's quilt. He asked for a "gold" back, and I liked this gold batik. It's already pre-washed and ready to be cut and sewn into a backing for the Rainbow Jubilee quilt.

Also, as long as I was shopping, I got this fabric for a backing on the Snow Globes quilt. It has both metallic silver and metallic gold on it, and so it seemed like a good choice for that quilt with so much sparkle floss.

Also, this "ivory" background fabric for the next new embroidery project.

A few of you have noticed that several of my embroidery projects are coming to a close, and so I'm already preparing for the new ones that will fill in the open spots on my embroidery dance card. The fabric above will be for the background on this new project from Anni Downs at Hatched and Patched. It's called "Dancing Chickens and Flying Pigs."

I forget where I first saw this quilt...probably on Pinterest...but then I knew I had to make it right now! So, that's my next project. Supplies are accumulating.

After petting the fabric for a while, I got to work on quilting Hocuspocusville. I spent quite a bit of time messing with the tension. I was getting eyelashes on all the "humps" for this insy-outsy motif in the nine-patch blocks. As it turns out, I had different weight threads for the top and bottom. It worked okay for the spider webs, but it was a no-go for the nine-patches. I ended up winding a bobbin with the 40-weight top thread and my problems went away.

Here's how that looks from the back.

All the full blocks with spider webs are finished now, and I'm just getting started with the nine-patches. I hope to get this center finished today, but that might be overly optimistic. We'll see.

Also in yesterday's mail, I received these two little hand-painted buttons from Australia.

Recently, I tread where I should never tread...into Lynette Anderson's online store. There, I found this little Bunny Garden embroidery pattern, and how could I resist? I purchased the instant download,

(image source)

and then, I noticed the buttons. Well. I couldn't very well do all that stitching without the buttons, now could I? I knew you'd understand.

Yesterday evening, Miss Sadie had the utter audacity to get on top of the china cabinet, something Smitty has claimed as his...where he can claim dominion of all he can survey. The noyve of some cats.

Of course, a rumble ensued in which the big cat got a little too rough with the little cat until Mom and Dad had to lower the boom. Later, he sat at the top of the stairs waiting for the all-clear sign.

Life with cats is never dull. No, never.

Okay, so like I said...it's a day of NBS. Those kinds of days are best started early. What's on your agenda today?