Sew Helpful on Sunday

Well, let me just tell you that I had the full contingent of cats helping me today.  Smitty was Johnny on the spot when I went into the sewing room this afternoon.

And Gracie was right behind him.  Smitty and Gracie have been spending more time together.  She seems to have made her peace with him.  He is jumping on her less.  Or maybe he's jumping on her less because she's not as irked by it, and therefore, it isn't as much fun.  In any case, I think there's hope for these two to live in harmony. 

Today I did the top-stitching for the Acoustic Montage quilt.  I'm thinking of giving this a different name from the pattern name...something like Harmony, or String Theory.  Any ideas?  

I decided to do a straight stitch close to the edge.  That's how I'm going to quilt it, and I was afraid a zigzag stitch would look funny.

Well, Smitty was bored silly.  No really, he was being very silly.

Eventually, I sprinkled some catnip on his bed to encourage him to go there and stop trying to eat my pins.  

Hmmmmmm, what's this here?

Well, the catnip had the effect of getting his tail so jacked up that he just had to bite it to show it who was boss!

And if that wasn't enough, his bed went kind of crazy, and he had to bite that too!

And then the whole cat went kind of crazy!!! 

And his bed sort of bucked him off and they both ended up on the floor.  Holy Mackerel.  Really, he likes mackerel.

And with all that ruckus, I don't know how I ever managed to get the borders put on this quilt, but there it is. I'm planning to use a bright green for the binding.

I'm not going to quilt this right away.  It's for Matthew's birthday in April, and if I finish it before then, I won't want to wait to give it to him.  I'm terrible that way.  I'll just hold off until closer to the big day.

As for Smitty, he was kind of tuckered out with all of that, and he sort of crashed right here as you see him.

So then I turned my attention to these troubled children of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  When we last left these little ladies, they were misbehaving badly.  After I took them apart, I realized that the top and bottom sections were just slightly too wide, and the middle section was about a quarter inch to narrow.  Altogether, there was about a half inch difference between them.  No wonder they wouldn't lie flat.

Well, I am so happy to say that two lovely quilting bloggers, Denise and Andra, each sent me paper-piecing templates so that I could remake the center skirt section of these blocks.  A million thank you's to both of you.  Quilters are the nicest people.  But quilting bloggers are the nicest of the nice!  

So today, I gave it a whirl and they went together beautifully!  Hooray!  

Also, after getting a better gauge of the size of the blocks while I was making the Hello Sun quilt top, I decided that I would only do one of each color on this quilt.  I was going to do twice as many blocks.  They finish up at 12 inches, and with borders, sashings, and cornerstones, I think a 3 x 4 block configuration is going to make a nice sized quilt.  I'm afraid it will be humongous if I make it twice that size.

So these other two little ladies will get new dresses and shoes when the new challenge color is announced next month, and I can use them again.

So...I'm a day late, but I'm linking this post to ScrapHappy Saturday.

Did you have help in the sewing room today?