Some Cats

When I posted my goals for the month of November, there were two with big flashing lights beside them. One was to finish the quilting for the Gardener's Journal quilt. The other was to finish the blocks for the Folk Art Cats quilt. I'd say I'm a little more than 1/3 of the way on a Gardener's Journal. Nevertheless, this being the middle of the month, I've felt some internal pressure to get going on these blocks as well. That said, I've spent the last two days working on these cats.

When I left off with Cat #8 yesterday, I had it all finished except to machine embroider the mouth and whiskers.

So that was where I started this morning. Using oak gold thread, I stitched over the chalk lines I'd drawn in, and with that, Cat #8 was ready to take his place with his seven brothers.

Or sisters...you decide.

And then I went straight to work on Cat #9, which meant piecing together the background first.

Yes, that pink square is supposed to be there like that, although I shifted it over a square or two. It's one of the things I love about this whimsical quilt. It's full of little surprises and asymmetry.

Well, don't you know I'm getting a lot of help on this quilt. We're trying to make it as realistic as possible, from a "folk art" standpoint.

"Here, Mom, let me help you with those strip sets."

And with all that help, it's simply amazing that I was able to get this far.

The tail on this one extends out into the checkerboard border. This is as far as I can take it until I make the border and the little mini quilt block cornerstone. I'll work on that tomorrow. Once I have the borders in place, I can top-stitch it and then add the eye and the face.

As for cats, this one is trying to figure out how to get past that protective shield known as a window to get to the little hummer outside. He sat there for the longest time yesterday afternoon...and the hummer sat there too...mocking him. It was very exasperating for Mr. Smitty. 

The temperatures have warmed just barely on our icy hill. It gets above freezing during the day, and the ice is thawing where the sun shines. Unfortunately, a good portion of our driveway is in the shade all day, and those areas are as slick as ever. Today, Mike put some sand bags in the back of his truck to give us some extra weight, and we did manage to make our way out to the main road. I would never try this without him, but we made it out and all the way down the hill into town where the weather was nothing unusual for this time of year.

As we were leaving, we noticed that one of our faucets was leaking and had created this rather substantial ice sculpture. Impressive, no?

So, without Mike and his big bad truck, I'm still iced in here. It was nice to get out for a little while today, however. The sun has gone down now, and our temperatures have dipped back below freezing until tomorrow. It needs to warm up, or I'll continue to be stuck here when he returns to work on Monday.

How's your weekend going?