Little Bunnies

Yesterday was Smitty's day to go see his friendly veterinarian. You'd wouldn't believe the volume of howling he did all the way there and all the way back (not to mention the trembling he did while he was there). By the skin of his teeth, he managed to survived his five-minute visit. He weighed 14.8 pounds, so he's grown into a big, solid boy. Amazingly, he isn't fat...just a bundle of macho kitty muscle.

Speaking of cats, wanna see what a bad cat looks like?

Don't let that seductive pose fool you. At our expense, Sadie had an excellent adventure yesterday evening. Smitty is allowed out to do his singular job of chasing off marauding squirrels. It was raining, and so he was only out about ten minutes. When he came to the door, I opened it up, and Miss Sadie ran out! Hole-ee Sh*t! And let me just tell you, this cat is cray. The two of us chased her around for a good 45 minutes. She hasn't been allowed out at all because she's so unpredictable. She won't be allowed out unless she'll hold still for us to put a harness and leash on her.

Well, don't you know, Miss Wormy Pants had other ideas about that. At least she had fun while we were giving chase. She even jumped up and caught a bird in mid-flight. Who says black cats can't jump? (Well, nobody, actually, but I had to say something.) Our only saving grace was that she grew tired eventually. I sat down on one of the rocks and coaxed her over to me. When she got within reach, I grabbed her by the nape of the neck and she was captured. I wasn't sure whether to kiss her or kill her. So...that happened.

As for earlier in the day, I got to work on the little bunny table runner yesterday afternoon. You can find the free pattern in the Moda Bake Shop. It's made from fabrics I had in my stash. As I went through looking for the polka dots, I found a couple of other small leftovers that I used as well. In pretty short order, the bunnies were made.

After that I added the top and bottom borders, but at 13.5 x 28.5, I thought it was a little too small. I ended up adding a three-inch border all around.

For the backing, I'll use this fabric that's been in my stash for a long time.

And here's another that's been hanging around for a long time. I'll use this one for the binding.

This won't be finished for this year's Easter table, but I'll have it for next year. As it stands, I have five quilt tops to be sandwiched. When we head south next month, I'm going to take some of the smaller quilts with me. I can quilt them on Pfelicity, my Pfaff travel machine. She does a good job with free motion quilting, as long as the project isn't too big.

Also yesterday, I finished off the last of the stitching on Block 5 of the Wine Country quilt.

Now it's time to return to the big stitch hand quilting for Mumm's the Word. I'll work on this for the remainder of the month. When I left off, I was close to completing the quilt center. The last of it nearly fits in the hoop.

It will be easy enough to finish that part over the next couple of weeks, and I'm hoping to get well around the outside borders before it's time to set it aside. It's probably overly optimistic to think I can get it finished before the end of the month (and I'll be more than tired of working on it by then). Nevertheless, the end is in sight for this project. As my oldest UFO, it'll be good when I slap the binding on it and call it finished.

Today I'm getting my hair permed. My appointment is early, and so I should have some time for sewing when I get home. For my next trick, I want to get a start on this baby quilt for my friends' new grandbaby. This is the Mommy & Me pattern.

When I took the pattern out of the package yesterday, I realized the larger elephant applique was bigger than I'd imagined, and that meant I didn't have an appropriate piece of fabric large enough. So, I got on Fabric.com and did a little more shopping. I can still make the rest of the quilt, but I'll have to wait for the fabric to arrive before I can do the applique. No problem...the applique will be quick once the fabric arrives. I don't expect this will take very long.

With that, it's time to get moving. Places to go, things to do.