As you may recall, I mentioned yesterday that I was all set to copy the embroidery designs for the Clover and Violet project so they'll be ready for me after I have my knee replacement surgery in mid- October. I said that I would be making up the embroidered Courthouse Square blocks with fabrics from my stash. Well, let's not be too hasty here, little ones.

As I was scrolling through Facebook this morning, I came across a Craftsy post. They have tons of fabrics--precuts as well as yardage--on sale now at very good prices, so of course, I had to take a look. And I found these Melrose and Vine fabrics which would be perfect for the Clover and Violet quilt.

I confess, I put the fat quarter bundle in my shopping cart as well as enough yardage for the backing.  I normally don't shop on-line for fabrics but the prices are just too good, and the fabric is perfect, and I don't have time to go to the local shops, etc., etc., etc.  

Before you go accusing me of hypocrisy in view of my often expressed views on how important it is to support the LQSs so they'll be there when we need them, and now I'm actually shopping on-line for fabric, just stop right there.  You have to hear "The Rest of the Story," as a famous radio personality used to say.  

The fabric is still in my cart, waiting for me to click "Checkout." In the meantime, I went into my sewing room for something and thought, "I'll just take a look at my Thirties fabrics and see what I have there for this quilt project."  Whoa! Do I have enough Thirties fabrics for this project???? Indeed I do. So even though the Craftsy deal is very tempting, I'll not be going through the checkout today--and the sale ends tomorrow I believe, so if any of you want to get some great fabric, now's the time to do so.  I'll continue shopping my stash to see if I can whittle it down to a manageable amount. And save my dollars for something else in the future.

So that was the first thing I did this morning. Now that I've had a little coffee, I'll share yesterday's endeavors.  I worked on the wall hanging, "Gourdy's Gang" shown here:

As I said yesterday, I'm appliqueing woven fabrics onto a wool background, and so far it's going quite well.  Here's how far I got yesterday:

I made the wool background.  I decided to use a piece of dark Black Watch plaid that I found in my container of wools instead of plain black. Thought it would be a bit more interesting.  You can see in this picture the plaid as well as some of the chalk markings I used to make a 2" grid.  I quilting the entire piece, which I cut an inch larger on all sides to allow for some shrinkage as I quilted and appliqued it.  I used a piece of rather thin batting and a simple muslin backing.

Then I began laying out the gourds. I'd already fused them and cut out the pieces.  It was rather simple to lay them out on the wool. Here they are, all laid out. By the way, the wool piece will finish at 10" by 30", plus tabs for hanging and a bottom fringe of wool "tongues."  In addition to the gourds that are fused onto the quilted wool, there will be some embroidered spider webs, teeth in some of the mouths, and legs for the spider.  I'm also going to secure the eye pupils with French knots, maybe in a sparkly floss.

I began the buttonhole stitching and got the first two gourds completed, but not the stars. If I have time today, I'll try to finish the buttonhole stitching and get it ready for the embroidery.  I'll be watching the PBS series on Viet Nam tonight, and some hand stitching will be perfect.

Before I can work on this project again, Don and I are spending some time in the garden this morning, harvesting the onions and potatoes.  We have to get our garden plots cleaned up before Oct 15 and we have our trip to Washington state between now and then, so we have to get a move on. We also have to get some manure spread over the plots so we can keep up the fertility in the sandy soil in the garden.

So that's how my day is looking. I'll let you know tomorrow how it went.