Potatoes and Paws

While I was at church on Sunday, the husband planted potatoes.

We try not to till much in the garden anymore, but this section needed some compost dug into it. Between the chickens, the pigs, and our compost bins, we have no shortage of soil amendments. And when we can get rotted straw, that’s a great addition, too.

It was windy and raw again here yesterday. We are supposed to be up in the 60s by the weekend. Let’s hope. I spent the day moving some quilt projects further along the pipeline. I quilted the Bear Paw baby quilt, after spending an hour determining proper settings on the Janome. (This is straight-line walking foot quilting, which is why I was using the Janome and not the Q20.) I started with the settings I usually use when quilting on the Janome: blue dot bobbin case, Aurifil 50wt in the bobbin, Signature 40wt on top, a Microtex 90/14 needle, and tension set at 4. I could not get a suitable stitch. In the end, I went back to the regular red dot bobbin case and switched to a universal needle and that did the trick. I did the square spiral quilting with the lines about 1/2” apart.

The batting is Luna Kyoto, a 50/50 bamboo/cotton blend. I don’t think I’ve ever tried this brand before, but the quilt store had crib size batts, so I bought one. That batting and the Essex linen fabric are a nice combination. I went with a quilting cotton for the back and had just enough navy blue Kona binding already made up to go around it, with 4” to spare. I’ll sew that down some evening this week. This was a quick, fun project and the tutorial has been added to my list of favorite go-to quilt patterns.

I also made and attached the binding to the purple and green quilt. I decided to make bias binding, not because I have to navigate curves, but because the print I chose looked better as binding cut on the bias. I used my Accuquilt cutter to cut the binding strips and that worked really well. That binding has been attached to the quilt and I’ll get that sewn down this week, too.

Ruler Club is this afternoon—we get a new Handi-Quilter ruler and a quick lesson in how to use it. I am curious to see which ruler we get today. Last month was the on-point diamond. I’m finding that I really like the Handi-Quilter rulers. I have the Bernina set of rulers, too, but they aren’t quite as user friendly. The class schedule from the big quilt store in Spokane arrived in my mailbox this week, and I’ve already circled half a dozen classes I’d like to take between now and July. They are offering a class on using the Bernina rulers and I am tempted to sign up for it.

I have to replant all my zucchini seeds. A little rodent got in and dug them all up and ate them, as well as some of the melon seeds. The cucumbers appear to have escaped unscathed. I was hoping it wasn’t destructive chipmunks because they wrought total devastation three years ago. The husband set up traps and we nabbed a mouse yesterday morning. (I took a picture to text to the husband, but I’ll spare all of you.) Hopefully it was the culprit. I might rig up some kind of wire screen over the replacement tray of zucchinis, just in case.

Everything else looks great. The tomatoes have come up, the cukes have come up, and the tray of lettuce sprouted. Ali, Mike, and Elysian also have seedlings coming up. If it’s going to be nice this weekend, I’ll try to get the peas planted. The peeps are doing fine. I had to have a talk with Dave—one of the roosters—yesterday, because he wasn’t following the afternoon scratch grain routine. It’s kind of a complicated routine, so I won’t try to describe it, but he was not where he was supposed to be when I went into the coop. We had a short discussion in which he looked at me with one eye and then the other, and then he scooted back outside. My roosters are so goofy. They do know their names, though, and they will come when I call them.