The Cats are Cornered

It's a finish! Four corners of cats.

It seems as if I should be able to make up a nursery rhyme about that...something on the order of

Peas porridge hot

Peas porridge cold

Peas porridge in the pot

Nine days old.

So let's see ... (puts on poet's hat):

Four corner cats

None wearing hats

Four corner kitty cats

All getting fats.

That's the best I can do. And I ask: Did you come here for the poetry? Consider this a warning to all who spend most of their time accompanied by felines. When your brain gets all sing-songy, you know you're in trouble.

As for the finish:

Here's how it looks from the back.

And that was my One Monthly Goal, so I'll be linking up today.

Yesterday, I was able to get pretty far along with Gingerbread Square. It was necessary to first decide whether I was going to do the three rows of blocks first, or whether I wanted to make those strings of nine-patches to fit between the rows. In the end, I decided to take each row in turn. It seemed as if doing all those nine-patch rows one after the other was going to get tedious. Still, I had to do two of those first.

And since I was fitting in laundry and housework at the same time, I only was able to get one more row of blocks stitched together. Each nine-patch also has to be trimmed, and so it takes a while.

It's a little bit of a trick getting the nine-patch points lined up straight and without cutting off corners, but I've figured out a trick with pinning. I'll take some pictures of what I'm talking about while I work on it today. Maybe everybody does it this way, but I'm a slow starter, and it took me a while to figure it out.

Through all of this, Smitty thought he would die of boredom. It rained all day. He spent a good portion of the day on the catio where he can stay nice and dry. Still, he likes his periods of liberation when I let him out to the great outdoors. 

He's only allowed out now when I can be upstairs keeping an eye on him and the surrounding field. Of course, that isn't possible when I'm in the basement sewing. This caused him no end of perturbation. He paced this way...

And that way...

Smitty...dude...eat some catnip and chill!

He paced over here.

He paced behind the sewing machine, 

and beside it.

Are you *ever* going to stop sewing?

Finally, I did. We went upstairs, and the door was opened for him, although it was pouring rain, as it had been all day. He stepped halfway out and stood. Finally, I said to him in the same tone as the Portland light-rail public transportation system entones ..."The Doors are Closing." And I closed it slowly allowing him time to either go out all the way out or turn back. He opted to turn back.

No outside time for him yesterday. His life is utterly ruined. It sucks. Being an Oregon cat is the pits. Pass it on.

So, today, I'm hoping to get the center for Gingerbread Square finished. If I get the borders on today, that will be a bonus. I'll be fitting in housework and making up a grocery list.

Tomorrow morning, Sue and I will resume our Friday morning walks. Sue has been off gallivanting in Spain for most of the summer, walking the Camino de Santiago. At 500 miles, that'll put some steps on your Fitbit. If I'm remembering right, I think she said they did it in 37 days. She'll correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway...I'm looking forward to hearing all about it, and to giving her a big ol' hug. I've missed my friend.