Busy with Blocks

This morning I finished up the hand-sewing on the Fractured Flower Garden quilt, and then I did some work on the computer. Smitty was let out around 5:30 a.m. The early cat catches the mouse, you know. Usually he's out for a couple of hours at most, and then he comes inside and nuzzles up to me in a treat-seeking mission. When it got to be about 10:30 and I hadn't seen him all morning, I started getting worried, and so I headed downstairs to see if he was sleeping on my sewing chair.

When I got downstairs, I saw him engaged with an epic struggle with something under my mother's cedar chest. Hm. This is never a good sign.

Huh? A mouse? Oh no! I wouldn't do that. Nope, no mousies here.

I'm just checking for those marauding dust bunnies, and let me just say, there's a herd of them under here, Mom.

Well, would you look at that! It looks like I can make myself real skinny, 

and I think if I just squeeeeeeeze in here

I just might be able to root out those evil characters. Maybe I can just grab it by the tail, er, ears right here

Hm. Me thinks the cat protesteth too much.

We used to try to catch his little treasures, but we've realized that if we give him time, he catches them eventually. It's actually better if I'm sitting there with him because then I can take both cat and critter outside and avoid, um, carnage on the white carpet. 

With that in mind I got to work on the star blocks requested for my block bee. Our hostess asked for two of these Starflower quilt blocks. You can find the tutorial for these right here.

Those took quite a bit of time, not because they were difficult, but because they had a lot of pieces. In the middle of that, I started tonight's dinner in the Dutch oven. When I came back from the kitchen, the epic struggle had moved from my mother's cedar chest to the space between the wall and my fabric bins.

What? Who me? Oh no. I've defeated the dust bunnies. I'm just checking to see if this space behind your quilt needs painting. It's looking pretty good!

Also, I discovered the tell-tale mound of grass that sometimes comes in with a critter. I got the vacuum out to vacuum up that little mess, which of course sent the cat running outside in mortal fear. When he came back inside, he'd obviously been digging for gophers. The dirty nose gives him away.

My nose? What do you mean, something's on my nose? You must be seeing things.

It was time for him to clean himself up then and to ready himself for his afternoon nap. He took up residence on top of the cedar chest, keeping a weather eye out for any stray "dust bunnies". Ha! And he'll sit there all night if he has to because "dust bunnies" must be eradicated at all cost. Say what you will, but you can't fault the cat's persistence. 

After I'd finished my Starflower blocks, I made the February block for the Block Lotto, which is called "Cupid's Arrow". This one was kind of fun.

And those three blocks pretty much took up the entire day.

Dinner is in the Dutch oven and Mike is on his way home, so I'm calling it a day. Tomorrow, I'm going to get to work on my blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.