The Cat is Fed

Yesterday afternoon, I was able to select some fabrics and add the borders to Feed the Cat. Since I have a whole bin stuffed with nothing but cat fabric, I was determined to choose something from the cat stash. I kind of like this festive border.

It will get a hot pink binding. Then I selected this completely unrelated fabric for the quilt back. No reason other than the yellow cat. 

That will go on the pile of quilts to be quilted. They're piling up pretty high now. A few of them are small, and so I'll probably do those during a month when I quilt a larger quilt, and I'll probably use my domestic machine for the little ones.

There was time for more sewing, but I was kind of tired after spending the morning in the kitchen and evicting squirrels from the basement. Today is a grocery shopping day, and then I'd like to get started on this month's "Let's Book It" project.

I'm going to try this "Blushing Aspens" table runner by Frieda Anderson.

It appeared in this book:

It's a little intimidating because those leaves are inset, rather than applique. When I considered doing this quite a while back, I ended up chickening out and doing a different project from the same book. Now, I know a new technique for inset piecing just about any shape you'd like, and so I'd like to give it another try. Just the same, I've been giving this project a wide berth...circling around it...pretending I'm not scared of it. I think you know what I'm talking about.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pattern blown up 500% as the book instructed. It's been sitting on my work table ever since. 

I'm just leaving it there until it feels intimidated by me...ignoring its pleas for attention..."Puh-leeeeeeze make me! Puh-leeeeeeze! PUH-LEEEEZE!" Yeah. I just pretend it isn't there and feign pattern deafness. It'll be so glad when I finally make the first cut to my fabrics that it won't dare give me any trouble. Vee haf our vays of taming the untamable.

Also yesterday, I packed up my quilts for the Oregon State Fair. They're rather unceremoniously stuffed into pillow cases and standing on their folded ends in a box.

Ann Fahl has come up with a way of folding quilts to help avoid wrinkles. Mine never look as tidy as her method would have you believe. They still seem kind of wadded up in order to fit into a pillowcase, as the rules require. There are quite a few little hoops to jump through when entering a quilt in the Oregon State Fair. They must have a 4-inch sleeve (pretty standard), and a label (also pretty standard), be packed in a pillow case with the quiltmaker's info, and have four large safety pins attached to the pillow case. These are the quilts I'm entering this year. We are limited to four, which is probably a good rule.

Those will be driven down to Salem on Friday after I pick up the 40 lbs. of tomatoes I have on order from our farmers. The fair opens a week from Friday. My friend Sue is going with me.

Finally, I wanted to tell you that I'd signed up for a class at the Northwest Quilting Expo at the end of September. You might remember the quilts of June Jaeger that were on display at the 2015 Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show. Here's one of her quilts from the show:

When I was showing the quilts from the show, I mentioned loving her quilts and said I'd like to take a class from her. As it so happens, she is teaching a class at the Northwest Quilting Expo, and I signed up. She's actually teaching several classes, but I signed up for her "A Cat is a Cat" class. I'll just bet my choice of a class surprises you. You're probably saying, "Cats? Really?" 

The class description says she teaches a "paint by number" applique technique, and we'll be making a quilt something like this one:

She also has a book that describes the technique, which is (surprisingly) absent from my library:

So, that should be fun. I'm looking forward to it. 

And that's about it from me. Grocery shopping is up next.