12/7/18

The Twelfth Cat of Christmas

All 12 Tuxedo's Tales cats are finished! Yahoo! But don't get too rowdy with your Christmas partying because they still need to be sewn into a flimsy. I'm not sure when that will happen, but it won't be this year. Yesterday's task was to sew the buttons and the snowflakes onto this final block of the quilt.


Here are all the blocks for this quilt laid out together.


After that, I got busy sewing the strips for the black and white Rainbow Jubilee corner triangles. Those are pieced, trimmed, cut, and ready to go now.


Sadie helped with that.


Smitty helped me choose and cut the strips for the brown portion of the blocks.


Please cut right here.


By the time I finished up for the day, I had eight strips in each of five different lengths.


Smitty helped me count. Now I'm suspicious that there's some kind of counting disease afflicting the cats of the Portland metropolitan area. When counting, Buddy the cat recently pulled some numbers from an orifice not intended for counting. Now I'm afraid the affliction has moved to the rural parts of the metro area, and now Smitty is pulling numbers from his, um, donkey-end too. I've been told that Smitty has pony DNA like Buddy does, and so perhaps this is some sort of pony pox.


The only other thing I did yesterday was to use up the leftover cranberries to make this Cranberry Almond Coffee Cake.


There was something wrong with my brain yesterday because I made every mistake I possibly could while I was mixing this up. First, I was supposed to whisk together the flour and salt in a bowl. Instead, I added the sugar to the flour. Fortunately, I hadn't whisked it up yet, and so I just scooped as much sugar as I could into the bowl of the mixer. After that, I was supposed to add the eggs and mix the sugar and eggs until smooth. Only, instead of adding the eggs, I added the melted butter. Oh well...the butter was supposed to go in next, so I just added the eggs to the mix (what else could I do?) and went ahead. After that, I added the flour and mixed it up. Everything seemed fine.

Then I was supposed to fold in the cranberries and a half cup of slivered almonds. The almonds were measured out with two tablespoons removed from the half cup to be sprinkled over the top. So I added in the cranberries and then used the two tablespoons for the top, folded it all together and spread it into the baking dish. It was only then I realized I'd left the half cup of almonds sitting on the counter. Oy. Oh well...all's well that ends well. Obviously, this is a very forgiving recipe. And now I have extra almonds AND a coffee cake! It's a win-win!

So, even with my botched method of mixing, it turned out just fine. I know because I've eaten two pieces already. And since it's time for my coffee, I might just have another piece. Diet-Schmiet.

Okay, so I'll finish off those Rainbow Jubilee blocks today, and that will be another set of blocks that need to be sewn into a flimsy. It's year's end, and I have several projects coming to a close. Also, Sue and I are walking this morning. It's been dry all week, and so the Fanno Creek Trail should be passable but cold. We're into the twenties for our temperature this morning. "Bundle Up," are the watch words for our walk this morning.

14 comments:

Julierose said...

Simply stunning cats quilt...beautiful work hugs, Julierose

Annette Mandel said...

I think Smitty is just blessing your strips. Are you sure he counted them? The browns look great with his fur.

Vroomans' Quilts said...

Smitty and BUddy do have that pony thing going. I love this project - comical yest stunning.

Sandra W said...

I think I'd be tempted to leave brown out of the rainbow. But I'll wait and see what it looks like.
It took me a moment to get the cat bum joke--I even went to the Buddy the Cat example. Pretty funny.
Oh my--that dessert looks great. I often mix the stuff wrong--ie flour sugar egg order. And yes it does turn out.

Linda said...

Belly laughed through this post, especially at "Please cut right here". :D
The coffee cake looks divine.

Sally Trude said...

Ah ha! I just noticed that yesterday you embroidered a pony’s hind end...so maybe the pony cats are paying tribute. P.S. I didn’t know Smitty was part pony. Did he go through a puppy cat phase too?

crazy quilter said...

A great finishes for this year, I am not counting the sewing the blocks together since you are on the downhill swing, glad the coffee cake came out fine I do 5e same thing from time to time . It sure looks amazing! Enjoy

piecefulwendy said...

The Tuxedo blocks are fun to see all together; I'm not sure which one I like best. You have a couple of very talented cats there, with all that quilting help they were giving you. They appear to be fairly purrticular about what you were doing. Hope your walk was enjoyable!

SJSM said...

The Tuxedo Cats were an immediate favorite from the day you started them.. to see the last one finished ends the anticipation of seeing an up close view of the next installment. Now we wait with bated breath (or with cats around they may prefer baited breath) to see how you will set these with your unique twist. Thanks for another recipe. Not sure when I will make it but it is good to have on hand for the holidays.

Stitches said...

Boy,, I have had days like that too!! The coffee cake looks delicious and I am in the mood for something like that..I might try it with frozen raspberries, what do you think?? I love the cat quilt, it is going to be a stunner!!!

Shelina (formerly known as Shasta) said...

Congratulations on finishing the cats! I made cranberries yesterday too - I made a chutney from a recipe I found a blog.

mangozz said...

Your Tuxedo Tales blocks look awesome! It will be interesting to see how you set them into the quilt. You are lucky you have such good helpers. What would you do without them? That cranberry coffee cake looks wonderful too. I can almost taste it from here.

quiltzyx said...

How fun to see all the Tuxedo Cats together! Great job Barbara.

Another good job by your helpers too, on the RSC block strips. Nice counting Smitty!

I did laugh aloud at your baking trials with the Cranberry bake!!! Sounds just like something I would do. Glad it all came out OK in the end.

Cheryl's Teapots2Quilting said...

Some days we just need to exit the kitchen and order out.