A Cat and A Coincidence

It's something of a miracle that our road paving project started yesterday. Mike told me that half the road is paved now. Presumably it will be finished up today. I'll be able to see it for myself in a few hours because I really need to go out and do a little grocery shopping today..."little" being the operative word there because it's also a CSA pick-up day. One learns not to plan one's menu until one has seen what is in one's CSA share. And one is the wiser for it too. And when you're one, which I am, then something...I don't know what, but I got on kind of a roll there with my "ones." Tomorrow we'll tackle the "twos." Actually, we'll be tackling the "toes" tomorrow because it is the day of my monthly pedicure. I'm telling you there's a hidden poetry to life if we just take the time to look for it.

Okay, so here's what happened yesterday. Initially, I thought I might do my "little" grocery shopping yesterday, but hearing the road-moving equipment on the road discouraged me...not that it's any less daunting today, but work with me here. I spent a good part of the morning on the Heart & Home embroidery piece, and I filled my hoop.

Now there's just a little bit left to finish the block. Unless I'm being overly optimistic, I should have this one finished before day's end.

After that I put on my muddy shoes (because we're into that time of the year) and went out to dump the compost pail. While I was out there, I noticed this Frankenfood growing from the compost pile. It appears to be some sort of hybrid squash.

After that, I went into the sewing room to work on the Mulligan Stew quilt. When the quilt is finished, it will look something like this:

I chose this project because it uses all of the blocks from this book:

This is a very interesting book, and I'm enjoying making the blocks, even if it is taking me forever to finish them. You can read more about the book and the quilts right here. I'll warn you though, if you find yourself tempted to buy the book, make sure you also get the errata that goes with it. There are a number of errors in the book; however, I wrote to the publisher to inquire about the errata and received it via email the very next day. 

So here's where the coincidence and the cat come in. Do you recall when we visited the American Museum of the House Cat while we were traveling last year? 

It was an absolutely enchanting place...to me, anyway. Here, I was listening with rapt attention as we toured the place with our guide.

While we were there, I picked up this little dust collector...partly for the cat, and partly for the quilt.

On the back was taped this explanatory note:

So, keeping in mind that it's been a full year plus since I worked on the quilt, imagine my surprise and delight that the first block I was to make this time around was this one:

I swear, it's a complete coincidence, but just another way in which our lives turn to poetry if we take the time to pay attention. This is the story associated with the quilt block from the book.

It's taking me a long time to finish this quilt because I'm only making five blocks at a time as it comes up in the rotation of projects. And there are a lot of blocks. So yesterday's goal was to make five more. This is the next one.

Here's the associated story from the book:

Next was this one. It had some tiny little pieces.

Then this one:

And, finally...this one.

I liked this associated sentiment.

And I promised you an up-to-date picture of the blocks I have so far. Here are the 45 I've made. There are 15 to go before I can start sewing them together.

Okay, so I've hinted at how I've been salivating over a new project. This one would fall under the category of PINS (Projects I Never Started). While we were traveling, I somehow happened on this pattern by Jane Kakaley. You can find her Etsy shop right here.

You might recall that I made her Sunflower mosaic for a guild challenge a few years ago.

Mine was adapted a little bit to stay within the constraints of the challenge. In any case, it was such a fun and engrossing project, and I ended up purchasing quite a few of her pdf downloads at the time. For whatever reason, I'm only just now getting around to starting on the cardinal. Some people associate cardinals with Christmas...maybe because of the colors? I don't know. But it seems like we're getting close enough to Christmas that it will be kind of fun to start something new. I've felt a little bored with my projects lately, and so something new seems like just the ticket to get my mojo stirred up.

There's plenty to do today, and so I'll probably focus on choosing the fabrics today. Either way...it's on my radar screen now, and I'm ready to get started.