Top and Back

The quilt top got finished Wednesday evening. 

I'm quite pleased with the borders.

I finished piecing the back late last night/early this morning. This was an effort to use as much of her Downton Abbey fabric as possible. I did have to buy some more fabric, which was a neat trick since that line isn't made anymore.

Without showing the label, for privacy reasons, here's a closer lok a the details on the back.

The whole quilt gets layered and basted tomorrow afternoon. I'm got a friend coming over to help me since two sets of hands will likely be necessary. Today I'll make the binding because having it done ahead of time will be nice.

While I was out shopping for more fabric and batting on Friday, I picked up another stuffed animal pattern. This fellow is going to be fun!

And His Fuzziness decided to delay mowing the lawn for a few hours yesterday in favor of picking and de-petaling a mess of dandelions. There will be dandelion wine in our future. The spheres are re-hydrated golden raisins. The contents are happily bubbling in the stock pot. Apparently the recipe calls for letting everything ferment together for 3 days before straining the chunks from the liquid and continuing fermentation in another vessel.

That's all for now. I should find breakfast and get to making binding. I'm hoping to have everything mostly quilted by next Sunday. It's going to be a heavy job with all that fabric. There will have to be periodic breaks to rest my arms and shoulders. See you next time!

Forward Progress

I started trying to sew earlier in the week and discovered that it was extremely difficult to get up and down the stairs easily. Stupid knee is being grumpy still. We're thinking it's overwork from me attempting to work on my balance.

In an effort to keep me seated more, FuzzyHusband brought home a tabletop ironing pad. It worked out pretty well.

Once I got going with the blocks I discovered I needed to trim ad square up every single one. Apparently that was a step my friend skipped due to chemo brain. She also made the block seams a bit too wide, so they aren't the size they should be. But that's ok. I will add a bit more size with the borders.

In the effort to square up the blocks quicker, I put together a homemade template. It worked out quite well.

In fact it worked so well I've hinted to Himself that he could make me a few plexiglass versions in different sizes for fussy cutting and squaring up blocks. It gives him an excuse to play with the laser cutter at the makerspace.

At this point the rows are reassembled. They're looking quite nice if I do say so myself.

Next up is the horizontal sashing pieces.

As for the borders, I"m considering cutting a finished 3 inch border from the sashing fabric, as opposed to a 2 inch finished width like the sashing pieces. It would give a bit more size to the quit top. I"m not sure though, but I'll lay it out and ponder it once the rows are fully reassembled.

In other news, FH and I finally bottled the cherry apple cider he made last spring. Most of it's been given away to friends at this point.

It's not as clear as we thought it would be, but it does have a lovely color. If I was to compare it to a wine, I'd say it's most like a rose'.

Once carboy space was freed up, we started a mead. Honey is so pretty when it's pooling. This particular mead used 15 pounds of honey for 5 gallons of mead.

This batch is flavored with fresh ginger and these gorgeous, pink cara cara oranges.

It took a while, but the yeast finally got bubbling. Now we wait for several months.

That's all for now. I need to try and get some sleep and then get back to the quilt once the sun's up again. Hopefully I'll have a finished top and another 5 gallons of mead to show off next weekend. See you then!

When the Husband Asks Nicely for Help...

Really, really nicely... then I have no real choice but to help.  FH needed a second pair of hands this evening for bottling some beer he made.  Carboys are heavy, even when they're empty and bottling is messy.  But it was fun.

These are from bottling the porter FH and his brother brewed on New Year's Eve.

This is an orange and ginger mead that could not be bottled due to FH discovering carbon-dioxide still present in the liquid.  We moved it to a clean carboy so the gas could bubble out and the mead would not have to keep sitting on top of dead yeast.  It has a gorgeous color and the smell is heavenly.

I'll show my progress on the birth announcement tomorrow.  Maybe I'll even get it done whilst I wait for the UPS man to bring the roombox kit.