There's No Stitching Like Slow Stitching

The weekend was fast and slow. Fast in its passing, and fast in making progress on the catio. Slow in its stitching. There's a lot to catch up on, so here goes.

When Mike quit for the day on Saturday, he had the walls constructed for the catio and he let me know that I'd be the holder-in-chief while he attached them to the foundation on Sunday. Sounded pretty good to me.

After his Father's Day breakfast of Eggs Benedict, he was ready to get to work.

Before getting started, he showed me the picture on the cover of the plans he purchased. He noted correctly that we didn't have enough cats. Does that sound like a veiled giving-of-permission to you?

Then, in short order, one wall was up.

Then two walls.

And finally, all three walls were up. He still needs to build the man door, but you can see where it goes.

The roof is next. If you note on the wall farthest from the house, there is a drop where a 12.5 foot beam must go to support the cross beams. That's the piece that will need to be special ordered. Hopefully, he'll have it some time this week.

Some of you with sharp eyes noticed in earlier photos that there was a problematic downspout on the roof gutter there. That had to be removed. That section of gutter is, fortunately, a separate piece from the rest, and so we'll simply have that section reformed and the downspout moved to the other side.

As it was, it came down exactly where the wall needed to be. I'd say this is a prime demonstration of Murphy's Law in action.

The walls are made from deer fencing, which is desirable because it won't rust, and because the black coloring has a way of disappearing from view. Mike hates rust with a passion, and so he even went so far as to use expensive stainless steel staples to fasten it to the wood.

Smitty thought all of this was just grand since he could come and go at will while Mike was out working this weekend.

I'm not sure how he's going to feel about it when it restricts his liberty to move around, but he's correctly noted that there's plenty of room for a long cat to streeeettttch.

When I wasn't holding up walls, I was working madly on Block #3 of the Bee-utiful Quilt-A-Long. These blocks are posting fast and furious, and I'm trying desperately to keep up. Since I have an over-abundance of hand-stitching projects right at the moment, I wanted to finish this one as quickly as possible. It's called "Bee Lovely".

The pink flower is spirals of stem stitch, and I spent several hours on that flower alone. Then the sunflower has a row of French knots, and that also took at least an hour. So I worked on this for most of the day yesterday, taking some breaks to give my hand a rest, but it is finished. Yahoo!

For a brief time yesterday, I ventured into the sewing room to make a label for the Live, Love, Teach quilt. I had more help than you can even imagine.

The kitties are behaving like old friends now, playing at times, and sharing their kitty treats side by side. Smitty was very territorial about all but the main floor when Maggie was with us. This little kitty very quickly laid claim to the entire house, and he doesn't bother her no matter where she goes. She's even shared the bed with us at night.

She's a chow hound for such a little thing, and we've had to limit her treats to a few bites at a time since she wolfs down both hers and his, and then promptly...well, you know.

She's realized that Smitty will do most of the work asking for kitty treats, and so she can just hang out with him.

Excuse me...um, excuuuuussssse me. Will you please put down that camera and put some treats in our bowls? Geez...priorities, please!

Sadie had taken on a shy phase most of last week. Starting Saturday night, she went back to being very affectionate, and we started seeing more of her. This morning she sat on my lap while I drank my morning coffee.

She's been with us for a week now, and she already feels like a member of the family.

This morning I turned the third corner on the binding for Live, Love, Teach, and I'm hoping I'll have some time to finish it up today or tomorrow. I'll still need to sew on the label, and I'm also going to sew a hanging sleeve onto the back.

As I've been writing this, Smitty showed up requesting outdoors time. Since the bird feeders are all empty, that was next on my list. It's laundry day, and I have a little housework to do. Otherwise, I'll continue on with my hand stitching, and I'm also committed to getting a start on Scooter's Pawtrait.

Don't you think the kitties will be insulted when they see me working on a dog!?!

So there's plenty to do here at the Three Cats Ranch, as usual. And it's the first day of summer! That makes it a good day, right there.