Declaring Victory

It tried to defeat me, but in the end, I prevailed over Block 1 of the Wind in the Whiskers quilt. This block is called "Laundry Day", and today was a day for laundry. In fact, I actually did our own laundry today, but that was strictly a coincidence.

Today, I made the last applique pieces for this block and now they are safely tucked away in a zip lock bag waiting for their turn to be fused to the background. When the time comes, the completed block will look like this:

Yesterday, I completed all the fusing for the background:

All the parts for the clothesline will come later, but the pieces are all ready to go. Today, I made the dress:

A pair of socks:

A bra and matching pair of panties:

I feel I must pause here to point out that this is the second quilt I've made in six months that contained ladies' unmentionables. Here is the other one:

While I continued on with the rest of the applique pieces, I considered the larger meaning in this apparent obsession with undergarments. I came up with a few things, but I'm declining to share them. Feel free to speculate among yourselves. On this issue, my lips are sealed.

Continuing on, I made the third kitten:

And then constructed the boxer shorts. This could easily be Smitty.

With all of that done, I was ready to make the final piece, the quilt,

which has batting and a backing.

And that is all I can do on Block 1. It's a pretty good feeling to have all of that done and off my work table. I'm ready to work on something else. I'm not going to work on the next block until I get some other things done, but here is what it will look like. Block 2 is called "I Spy".

And with that, I wrapped up my sewing day feeling pretty good about what I'd accomplished.

Tomorrow I'm going to make the quilt sandwich and start tying the Salt Water Taffy quilt. 

I'll do the tying a little at a time so I can work on some blocks at the same time. I'm hoping I'll have time to finish the last block for my little rainbow ladies. 

And after that, who knows?

When I got up this morning, it was 20° outside. I looked at the temperature at 2:30 p.m. and it was all the way up to 26°. Now, I'm aware that you folks in some of the northern plains states are probably snickering when we here in Oregon are moaning about temperatures well above zero. But for those of us living here in Oregon, it's pretty darned cold. Even Smitty refused to go outside today, and you know it's a cold day at the Three Cats Ranch before that happens.

So I didn't go out today. I'm walking with my friend Sue tomorrow. Sue just retired, and we have lots of new adventures to plot now that she has more spare time. I decided against swimming, preferring to save my knees for tomorrow...a wise choice, don't you think? Actually, it was a pretty good excuse. I thought of it all by myself.

How are things in your world today?