Two Tuxedos

Well, I'll tell you what...quit a couple of projects, and the woman goes wild. I spent most of the morning yesterday cleaning up the sewing room. It wasn't too bad, but there were a few things that needed putting away. Then I was checking the projects listed on my white board. There are just five now where I'm still working on the blocks, along with four embroidery projects, and seven quilts to be quilted. Not too bad, for me, at least. There were also a couple of barely-started projects from classes I took long ago. I didn't like the classes much when I took them, and so what made me think I would ever finish the associated projects? I won't. And they are so outta here too.

One was from a class called "Transforming the Traditional". You can read about the class beginning right here. And this image shows the extent of what I accomplished in the class.

Then there was another barely started project from a hand applique class I took while I was still attending guild meetings. It was a rather unconventional way to do hand applique, and not really to my liking. The instructor called it "Quick Prep Hand Applique," but to my mind, it was anything but quick. You can read about the class right here. And this is the extent of what I had left from that class.

So you can see...hardly worth crying over, and that takes care of all my NGFI (Never Gonna Finish It) projects. Phew! I feel light as a feather now. I'm actually having a hard time keeping my feet on the ground. Who needs dieting?

With that finished, I got to work on the next of the Tuxedo Tales blocks. I wasn't just kidding when I said my next projects were going to be something involving cats. This was originally a block of the month. It was tempting to do the April block, but then I decided to take them in order, and so the next block is from February.

These were originally created to be done with wool, but mine are going to be done with quilter's cotton. Mostly, I'm using scraps from my stash. When I had it all fused down, it looked like this.

The stitching lines were drawn in with chalk and pencil and the buttons are just there for the picture.

Just then, another cat got in on the act.

Wait a minute. What did I just see? Are you sewing a cat?

Well that is just purrposterous. What self-respecting cat would let a purrd just sit on his head like that? 

These sewing cats just don't know how to purrform like cats. Purrsonally, I'd have that thing for lunch.

When all the stitching and embellishing was finished, it looked like this. 

This one happens to be machine stitched. The January block had quite a bit of hand embroidery in it.

March's block does as well, and just when I thought I was all finished embroidering bees.

Smitty was so disgusted by that cat, he decided to take a nap.

The only other thing I did yesterday was to round the second corner in Mumm's the Word. The border is about 30% quilted, but 50% of the corners are finished!

Next up, I have another kitty pawtrait to do. This cat belongs to my friend, Robin. His name is The Emperor. Fitting, don't you think?

Isn't he a fine looking tuxedo cat? He should be fairly easy to do after having done Miss Speckled Sadie. The Emperor's fur is fairly uniform in color. And what a fine set of whiskers he has! Those will be stitched in at the end. I've pulled quite a few fabrics from the gray bin, which will serve to create a little shading. Mainly he'll be done in black and white with some pretty green batik eyes and a nice pink nose. I can usually finish one of these in a few days, and so I'm hoping to have him finished before the weekend is over.

The next Solstice block is due to be released today, and I'm excited to say that our farmers created a "Hunger Gap" CSA share. They just finished the last of their winter CSA shares. We didn't purchase a share over the winter because, frankly, I need a little break from the challenge of using all the veggies from the summer share. The 2017 summer share won't start until mid-May, and so they're offering a one time only share of veggies between winter and summer that I'll pick up today. Having taken the winter off, I'm more than ready to get started again. Also, we'll probably miss the beginning of the summer share, but the kids will enjoy it on our behalf.

So that's it from me. It's hump day. Day after tomorrow, and Mike will be a free man!