Adjusting to life without Lily

Yesterday seemed to simply fly by.  I felt like the dog who gets distracted by squirrels--Make the bed. Squirrel! Do some paperwork!  Squirrel! Get the laundry started!  Squirrel! Take things to the sewing room! Squirrel!, . . .  And on and on it went all day!  I'm usually very focused on the task at hand and take things in the order I've determined, but yesterday I found there were so many things I'd neglected while Lily was here that I just did whatever I happened to come across.  At the end of the day, I was satisfied that I'd accomplished at least a bit of what I'd planned on doing--and a lot of things I'd happened on that also got finished.

At least the laundry was done so I have clean underwear!  And I got some groceries that we needed for dinner.  For supper I made what we call "Bobsled Beans."  Lily doesn't like them so it's been several months since we had this dish which is one of our favorite vegetarian meals.  It's actually called "Jamaican Bobsled Team Beans and Rice" but of course, we've shortened it!  Here's a link to the recipe if you want to check it out:  https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=796823.  It's humble simple and nutritious and tasty. I used a Jalapeno pepper instead of the Habanero and I usually serve it with brown rice.  Sorry, but I can't find a picture of it on line and the batch I cooked last night is all eaten up without any pictures taken. 

I also got 6 bags of green beans in the freezer and when Don came home from the garden he brought more beans and some broccoli.  I remembered that I'd promised to make dilly beans for my friends who love Bloody Marys so I hope to get that done this afternoon.

But, you want to see some pics, don't you?  I promised I'd post pics of the Bee-utiful blocks I've embroidered--all 17 of them, but only a few at a time.  Each of these blocks has at least one bumblebee in it and they are satin stitched in yellow and black. I love embroidery but satin stitch has been one thing that I've avoided like the plague!  For some reason, I could never get the threads to lay flat and close together and it always looked like crap. But I'm liking the satin stitching I'm doing on these blocks. I think it's because the areas to be covered are narrow and because I'm outlining each area and satin stitching over the outline. That way I'm getting a nice smooth edge--most of the time. :-)

This simple block called for satin stitch for all the petals and a new-to-me stitch for the flower stem. It looks rather complicated but actually was easy to do.

I realized when I took the pic of this watermelon block that I'd forgotten to complete the star section  just right of center. Sometimes I don't see errors until I've taken a picture.  So I'm glad I found this now instead of after the quilt is finished!

This block of the cat, the bee and the flowers is the first one that was released and it's the one that caught my heart!  I love my cat and my flowers and this just looked so cute I had to start the entire project.  Squirrel!

This morning I took out the quilt top I'd made to donate to the guild's charity project. It's Bonnie Hunter's Roll Roll Cotton Boll done in aqua and neutral.

I thought I just had borders to put on but when I looked at it, I think it's a little small for a twin size.  In order to make this quilt into the correct size, I'd have to add about 10" border, adding 20" all total!  My first thought was to make more blocks, but now I'm thinking that maybe it would be easier and faster to make several pieced borders that would add up to 10" on a side.  I think I have enough of the aqua fabrics and I have tons of neutrals and if I have to improvise with the aquas, that's okay since it's a scrappy quilt to begin with.  This afternoon, I'll be in the sewing room, making borders!

But first, I have a few squirrels to chase around!